9. Inventing an Eighteenth-Century Don
Reavis’ discovery that the Public Lands Commission would approve any claim, no matter how iffy, provided the right palms were greased, set the stage for his next scheme. He “tipped off” his railroad tycoon acquaintances to the deceased Willing’s land – without disclosing his interest in it. Reavis told them he could negotiate right-of-way privileges for their proposed Southern Pacific line through Arizona. He then traveled to Kentucky, where he met Willing’s widow, and bought his late partner’s interest in the land. Next, Reavis used his newspaper connections to hype the land grant, and exaggerate the strength of the title claim.
To buttress the solidity of the land claim sold by Miguel Peralta to George Willing, Reavis fabricated a family history for Peralta out of whole cloth. He went about it in a highly creative way. Reavis knew that the way claims worked, people would check the archives. So he went to Mexico, befriended people in its archives, and inserted forged and artificially aged documents into those archives. They established a fictitious family lineage of an eighteenth-century Don Nemecio Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba.
