by Jon E. Lewis
Al Sieber, Chief of Scouts
After their failed invasion of Johnson County in 1892, the Wyoming cattle barons adopted a low-key – but deadly – approach to the problem of rustlers. They hired the talents of the gunman named Tom Horn, who would shoot rustlers for a price, leaving a trademark of two stones under the victim’s head. When Horn passed on, the long wave of Wyoming range war violence ended with him.
Like many gunfighters, Horn was born and reared on a farm. After a whipping from his father at the age of 14, he ran away to the West. He worked for the railroad, then the Overland stage company as a driver, and by 1876 he had signed on with the army as a scout. His career as a scout in Apache country was heroic, and in 1885 he succeeded the celebrated Al Sieber as civilian chief of scouts. Horn played a part in the final capture of Geronimo, and when that campaign was over he hired out his ability with a gun in the Pleasant Valley War. Later, he was sheriff of Yavapai County, Arizona, and occasionally worked a gold claim near Tombstone.
In 1890 Tom Horn joined the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Denver, and captured the outlaw Peg Leg McCoy. Two years later, Horn enlisted as a range detective with the Wyoming Stock Growers’ Association, and helped recruit the gunmen who fought in the Johnson County War against the homesteaders and rustlers. He may have even been a member of the cattle baron invasion force himself.
After the Johnson County War, Horn signed on with the Swan Land and Cattle Company, at that time managed by Scotsman John Clay. According to Clay, Horn hardly spoke, and would sit for long periods silently smoking cigarettes and braiding horsehair ropes. On the company’s books, Horn was listed as a horsebreaker, but his real job was to assassinate troublesome rustlers.
For the next three years, Horn roamed the ranges for the Swan Land and Cattle Company and for other big ranches. When a rancher suspected someone of rustling, they would summon the thin-faced, balding killer and he would set about organizing an ambush. As the testimony in his later trial showed, he was a methodical and patient assassin. He would move into an area under an assumed identity, get to know the victim’s habits, and then wait for hours in the rain or cold or sun, chewing on raw bacon, waiting for the perfect shot. “Killing is my business,” Horn remarked on occasion. He always worked alone, made his kills with a high-powered rifle, was scrupulous in collecting up any evidence of his crime, and always left the two-stone signature.
Horn’s murder of Matt Rash at Cold Springs Mountain, Colorado, on 8 July 1900 was typical. Calling himself James Hicks, Horn drifted into Rash’s neighbourhood and began spying on the rustler. Early in the afternoon of 8 July, Rash finished a lunch of steak and potatoes and then stepped outside his cabin. Horn then fired from concealment, hitting Rash three times, the rustler stumbling back inside. Horn meanwhile collected his cartridge shells, and then raced off to collect his fee, a flat $600.
After killings, Horn would go to Cheyenne or Denver to let off steam in a drinking spree. Usually reserved, Horn would become talkative and boastful when drunk.
When the Spanish–American War broke out in 1898, Horn rejoined the army and went to Cuba as master of a pack train.
By spring 1901, Horn was back in Wyoming and took a job with John Coble, who owned a large ranch north of Laramie near Iron Mountain. Coble suspected homesteaders on the fringe of his ranch of stealing stock. Employing his usual method, Horn patiently scouted the area and the people. Among those he met was Glendolene Kimmel, the Iron Mountain schoolteacher. Kimmel boarded with a family called Miller, who were conducting a feud with a neighbouring homesteader, Kels P. Nickell. Victor Miller and Kels Nickell had quarrelled over a land boundary, which had resulted in Nickell wounding Miller with a knife. For his protection, Miller had started carrying a shotgun; but this had accidentally discharged, killing one of Miller’s own sons. Miller blamed Nickell for the accident.
Meanwhile, Horn’s employer, John Coble, had informed him that he also considered Nickell a nuisance and wanted him eliminated, not least because he was a sheepman.
At about 3.30 p.m. on 18 July 1902, two shots rang out on the Powder River Road near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Lying dead was 14-year-old Willie Nickell, who had died as he tried to open a gate to the family sheep camp to get a hay wagon through. He had been wearing his father’s hat and coat.
Miller and his friend Tom Horn were immediately suspected of the crime, but Horn produced an alibi that he had been on the train between Cheyenne and Laramie at the time of the shooting. The Miller family, plus Glendolene Kimmel, swore that Miller had been home the day Willie Nickell was killed. Kimmel had developed an affection for Horn; when she realised that her testimony placing Miller at home on the day of the murder endangered Horn, she withdrew it.
