Howdy ya’ll!
The rodeo was recently in town in Estes Park, and we
celebrated here at the Baldpate Inn with flannel shirts and cowboy boots. I
went to see the rodeo for the first time in my life and it was pretty
incredible. I saw some very impressive cowboying and even got a little dirt
kicked up in my face by an angry horse who made me feel like part of the
action. It was a lot of fun, and keeping with the rodeo theme, I’m going to
talk about a piece in our collection that came straight out of the Wild Wild West
not too far from Estes Park.
It’s the story of a western lawman and outlaw named Tom Horn
whose life ended in Cheyenne, Wyoming where he was convicted of killing the
young son of a sheepherder. His life story seems like it was tailor made for a
Western flick and he does appear in a few including a 1980 movie called Tom Horn starring Steve McQueen. The
real Tom Horn was born in 1860 on a rural 600-acre farm in Scotland County,
Missouri; the fifth of 12 children. When he was 16 he left home for the
Southwest and started working for the U.S. Cavalry as a civilian scout. He soon
became involved in the Apache Wars and assisted in the capture of the Apache
warrior Geronimo. His skills as a gunman and a tracker earned Horn a reputation
throughout the West. After spending time as a scout he spent a brief period as
a deputy sheriff in Arizona and later caught the attention of the Pinkerton
Detective Agency in Denver where he worked as a detective tracking down
criminals throughout Colorado and Wyoming.
Charlie Siringo, one of Tom Horn’s fellow Pinkerton agents
at the time, once wrote about Horn that he was a very talented tracker and
agent but had a wicked side to him that could not be tamed. This became evident
as Horn turned from a law enforcer to an outlaw himself. He was eventually
dismissed from the Pinkerton Agency for crimes he had committed while under
their employ and was thereafter hired out as a Range Detective for wealthy
ranchers in Colorado and Wyoming. As a Range Detective he functioned basically
as an assassin. He killed a number of thieves and robbers in the area including
Fred Powell, a rancher often charged for stealing horses. Horn’s work as a
Range Detective was seasonal and in his down time he made a name for himself as
a cowboy and horse breaker. The letter accompanying his “key” identifies his as
“the man who broke Muggins, the horse belonging to Charles Camp,” and Charles
Camp said of Horn that, “his great strength and size and panther-like agility
made all broncos look like playthings to him.”
Horn maintained his position as Range Detective and cowboy
until October 1902 when he was convicted for the murder of 14-year old Willie
Nickell; the son of a sheepherding rancher in Wyoming. The case against him was
based off shaky and circumstantial evidence and many modern historians believe
that Tom Horn was innocent of this particular crime. Nevertheless, his
murderous reputation made him an easy scapegoat for the crime and he received a
guilty verdict on October 24, 1902. He was executed November 20, 1903 after his
appeal to the Supreme Court for a re-trial was rejected and was buried in the
Colombia Cemetery in Boulder, Colorado.
The “key” we have here from Tom Horn is actually a piece out
of the rope that was used to hang him in Cheyenne. It was donated to us by a
former chief of police of Greeley, Colorado and now holds a prominent position
in our collection as a symbol of the old West.
So I hope you’ve all enjoyed this trip back to the cowboy
days and maybe get a chance to see all of the Western keys we have here.
Until next time,
Rachel
Key Room
Museum Curator