James Reavis - Later Life

Later Life

Reavis was imprisoned from July 18, 1896 to April 18, 1898, earning a three-month sentence reduction for good behavior. By the time of the release, Sophia was living in Denver, Colorado with the couple's children and working as a milliner. Following his release, Reavis visited San Francisco, New York City, and Washington D.C. in an effort to find new investors to finance his development plans for Arizona Instead of the reaction he had previously received, people listened politely but no longer took him seriously. Unsuccessful in finding any investors, Reavis moved to Denver for a time to live with his wife and sons. He also wandered from place to place advocating his vision for a large scale irrigation system within Arizona. The "group of capitalists" he hoped would finance this dream never materialized.

In 1900, Reavis began the magazine Peralta Reavis Real Life Illustrated where he promised to provide the complete inside story of the Peralta fraud. The magazine folded after a single issue. The same year he wrote a memoir that was published in several installments by the San Francisco Call under the title "The Confessions of the Baron of Arizona".

In June 1902, Reavis's wife filed for divorce on grounds of nonsupport. Following the divorce little was heard from Reavis. By 1913 he was living in a poor house in Los Angeles. Reavis died in Denver, Colorado on November 20, 1914 and was buried in a pauper's grave. Sophia died on April 5, 1934. Her obituary in the Rocky Mountain News made no mention of the Peralta Grant.

After falling out of the public eye, Reavis became the subject of multiple magazine articles. He was even featured in an official tour book. Among the tales manufactured about the Baron of Arizona by these sources was that Reavis had used paper bearing the watermark of a Wisconsin paper mill that did not exist until the 1870 or 1880s. Such tales discount the skill used by Reavis in the manufacture of his forgeries and the level of inspection they received before faults were eventually discovered. Beyond the magazines, Reavis' exploits have also been utilized in several motion pictures. A fraudulent land claim similar to the one created by Reavis was used as a plot device in the 1939 film The Night Riders. Reavis' life later served as the basis for The Baron of Arizona in 1950.

The mansion Reavis built in Arizola was rediscovered by the National Park Service in 1953 following years of use as a barn by a local farmer. An evaluation in April 1963 by the Park Service determined restoration of the building was financially infeasible.