This Day…

1881 – Billy the Kid escapes from his cell in Lincoln, New Mexico.

1858 – Chinese are prohibited from landing at any port in California under the terms of a bill passed by Congress.

1856-Western Union Telegraph is established in New York to provide communications west of the Mississippi River.

1875 – Wyatt Earp is hired as a policeman in Wichita, Kansas.

1849 – Captain G. W. Paul leads the first party of 49ers along the Oregon Trail to the California gold rush.

1866-Robert Leroy (Butch Cassidy) Parker is born in Beaver, Utah.

1850-Levi Strauss arrives in San Francisco with canvas for tents.  A miner tells him there are plenty of tents.  What  is needed is a durable pair of pants.

1867-General William Tecumseh Sherman starts a plan to drive Indians out of the path of the transcontinental railroad.

1881-Billy the Kid is convicted of murdering Sheriff Brady

1822-Veteran fur trader William Henry Ashley publishes and advertisement in the St. Louis Missouri Republican calling for 100 young men to ascend the Missouri River to its source and to develop the fur trade there.