Following the Necktie Fashion

As railroad building brought desperadoes into Wyoming, citizens there found use for many ropes.  Several bandits and killers were set swinging in and around Cheyenne and Laramie in 1868.  Where the trees were not available, a telegraph pole served for scaffold.  That was the case with the stringing up of Dutch Charley at Carbon and George Parrot (“Big Nose George”) at Rawlins.  Idaho also attracted horse thieves, stagecoach robbers and killers who had to be eradicated.  Vigilance committee at Payette and Boise did this with dispatch.  The most notorious man strung up by the Boise group was David Updyke, leader of a desperado gang, who had been able to win an election for sheriff of Ada County.  With Updyke and several of his men out of the way, the Idaho crime wave subsided.  It’s amazing what happens as a result of a public hanging.  Chapter three of The Plea will be on the website next week.  Visit www.chrisenss.com.