Willie Nickell’s slaying deeply shocked the Iron Mountain community. A thousand-dollar reward was posted for the capture of the perpetrator. The case remained unsolved, however, until deputy US marshal Joe Lefors appeared at Iron Mountain, questioned everybody, and was soon on the trail of Tom Horn. Lefors knew Horn and believed that he must have killed the boy by accident. Tracking Horn to Denver, Lefors discovered the hired killer on one of his periodic drunks. Lefors plied him with more drink, and extracted what sounded like a confession to Willie Nickell’s killing. The confession was overheard by eavesdropping deputies, who recorded it in shorthand.
The confession was used to arrest Horn the next morning. Coble and the other stockmen rallied to Horn’s assistance, and managed to get the trial postponed until October 1902.
Tom Horn’s trial was front-page news the West over. He denied the confession obtained under the influence of alcohol, and without this the prosecution had no real evidence. Nevertheless, Joe Lefors’s short record of Tom Horn’s conversation was enough to persuade the jury that he was guilty of murder in the first degree.
Horn did not expect to hang. He was confident that the cattle barons would obtain a new trial for him. This proved impossible. Friends did, however, pay a young cowboy to be arrested and confined in Cheyenne jail, so that Horn could give him an escape plan. The cowboy lost his nerve, and told the local newspaper of the plot.
Horn broke out anyway, jumping Deputy Sheriff Richard Proctor in the morning of 9 August 1903. Horn and another escapee, Jim McCloud, made their way outside into the jail corral, McCloud took the only horse, leaving Horn to make a run for it on foot. He was chased by a citizen named O. M. Eldrich, alerted by the shrieks of police whistles. Eldrich fired several shots at Horn, one of them grazing him on the head. The citizen then wrestled Horn to the ground, and a gang of lawmen arrived to take him back to jail.
Tom Horn was scheduled to hang on 20 November 1903. Two days before, as he sat in his cell, alternately writing his autobiography and braiding a horse-hair rope, he chanced to look out of his cell window. Scrawled in the snow was the message: KEEP YOUR NERVE.
There were frantic last-moment attempts by Glendolene Kimmel and the Wyoming stockmen to save Horn. Despite these pleas, he was hanged, as scheduled, on the morning of 20 November 1903. Horn never named his employers.
Ironically, the crime for which Horn swung is one he did not, on the balance of probability, commit. Glendolene Kimmel “born and reared midst the comforts and refinements of civilisation” as she wrote in her statement on Horn’s behalf, declared on oath that the Millers had tried to throw suspicion for the deed onto Horn. She knew this for hard fact, because they had told her so. Even if Kimmel’s statement is dismissed because of her bias towards Horn, the question remains: would an experienced bounty hunter like Horn have mistaken a boy – even if wearing his father’s coat and hat – for a man he knew by sight?
Certainly there was no material evidence to tie Horn to Willie Nickell’s death, save for a “confession” given in a spell of drunken bragging. The attempts of the cattle barons to free him prove nothing; they would have tried to protect Horn anyway, out of loyalty, and out of a need to keep all his deeds committed on their behalf – not necessarily the killing of Willie Nickell – under wraps
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Almost a century on, the Horn case remains the subject of intense debate in Wyoming and elsewhere in the West.
Wild West Shows and Rodeos
In America, Wild West shows and organized rodeos appeared even before the frontier and the open range disappeared. Probably the first live show exhibiting scenes from the West occurred in 1837, at the opening of artist George Catlin’s Indian gallery at the Stuyvesant Institute on Broadway, when Ioway chief Keokuk and an assembly of Fox and Sioux Indians shot arrows and performed war dances. Contests in which working cowboys showed off their skills also had a long past; they were a part of the round-up before the great drives up the Chisholm Trail, while the first town to hold a rodeo was Santa Fe, in 1846, witnessed by Irish novelist Mayne Reid: “They contest with each other for the best roping and throwing, and there are horse races and whiskey and wines.” Such contests involved Anglos and vaqueros, the vaqueros drawing on a Mexican tradition of equestrian display and competition which traces back to the days of the Conquistadors.
But it was only under the auspices of former Pony Express rider and buffalo hunter William F. (“Buffalo Bill”) Cody that Far West shows and rodeos became an entertainment for millions.
