It was another October in the Wild West’s waning days when Bob Anderson killed a man in a saloon shooting. Almost 13 years later, in a different bar, Anderson would accidentally shoot a friend. Between these incidents, he spent a half dozen years serving in law enforcement, as an Arizona Ranger.

Roland M. “Bob” Anderson was born in Tennessee or Arkansas in 1866. By October 1898, he was living in Globe, Arizona. That month, he bought an establishment named the Free Silver Saloon, which the Arizona Silver Belt proclaimed “one of the coziest resorts in town.” It would prove otherwise for a miner/prospector named C.W. Dye.

Dye and a second man walked into the Free Silver late that month. According to the other man’s court testimony, Dye asked proprietor Anderson if they could get a drink on credit, or “jawbone.” When Anderson said his saloon did not take credit, Dye put a hand on his pistol and “asked if a six-shooter would go.”

Picking up his own gun, Anderson warned him not to draw. As the Silver Belt recorded it: “Dye … drew his pistol and pointed it at Anderson, who brushed the weapon aside with his left hand and with the right raised his own gun and fired, the bullet striking Dye over the left eye.” Anderson was acquitted on a charge of manslaughter.

In 1902, at the age of 36, Anderson enlisted in the Arizona Rangers, under Captain Thomas Rynning. As a Ranger private, Anderson earned $100 a month.

“His record as a ranger is pointed to as a brilliant one,” the Daily Arizona Silver Belt would claim. “He is said to have been one of the best in the territory.”

In 1903, Anderson was with the Rangers when they were ordered to Morenci during an episode of labor unrest at the copper mine. While there, the men (all but one Ranger was present) posed for group photos taken by Rex Rice, manager of the company store; those photos can still be seen online today.

Returning to Globe in October 1907, Anderson and fellow Ranger J.T. Holmes categorically denied that either of them was dead – shot down, reputedly, while tracking a wanted man in the Mogollon Mountains. They may have survived the trip, but their several-hundred-mile pursuit came up empty; catching up to their target, they learned he was the wrong man.

Anderson left the Rangers in October 1908, the year he was elected Globe City Marshal. Some three years later, he was in a certain Broad Street saloon. The March 15, 1911, Silver Belt would report what followed: “George Shanley, wealthy cattleman and part owner of the Sultan Brothers dry goods store, was shot and killed in a private dining room in the rear of the Wellington bar by City Marshal Robert [sic] M. Anderson last night.”

Unlike the Free Silver Saloon incident, the shooting was apparently accidental. Anderson and Shanley, who had been friends for years – a “deeply grieved” Anderson subsequently said Shanley was his closest friend – had both been drinking and were engaged in horseplay. There are differing accounts of just what happened next.

According to the Silver Belt, Anderson told Coroner Hinson Thomas that he jokingly said to Shanley, “I guess I’ll have to take a shot at you” and had halfway raised his gun when Shanley took hold of it.

In a slight variation, Anderson allegedly said, “Do that again and I’ll shoot you,” after Shanley pulled his nose. 

During his trial, Anderson would testify that he warned Shanley to stop or he would “start something.” He said Shanley told him to take off his gun first, which he was doing when the weapon went off.  The shot went through Shanley’s left arm and into his body; a doctor was called in vain, as Shanley died almost immediately.

Anderson was arrested, taken to the Gila County Jail and tried for the shooting. This time there was no acquittal; the jury convicted him of manslaughter, and he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

The verdict was reportedly a surprise to Anderson, who had expected to be convicted only of involuntary manslaughter. He told the Silver Belt: “I do not feel that I have been given a fair and impartial trial. … Some of the jurors … had settled in their minds as to my guilt. … While I do not feel entirely blameless in this affair I do not feel that I deserved the sentence. But … I shall take my medicine like a man.”

The “medicine” would be overseen by none other than Anderson’s old Ranger Captain Thomas Rynning, who had moved on to become warden at the Florence Territorial Prison.

After serving his time, Anderson returned to the Globe area. He is said to have run a cattle ranch at El Capitan, owned an asbestos mine 65 miles northeast of town and ultimately bought a home on South Broad Street. Anderson passed away in Globe in 1945 and is at rest in Globe Cemetery along with fellow Arizona Rangers Cy Byrne, Pollard Pearson and Eugene Shute.