2. A Meticulous Scheme – But Not Meticulous Enough
For a while, things went great for the Baron of Arizona. However, all good things come to an end, and even as James Reavis was living the high life and enjoying being the nineteenth-century version of a rich jet setter, the wheels of justice were grinding. The ground slowly, but steadily and relentlessly, to expose the fraudulent scheme and bring it all crashing down.
For years, an official named Royal Johnson had been investigating Reavis’ claim, and in 1889, he released a devastating report that labeled it a fake. Despite his meticulous forgeries, Reavis had not been meticulous enough. His documents used printing styles different from those of the period they supposedly came from. Steel-nibbed pens – which did not come into use until the 1880s – were used for writing instead of quills. There were basic Spanish spelling and grammatical errors, unlikely to have been made by a Spanish official.
