The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

  On January 22, 1878, a four-man board conducted a congressional investigation of the recent

  Salt War. A subsequent grand jury indicted six men, and the governor of Texas offered rewards. But all had found refuge south across the Rio Grande.

  .5&e akrj EL PASO, TEXAS; FOUNTAIN, ALBERT JENNINGS; JONES, JOHN B.

  EL PASO, Texas

  El Paso, in far West Texas, dates back to 1598 but did not become a community until 1849, and it did not become El Paso until 1859. The Civil War led to turmoil and shooting, but the El Paso Salt War of 1877 proved the initial bloodletting of significance. It started with a couple of killings downtown and then expanded when a group of Silver City, New Mexico, thugs were recruited by the Texas Rangers to restore order in the lower El Paso Valley.

  With the arrival of the railroads in 1881, gunmen, desperadoes, outlaws, and lawmen saw El Paso and the nearby Mexican border as their last refuge. El Paso thus became the man-killing capital of the American West, an era that lasted from roughly 1881 to roughly 1896. Some of the figures were John Wesley Hardin, John Selman, George Scarborough, Jeff Milton, Dallas Stoudenmire, Mysterious Dave Mather, Jim Miller, Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett, James Gillett, John R. Baylor, and Mannen Clements.

  Within 10 years of its desperado period, El Paso entered its Mexican revolutionary era. El Paso's sister city, Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, changed hands six times during the revolution, making it perhaps the most fought-over city in North America. Mexican revolutionaries and American soldiers of fortune thus became familiar sights on El Paso streets: Pancho Villa, Francisco Madero, Pascual Orozco, Victoriano Huerta, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Red Lopez. Thousands of Mexican refugees took refuge in El Paso, and many of their descendants still live there.

  Because of the Mexican Revolution, El Paso's Fort Bliss, originally an infantry post, expanded to the largest cavalry post in the United States. In World War I it became the largest artillery post in the United States, and later the largest air defense center in the world. Today El Paso, along with its Mexican neighbor Ciudad Juarez, are the two largest cities on the Mexican border. The border ruffians are gone, although smuggling, drugs, and illegal immigration currently provide federal, state, and local authorities with plenty of work.

  The El Paso, Texas, police force in 1895 (Author's Collection)

  EMORY, Thomas (a.k.a. Poker Tom) (?-1902?)

  Tom Emory was involved in two of the most notable happenings in the Old West-the capture of Billy the Kid and the 1866 shootout at Tascosa, Texas. During the late 1870s, a short, sandy-haired man rode into George Littlefield's XIT Ranch near Tascosa, in the Texas Panhandle. He said his name

  was Tom Emory, and he needed a job. He found it as a working cowboy.

  In December of 1880, Lincoln County, New Mexico, sheriff Pat Garrett pulled together a posse composed of Jim East, Lee Hall, Cal Polk, Bob Williams, Lon Chambers, Barney Mason, Louis Bousman, and Tom Emory. Garrett sought Billy the Kid, but at Fort Sumner all he got was Tom O'Folliard. On December 23, Garrett's posse trapped the Kid and others at Stinking Springs. Desperado Charles Bowdre died. The Kid and others surrendered and were taken to Santa Fe by way of Las Vegas.

  A few months later, in February 1881, Tom Emory and detective Charles Siringo rode into Fort Stanton, New Mexico, looking for signs of rustled cattle held by suspected thieves. That proved inconclusive, so Emory returned to the ranch after an absence of seven months. Shortly after that, Littlefield sold out, and Emory left the ranch to become a professional gambler in Tascosa. There he and a handful of others became involved on March 20, 1866, in what became known as "the big shootout." Three men died, and Emory was one of those charged with murder. Their first trial ended in a hung jury, the second in an acquittal.

  Tom Emory subsequently followed his vocation as a gambler in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and then in Roswell. When his health started failing during the mid-1890s, he moved to El Paso, Texas, where on his sickbed he talked with Pat Garrett, the tall slayer of Billy the Kid and now the collector of customs in El Paso. Tom asked Garrett to send for Tom's brother, hoping that maybe the brother would take him back home to die. Garrett did as requested, and Emory returned home, where he shortly passed away. He had played out his last hand.

  .S66a190: BILLY THE KID; GARRETT, PATRICK FLOYD JARVIS; LINCOLN COUNTY WAR; HALL, JESSE LEIGH; TASCOSA SHOOTOUT

  EVANS, Jesse J. (1853?-?)

  Jesse Evans is one of the many enigmas relating to the Wild West. He claimed to have been born in Missouri in 1853. One who knew him, Frank Coe, believed he was half Cherokee. Otherwise, Jesse Evans was blessed, or cursed, with a common name. A belief even exists that Jesse Evans was a graduate of the College of Washington and Lee in Virginia.

