There was a gang in the Old West lasted only thirteen days.  But during those thirteen days, they cut a swath of carnage that no other gang could match.

Rufus Buck was a Ute Indian living in the Indian Territory.  His gang comprised of four Creek Indians and a combination Creek and black.  All of them had served time in jail for minor offences.

Buck supposedly boasted, “that his outfit would make a record that would sweep all the other gangs of the territory into insignificance.”  And on July 28, 1895, the gang started a thirteen-day crime spree that did exactly that.

They killed Deputy Marshal John Garrett.  They came across a Mrs. Wilson.  She was kidnapped and violated.  From there they saw Gus Chambers with some horses.  When he resisted, the Buck Gang killed him.  They next robbed a stockman, taking his clothes and boots.  Fortunately, he was able to escape in a hail of bullets.  Two days later, they invaded the home of Rosetta Hassan.  She was violated in front of her husband and children.

The gang was arrested, and brought before Hanging Judge Isaac Parker, and they were sentenced to be hanged.  He scheduled it for July 1, 1896 between nine in the morning and five in the evening.

Quite possibly Judge Parker should have stated an exact time, because, on the day of the hanging, one of the gang members said he wanted to be hanged at ten in the morning so his body could be on the 11:30 train.  Rufus Buck protested, saying that if he was hanged that early, there would be a several hour delay before his body could be on the appropriate train.  The Rufus Gang then decided they wanted to be hanged separately.

Marshal Crump smiled, set the time for 1:00, and hanged them all at one time.

On July 20, 1889 the first woman in Wyoming, either legally or illegally, was hanged. I think you’ll find her story very interesting.

Ella Watson has been described as “a dare devil in the saddle, handy with a six shooter and adept with the lariat and branding iron.” She has also been described as a homely prostitute who happened to take the wrong form of payment for her services.

In truth she was homely. Ella Watson secretly married a Wyoming Territory merchant named Jim Averill. Jim wasn’t liked by the cattle ranchers. That’s because Jim had acquired land traditionally used for grazing, and he rubbed salt in the wound by writing “anti-cattlemen” letters to the local paper.

Ella filed for a homestead, and built a log cabin close to Jim Averill’s store where she started plying her trade as a soiled dove. She also started taking cattle as payment for her services.

The cattle ranchers accused Jim and Ella of cattle rustling. Now, quite possibly a cowboy or two may have paid her with cattle not belonging to him…but because the local authorities wouldn’t take action against them, the cattlemen kidnapped Jim and Ella and lynched them.

It was well known who did the lynching. There were even five witnesses. But they were all either shot or disappeared. So the trial never took place.

Now, most people have never heard of Ella Watson, because after her death she acquired another name.

The town’s people started protesting the lynching. So the cattlemen planted stories in local newspapers changing the homely prostitute Ella Watson into a gun slinging gang leader by the name of “Cattle Kate”. She became so famous her story was written-up in New York’s “Police Gazette.”

As the railroad headed west, towns grew up along side it. One of the more famous Western towns was named Buffalo City. However, that wasn’t the name under which it became famous.

It was the middle of July 1872 when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad reached a peddler’s camp by the name of Buffalo City, Kansas, located about five miles from the military reservation of Fort Dodge. Almost overnight tent saloons and gambling dens sprang up. Within a matter of weeks it was a town of false-fronted buildings. And shortly afterward the Buffalo City town signs were taken down and replaced with signs reading, Dodge City, after the name of one of the town fathers, Colonel Richard I. Dodge.

Because it was against the law to sell liquor in unorganized regions of Kansas, the Dodge City residents petitioned to organize the county of Ford. Interestingly, the petition contained the names of as many transients and railroad people as residents. Even though it was challenged, the state legislature, out of expediency, approved Ford County

Dodge City started out as a hangout for buffalo hunters. Then when the cattle drives and cowboys started coming north, with twenty saloons, numerous dance halls and houses of ill repute, Dodge City became known as the “Queen of the Cow Towns.”

Over the next few years the likes of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson and Belle Starr took residence there. But, they only stayed there temporarily, because fame had other places to go and other events in which to participate.

Dodge City only had about 3,000 residents at the height of the population. By 1885, a little over 15 years after it became a town, the railhead had moved on to other towns. The Chisholm Trail was being plowed under by wheat farmers, and the law was maintaining order, so Dodge City settled down and became civilized.

Celebrating the independence of our country was important even in the Old West.  And, as we shall see, people putting on the celebration in the 1800’s ran into the same problems as today.

In 1868 the Nevada mining camps of Hamilton and Treasure Hill comprised of a few hardy miners and even fewer women.  However, it was decided that they would have a 4^th of July celebration.

They formed the flag committee, the music committee and the dance committee.  The music committee’s job was simple, yet complicated.  There was only one man in town who had a musical instrument, a violin.  The complication was that he tended to get drunk.  So, they had to regulate the flow of whiskey to the musician.

The dance committee comprised of all the women in town…a total of two.  Like volunteer committees sometimes do, the flag committee waited until the last minute to get a flag.  And then it was to late to travel the 120 miles to the nearest store.  So, good ol’ American ingenuity took place.  They found a quilt with a red lining, and some white canvas material.  A traveling family camped nearby had a blue veil.  This was doubly good because the family included a mother and four girls…more women for the dance.  But the girls didn’t have shoes, making it impossible to dance on the rough planked floor.  So, a collection of brogan shoes was taken up among the miners.

On the 4^th of July, a parade formed at Hamilton and with the makeshift American flag proceeded to Treasure Hill.  Speeches were made.  Sentiment ran high.  They decided to form a new town called the White Pine Pioneers, and that the flag should go into the town’s archives.  Unfortunately, the town disappeared and the flag ended up being used as a bed sheet.

A friend said to me, “There aren’t any cowboys from Rhode Island.” I had to correct him by telling that there was a great cowboy who came from Rhode Island.

Abel Head Pierce was born in Rhode Island on June 29, 1834. At the age of twenty he stowed away on a schooner and ended up in southern Texas. Abel took a job for a cattleman named Grimes. Starting out doing odd jobs, Abel worked his way up to trail boss, taking cattle to New Orleans.

Abel Head Pierce was a 6 foot, 5 inch bearded giant of a man who had a habit of wearing spurs with extra large rowels, and strutting around town. Someone remarked that he looked like a Shanghai rooster, and he became Shanghai Pierce. Now, that’s a name any cowboy would be proud of.
After serving in the Civil War, Shanghai returned to Texas and started accumulating cattle. Shanghai went to Kansas for a couple of years…supposedly to let things cool down in Texas after lynching a couple of rustlers.

He ended up with a 250,000 acre ranch appropriately called the Rancho Grande. Obviously, he was a major factor in the Texas cattle industry.

Looking for cattle that would be resistant to ticks that caused problems with Texas cattle going north, and a breed that would produce more meat, Shanghai went to Europe and brought home some Brahma cattle, which he crossed with the Texas Longhorns.

By the end of the 19th century Shanghai Pierce’s Rancho Grande approached a million acres. When Shanghai felt his life was close to coming to an end he hired a San Antonio sculptor to make a larger than life statue of himself to be placed over his grave. Asked why, Shanghai responded, “I knew that if I didn’t do it, no one else would.”