James Hancock lived in Tombstone at the time of the O.K. Corral gunfight, a 30-second shootout between lawmen and outlaws known as the Cowboys on October 26, 1881. Notes indicate Hancock's comments were written in Paradise, AZ on March 30 and 31, probably in the 1930s.
The collection contains a carbon copy typescript prepared by California author Guy J. Giffen of marginal notes made by J. C. Hancock in his copy of Tombstone: an Iliad of the Southwest.