Wild West Shows
In 1872 Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack Omohundro and the dime novelist Ned Buntline (Edward Judson) appeared in a stage melodrama written by Buntline entitled “The Scouts of the Prairie”. It was lambasted by critics, with the Chicago Times commenting: “It is not probable that Chicago will ever look on the like again. Such a combination of incongruous dialogue, execrable acting . . . intolerable stench, scalping, blood and thunder …” Audiences, however, loved it. The stage show toured for years, with Cody occasionally breaking off to scout for the army in the Indian Wars, even killing a Cheyenne sub-chief, Yellow Hand, in battle at War Bonnet Creek. Cody’s theatrical stock rose even higher.
The success of the stage show gave Cody a grander idea: a frontier extravaganza to play in large outdoor arenas. He got his chance to test the idea in 1882, when the citizens of his local town, North Platte in Nebraska, decided to organize an “Old Glory Blowout” to celebrate the Fourth of July. As a famous figure, showman and local rancher, Cody was inevitably asked to take charge as Grand Marshal. He came up with a rip-snorting bill which included shooting contests and even a herd of buffalo. Moreover, since North Platte was in cowboy country, he organized roping and riding contests under the title “Cowboys’ Fun”. He made cowboys into entertainment.
So successful was North Platte’s “Old Glory Blowout” that Cody took it on the road the next year, only on a bigger scale. When he advertised for cowpunchers to join his show as “actors” so many applied that he had to arrange competitions to select the best. His first full-scale version of the “Wild West” (he thought the term “show” lacked dignity) took place at the Omaha Fair Grounds on 19 May 1883. The event was billed as “The Wild West, Hon. W. F. Cody and Dr. W. F. Carver’s Mountain and Prairie Exhibition.” Aside from Buffalo Bill himself and several other marksmen, it featured amongst many other acts an attack on the Deadwood Stage, the Pony Express, and a “grand, realistic battle scene depicting the capture, torture and death of a scout by savages.” The brightest star of the Cow-Boys’ Fun section was Cody’s own ranch hand, Buck Taylor, who could seemingly ride and rope anything. The closing spectacle was “A Grand Hunt on the Plains,” with buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, wild horses and longhorns.
The show was a smash hit and toured for three decades, constantly adding to its repertoire of acts, and often incorporating real characters and events from the frontier years. Custer’s Last Stand and Wounded Knee were both dramatized, as was the Charge at San Juan Hill by Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders during the Spanish–American war. Sitting Bull joined the show in 1884, Sioux Ghost Dancers participated in 1891, and Geronimo played the circuit in 1906.
One convention which was maintained was that the trick-shooting sensation Annie Oakley, “Little Sure Shot” (“Watanya cicilia”) as she was dubbed by Sitting Bull, appeared as the second act, after Cody himself. Oakley, who was born Phoebe Ann Moses to a Quaker family from Darke County, Ohio, was idolized by audiences for her ability to shoot cigarettes out of men’s mouths and splitting playing cards from 30 paces. She once broke 943 out of 1,000 glass balls thrown in the air, using a 22 rifle.
The success of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in America was soon repeated in Britain and Europe. In 1887 in London the Deadwood Stage, driven by Buffalo Bill, carried four kings and the Prince of Wales to the arena. During the 1890 tour of Italy, a Wild West delegation was blessed by Pope Leo XIII.
Buffalo Bill’s show was not the only Wild West show in town. Gordon W. (“Pawnee Bill”) Lillie, a scout who had worked as the interpreter for the Pawnee in Buffalo Bill’s 1883 show at Omaha, set up his own Pawnee Bill’s Historical Wild West Exhibition and Indian Encampment. His wife, Mae Lillie, was the female sharpshooting act. Pawnee Bill’s was the only Wild West to rival Buffalo Bill’s in grandeur or success, but the 4-Paws Wild West, Hardwick’s Wild West and the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild Wes’ were all popular. Even Frank James and Cole Younger tried to cash in on the phenomenon with a show of their own in 1903.
Although Buffalo Bill Cody made millions from his show, he also lost them in unwise investments. According to Annie Oakley: “He was totally unable to resist any claim for assistance . . . or refuse any mortal in distress . . . and until his dying day he was the easiest mark . . . for every kind of sneak and gold-brick vendor that was mean enough to take advantage of him.”
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West had to be rescued by Pawnee Bill in 1908 and the new joint show became “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East Combine.” But the new show only lasted for five years and closed in 1913, burdened by debts. The public had become sated and disillusioned with Western shows, hundreds of which toured the country. Many were started by Buffalo Bill’s ex-partners, and were mere pale, offputting imitations of the original.
