This Day…

1885-Congress passes a law prohibiting the unauthorized use of barbed wire on public lands in the West.

1885 – John Wesley Hardin is pardoned for the murder of Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb, after spending 16 years in prison.

1885-Red Hall and Sheriff Charlie McKinney met with some Mexican officials at Las Islas crossing on the Rio Grande River to try and bring peace to the troubled region.  The Mexicans lured them to a fiesta but they were attacked by Rurales and had to flee for their lives

1847-Mexican War/General Taylor refuses to communicate with General Scott, as he has been ordered to do by President Polk.  Instead, Taylor goes west from Saltillo, 18 miles to Agua Nueva.

1875-Pinkerton agents bomb the home of Jesse & Frank James.  The result is the death of their younger brother, Archie, an their mother lost her arm.

1848 – James Marshall discovers gold.

1871 – The cable-operated streetcar is patented in San Francisco.

1881 – Michael O’Rourke, also known as Johnny Behind the Duce, killed Phillips Schneider at Charleston, Arizona.

1839-George Armstrong Custer is born in New Rumley, Ohio.

1881 – Yuba County Stage from Camptonville robbed at Bridgeport where a covered wooden bridge spanned the South Fort of the Yuba River, north of Smartsville.  Wells Fargo reported express box and mail pouches taken, but losses to the express company and to mail customers were unknown.  Black Bart strikes again.