This Day…

1867-Four boisterous cowboys in Laramie, Wyoming decided to roust some immigrants from Illinois.  The immigrants were not intimated though and a fearful brawl erupted.  Deputy Marshal Big Steve Long commanded a halt to the proceedings which was ignored, or course.  He then pulled both 44s and fired into the pugilists.  Five of them were killed, three from Illinois and two of the cowboys.

1753-Governor Dinwiddle of Virginia sends the 21-year-old George Washington, an excellent surveyor, into the Ohio territory with a guide and frontiersman Christopher Gist to get a sense of French intentions in the region held by the Virginia-controlled Ohio Company. 

1867-Four boisterous cowboys in Laramie, Wyoming decided to roust some immigrants from Illinois.  The immigrants were not intimated though and a fearful brawl erupted.  Deputy Marshal Steve Long commanded a halt to the proceedings which was ignored, of course.  He then pulled both 44’s and fired into the pugilists.  Five of them were killed, three from Illinois and two of the cowboys.

1853-US Minister James Gadsden, in Mexico City, receives instructions to negotiate the purchase of a thin strip of land extending south of the Gila River, west to the 37th parallel boundary of California, and east to the Rio Grande border of Texas.

1874-Frank Canton got into a saloon brawl with Buffalo soldiers in Jacksboro, Texas killing one and wounding another.  Yet more resentment for carpetbaggers.

1870-Clay Allison led a lynch mob that strung up accused murderer, Charles Kennedy.  He then decapitated the corpse and placed the head on a pole in Lambert’s saloon in Cimarron, New Mexico.

1892-The infamous Dalton Gang raids Coffeyville, Kansas, and tries to rob two banks; four gang members and four local men are killed in the shootout.  Emmett Dalton might have gotten away but turns back to aide his brother and is shot repeatedly.  He survives and is sentenced to life in prison in 1893, but will be pardoned in 1907 and live to become a prosperous citizen of California who helps make movies about his gang’s exploits.

1876-A patrol led by Texas Ranger Sergeant John Armstrong closed in on an outlaw camp at Espinoza Lake near Carrizo, Texas.  When the smoke cleared the rangers had killed three of the four outlaws in that camp and the fourth was hit four times.  In separate shoot outs that night Armstrong’s detachment killed two other outlaws.

1883-During an attempted train robbery the engineer and fireman were killed by masked gunmen in Coolidge, Kansas.  Lon Chambers and three others were arrested for it by Mysterious Dave Mather.  But were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

1897-Big Nose George Currie, the Sundance Kid, and Harvey Logan were wanted in the robbery of a bank in Belle Fourche, South Dakota.  After a brief gunfight with six-shooter Bill Smith and a bounty hunter they were taken into custody near Lavina, MT.  All three outlaws escaped from the jail in Deadwood on Halloween.