Buffalo Bill retired to his ranch, dying in 1917. Pawnee Bill went to work in rodeo, which was booming.
Rodeos
By the time Buffalo Bill’s Wild West took its final bow, major competitive rodeo events with cash prizes had become annual occurrences in Salinas, Calgary, Cheyenne and Pendleton, Oregon. The Pendleton Roundup featured 1,000 American Indians performing war dances and pony parades. Nez Perce cowboy Jackson Sundown, who claimed to be a nephew of Chief Joseph, won many of the competitions. In 1916, at the age of 50, he won the Pendleton Championship, making a sensational ride on his horse Angel. The same year, rodeo was brought East with the New York Stampede, held in Brooklyn.
Most of the rodeos began as efforts by local towns to boost tourism and business. Cheyenne launched its Frontier Days in 1897, with a large rodeo component in a mixed programme of Wild West exhibitions. Pendleton planned its cowboy “round-up” in 1910, with such events as “roping, racing, and relays, by cowboys, Indians and cowgirls; steer roping, maverick races, steer bulldogging, riding bucking horses, steers, bulls, buffaloes, and cows; stagecoach racing, Indian ceremonial and war dances, trick riding, mounted tug of war, the grand parade, and that wonderful finale, the wild horse race.” During the 1920s, however, rodeo evolved and slimmed down to its present form, with five main events: bareback horse racing, bull riding, calf roping, saddle bronc riding and steer wrestling (“bulldogging”).
Roping cattle and riding unbroken horses were events derived directly from the work of the cowboy. But bull riding and bulldogging were added to rodeo simply because they looked spectacular. Bulldogging was popularized in the early 1900s by the Miller 101 Ranch from Oklahoma, especially its Black cowboy star Bill Pickett, who would jump from his horse onto a running steer, grab its horns, and twist its neck until the nose came up, at which point he would bite its lip, forcing it to a halt. Pickett thought up the trick after watching ranchers’ bulldogs, used to flush cattle out of thickets, immobilizing them by biting the
ir sensitive upper lips. Bulldogging has endured as a rodeo sport, although humane groups protested at Pickett’s personal method and it was banned by the teens. Until he became famous Pickett had to dress as a Mexican toreador since many rodeos did not admit Black contestants. Zack Miller, owner of the sprawling 101 Ranch in Oklahoma, described Pickett as “the greatest sweat and dirt cowhand that ever lived – bar none.”
Pickett was the second renowned African-American in rodeo, the first being Nat Love, who entered the rodeo at Deadwood City in 1876. He won several roping and shooting contests and recalled: “Right there the assembled crowd named me ‘Deadwood Dick’ and proclaimed me champion roper of the Western cattle country.”
At first, rodeo riders were as poor as the cowboys from whose ranks they came. They travelled a huge circuit from the Mexican border up to Canada, from New York to California, existing only on the prize money they won – if any. Unlike cowboys, rodeo riders were successful at unionizing themselves, founding the Cowboy’s Turtle Association in 1936 (so-called because a turtle “doesn’t get anywhere unless it sticks its neck out”). This became the Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1945 and the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1974. They won an important victory over management in 1955 when their point system and standings became the measure for naming rodeo world champions.
Like cowpunching, rodeo was originally a male province. But by the early twentieth century many stockmen’s daughters were translating skills learned on the family ranch into celebrity in the rodeo arena. The first female to enter a rodeo show was Bertha Kaepernick, who took part in both the wild horse race and the bucking bronc contest in Cheyenne’s first Frontier Days in 1897. Prairie Rose Henderson was the first female headliner. She was refused entry in the bucking bronc contest at the Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1901 until she pointed out to judges that there was nothing in the rule book which forbade her trying. Her ride was magnificent and created such notoriety that other rodeos soon included a women’s bronc riding contest. Among the other cowgirls in early rodeo were Prairie Lilly Allen and Kitty Canutt; trick riders Tillie Baldwin and Lottie Vandreau; trick roper Florence LaDue; and steer wrestler Fox Hastings. Teddy Roosevelt was so impressed by Oklahoma rancher’s daughter Lucille Mulhall when he saw her performing in 1900 that he declared her to be a “cowgirl” – the first time the term was used. Mulhall starred in her father’s Wild West show before working in rodeo, and after rodeo she became a star of silent Western movies.