This Day…

1895-Littl Bill Raidler, a member of the Doolin Gang was shot six times while resisting arrest by Bill Tilghman and W.C. Smithe near Elgin, Kansas. He survived the shooting but never regained his health.

1876-The James gang attempts to carry out a bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. The town of 500 people have been alerted, and many are lying in wait to ambush the gang, three members of which are shot and killed. Two others wounded; only Jesse and Frank James escape. This marks the end of a long string of successful bank robberies for the James brothers. A $25,000 reward is posted for Jesse James, dead or alive, and $15,000 is offered for his brother, Frank.

1885-Following a decade of smoldering resentment against Chinese mine laborers, white men at Rock Springs in Wyoming Territory go on a rampage, killing 28 Chinese and wounding 15 others. Several hundred more Chinese are chased from town.

1879 – John Beckwith was killed by the rustler, John Jones, in a dispute over the ownership of a herd of cows.

1896 – Bill Doolin was killed in an ambush near Lawson, Oklahoma by a posse headed by Heck Thomas. A shotgun blast fired by Bill Dunn put 21 Holes in Doolin’s body.

1873-Tiburcio Vasquez and six others were robbing a store in Pinos, California when violence erupted. Three townsmen were killed and a child beaten unconscious.

1869-A drunken cavalryman, John Mulrey, was killed by Wild Bill Hickok in Hays City, Kansas while resisting arrest.

1871-In one of the bloodiest and most violent shootings of the period Mike McCloskie was killed by Hugh Anderson in a Newton, Kansas saloon brawl. When McCloskie went down his eighteen year old friend, Jim Riley, calmly walked over and locked the door. He then opened up on pretty much everyone left standing.

1805-Lewis and Clark cross the Continental Divide.
1812-General Hull surrenders Fort Detroit and 1400 men without fighting. The entire Northwest is now exposed to the alliance between the British and the Tecumseh’s Indians

1873-Happy Jack Morco participated in a quarrel with Ben Thompson that resulted in the shooting death of Sheriff C B Whitney in Ellsworth, Kansas. Whitney was a participant in the Battle of Beecher’s Island against the Sioux in 1868.

1879-The last Indians with a reservation in Colorado, the Utes, come under increasing pressure from greedy whites. A newspaper campaign is launched under the slogan, ‘the Utes must go.’ During this period the Ute Indians are blamed for any regional malady, including a series of forest fires.