The written record suggests that Pipe Spring took the name in 1858, when famed pioneer Jacob Hamblin and other Mormon missionaries wagered William "Gunlock Bill" Hamblin, (Jacobs brother,) that he could not shoot a hole through a handkerchief at fifty paces. His best effort ended in failure when his attempt to do so resulted in the cloth merely giving way without any hole. irritated by this, the sharpshooter upped the ante and bet his companions that he could shoot the bottom out of the pipe favored by Dudley Leavitt, who wisely placed the smoking device on a rock. "Gunlock Bill" shot the bottom neatly out of it and his action led to the naming of this location in northern Arizona.
- Michael Goldwater