This Day…

1903-Tom Horn escaped from custody in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  He was quickly overtaken by townsmen after being grazed in the head by a shot fired by O.M. Eldrich, and badly beaten during recapture.

1940 – Arthur T. Enss was born.  He served his country in Vietnam and later took in three children who had been abandoned by their biological father.

1902-Harry Tracy in an act of desperation and severely wounded in a shootout with lawmen near Davenport, WA., ended his own crime spree with a self inflicted gunshot to the head.  Officers were so wary of him they did not approach the corpse until the next day.

1867-The Sioux and Cheyenne continue their war against the US Army forts stationed along the Bozeman Road.  More than 500 Cheyenne warriors, led by Dull Knife and Two Moon, attack about 30 soldiers and civilians working in a hayfield near Fort C.F. Smith.  In what becomes known as the Hayfield Fight, the defenders drive off the Indian attack with breech-loading Springfield rifles.

1892-Congress bans the sale of alcohol on all Indian lands.

1865-In a romantic duel over the affections of Suzanna Moore Wild Bill Hickok shot Dave Tutt through the heart at 75 yards in the town square in Springfield, Missouri.  Tutt fired first and missed.

1901-Willie Nickell, 13 years old, is shot to death in an ambush between Larmaie and Wheatland, Wyoming.  Nickell’s father had introduced sheep into cattle country.  The infamous Tom Horn confessed to the killing and was later hanged.

1870-Wild Bill Hickok got into a drunken brawl with five troppers of the 7th Cavalry in Drums Saloon in Hays City, Kansas.  When the five of them threw him to the ground and started kicking him Hickok pulled his gun and shot two of them.  One died the next day and the other recovered.  Hickok wisely skipped town.

1820-Edwin James leads two other members of the Long expedition on the first climb up Pike’s Peak, which Zebulon Pike had first sighted on 15 November 1806.

1865-Ill feelings between Dave McCanles and Wild Bill Hickok culminated in the shooting death of McCanles at Rock Creek Station, NE.  When they ran to help McCanles Hickok also shot and wounded James Wood and James Gordon.  The station manager, Horace Wellman chased Woods down and hacked him to death with a hoe.  Station hand Doc Brink finished Gordon off with a shotgun.