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Published: September 24th 2014
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OUR NEIGHBORS IN SCOTLAND COUNTY
The grave site is in the Columbia Cemetery at 9th Street and College Avenue in Boulder. The cemetery has no vehicle access. There is a pedestrian gate at the southeast corner of the cemetery on College Avenue. The grave is about halfway down towards 9th Street and a few rows in. SEPTEMBER 4, 2014 Breakfast at the R&B Café up the street. It is an Elvis Presley themed joint, but don’t let that prevent you from enjoying a fine meal in there. I had German sausage, eggs over greasy, hash browns, toast and coffee. It was too many carbs, but it sure was good. Much of their business is carryout breakfast burritos. The locals hereabouts think highly of those things, and those that I saw did look mighty tasty. Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote. I stopped by the State Museum this morning to see the suffrage exhibit, but they didn’t have one. All they had was the document signed by the governor. I did, however, see the rifle owned by “Liver-Eating” Johnson. Portugee Phillips is buried here in the Lakeview Cemetery. Kung Pao Chicken, heavy on the “pow”, and hot tea for supper at Twin Dragons downtown on Carey. It was quite ordinary.
TOM HORN When the Oliver family took up farming near Memphis in Scotland County, Missouri one of their neighbors was an unruly lad named Tom Horn. Tom was not fond of farming and it became a sore bone of
JOE LEFORS
The U. S. Marshal's Office at the turn of the century was behind the french window in the second floor. It is the office Joe LeFors used to weasel a confession out of Tom Horn in the Willie Nickell case. contention between him and his dad. As a result Tom left home when he was 15 and made his way west to Atchison doing whatever chores he could find to fill his belly. From there he signed on as a dog robber with a freight outfit and headed off down the Santa Fe Trail. In Arizona he became a packer for Crook’s army and campaigned after hostile Apaches. Along the way he learned a poor brand of pidgin Spanish from the Apache scouts that he campaigned with. Communications between the soldiers and the scouts was cumbersome. Some of the scouts could speak Spanish, sort of, but few of them could speak English. Some of the soldiers could speak Spanish but few could speak Apache. Conversations had to go back and forth from English to Spanish and then from Spanish to Apache. Tom was sometimes called upon to help with the Spanish/English part. Over the years as a packer and half interpreter Tom also learned rudimentary Apache tracking skills. When he was not working for the army Tom was prospecting in Aravaipa Canyon and honing wilderness skills. He was also a top hand on a horse and was capable of beautiful
SITE OF COUNTY COURTHOUSE
This is a new court house but it was built on the original site of the court house where Tom Horn was convicted of murder. braided leather work. In pursuit of Geronimo Tom was useful to the army but he was not anywhere near as useful as he later claimed to be. With the last of the hostile Apaches safely cooling their heels in Florida the army found little use for Tom. He went back to prospecting for a while and then found work as a man hunter with the Pinkerton Detective Agency. He did well enough with them until he stood accused on charges of bribery and was let go. By the mid-1890s Tom was working as a stock detective in Wyoming. It was just after the dismal Johnson County War fiasco and the cattle barons were looking for new ways to drive the homesteaders off of their legal land patents. The homesteaders chose to settle on watered lands that large cattle operations had been using without title for years. The homesteaders were taking a big juicy bite out of big ranch profits by depriving free use of water. The big ranchers sought legal recourse by accusing homesteaders of stealing cattle. Those cattle were easy pickings and they were being picked off on a small scale. Most homesteaders though were simply honest farmers just
BILLY LEWIS
Someplace around here seems like the likely spot where Billy Lewis was killed. trying to raise their families to be stout citizens. The cattle barons hired Tom Horn to press the criminal claims. Tom would bring a solid case into court but the homesteader jury would always fail to convict. The next step would be intimidation and murder. Tom killed a couple of fellows named Billy Lewis and Fred Powell in the Iron Mountain country. While folks were stewing over that kettle of fish Tom moved down to Brown’s Park and killed Matt Rash and Isom Dart. The Spanish American War broke out about then and Tom joined up as chief packer. Keeping the goods and ammo supplied to the troops was the best work that Tom ever did. It was crucial to our victory there, but Tom caught Yellow Fever and very nearly died. Some say that when Tom finally recovered he never was right in the mind again. Tom finished his recovery at the ranch of his friend and benefactor among the cattle barons, John C. Coble. While Tom was in Cuba a man named Kels Nickell moved a gang of sheep onto his range and it led to an altercation with Coble in which Coble was slashed with a knife.
FRED POWELL
Someplace around here seems like the likely spot where Fred Powell was killed. When Tom was back on his pins Coble sent him after Nickell as a rustler. It was all a humbug and Tom knew it, but he staked out the Nickell place and when he saw a guy wearing Nickell’s hat and coat and riding his horse Tom felt free to blast away. He killed Willie Nickell, Kel’s 14 year old son. Deputy U. S. Marshal Joe LeFors obtained an entrapped confession from Tom in Willie’s murder, and in due process of law Tom was convicted and sentenced to the noose. It is still a controversial verdict around Cheyenne, but whether Tom actually killed the Nickell Boy or not, he was still guilty as sin of at least four other murders. He swung through the gates of hell on a specially made gallows on November 20, 1903. It was the day before his 43rd birthday. Tom’s older brother, Charlie, had the carcass shipped to Boulder by train and Tom is buried in Charlie’s family plot. John Coble lost his ranch, and his marriage went south, and he committed suicide in Elko, NV in 1914.
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