  Evans arrived in New Mexico around 1872 and worked as a cowboy for John Chisum. By 1875 he was a suspect in the Shedd Ranch murders of the Mes brothers in the Organ Mountains of southern New Mexico. On New Year's Eve, 1875, he and three other gunmen brawled with Fort Selden troopers at a dance. The soldiers won, but Evans and his

  friends returned around midnight and commenced shooting through the windows. A soldier and a civilian were killed; another civilian and three soldiers were wounded.

  Two weeks later, on January 19, Quirino Fletcher bragged that he and two friends had killed and robbed two Texans in Mexico. Later that night, a person assumed to be Evans put six bullets in Fletcher. In the meantime Billy the Kid fled Arizona, where he had killed Frank Cahill; while on his way to Lincoln, New Mexico, he paused for a few months in the Mesilla Valley, where he took up the practice of horse thievery. Both Billy and Jesse Evans may also have become involved in the subsequent El Paso Salt War, but at any rate the Kid went on to Lincoln and became a regular, while Jesse put in off-and-on appearances during the Lincoln County War. Jesse, for instance, signed up as a Lincoln County deputy and was one of the posse members who put bullets in Englishman John Tunstall. A grand jury indicted Evans for murder, he being first on the list. At the trial, Jesse testified that he had not even been in the vicinity of the Tunstall shooting-and went free.

  Shortly afterward, in mid-March, Jesse and Tom Hill tried ransacking the nearby sheep camp of a German herdsman, whom they shot and assumed they had killed. The herdsman made it to his rifle, however, and killed Hill. Then he shattered Jesse's right arm. Evans took refuge in the Shedd Ranch and from there was taken under arrest to Fort Stanton. He was released soon afterward.

  On February 18, 1879, Evans and friends met with Billy the Kid in Lincoln. The Lincoln County War was over by this time, its major participants either dead or scattered. The Kid sent Jesse Evans a note at Fort Stanton suggesting a talk. The two men, plus friends, met that evening in Lincoln and essentially agreed that from that moment on neither side would threaten or harm the other. Then, to celebrate the pact and to prove they were great friends, they went on a drunken spree, bumping into Huston Chapman, an attorney representing Susan McSween. By some accounts, Jesse Evans shot him, by others it was Billy the Kid. In this instance, not only did the bullet kill Chapman, but the powder set his clothes afire.

  On March 5, Jesse Evans was arrested, charged with Chapman's murder, and jailed at Fort Stanton. Within days he escaped. He now fled to Fort Davis, Texas, robbed a store, and on July 3, 1880, engaged in a gunfight during which he killed a civilian and a Texas Ranger, George Bingham. The rangers captured Evans and tried him for murder. He entered the Huntsville, Texas, penitentiary on December 1,

  1880. Then in May, while on a work detail, he escaped and vanished. All efforts to trace him from that moment on have come to naught.

  rC. BILLY THE KID; CHAPMAN, HUSTON INGRAHAM; EL PASO SALT WAR; LINCOLN COUNTY WAR

  FAN A Gun

  This happens only with a revolver: the shooter pulls the trigger all the way back and holds it there, while with the other hand he fans the hammer. The practice permits rapid but very inaccurate fire, except at pointblank range. The tactic is popular in Western fiction and movies, but as a practical matter no known outlaw or lawman
was stupid enough to try it.

  FARO (a.k.a. Bucking the Tiger)

  Faro was hands down the most popular gambling game in the Wild West, although gamblers rarely play it now. The game had its origins with King Louis XIV and entered the United States through New Orleans around 1840. It peaked in popularity during the 1880s.

  The game required three distinct pieces of equipment, beginning with a green cloth having an entire suit of spades painted on, all arranged in a shape similar to a horseshoe. A dealer's box, which never left the dealer's hand, was only slightly larger than the deck of cards inside. Finally, the dealer had a device called the "case keeper" that kept track of the cards when dealt from the box. The object of the game was to bet on the rank of the cards as they were dealt from the box, so odds and evens usually spelled the difference between winning and losing.

  Faro was an easy game to learn, and players came up with all kinds of occult systems, none of which

  helped but continuously sparked interest and gave hope. So why did the game die out? That was due primarily to the development of the "crooked box," permitting the dealer to slip two cards out at a time instead of one. Furthermore, Wyatt Earp is said to have taken the crooked box even a step farther, placing tiny pin holes in the center of each card, one that could be felt by the finger but was tiny enough not to be seen by the eye. When playing odds and evens, the dealer knew which was coming up next. Nevertheless, the game of Faro added picturesque phrases to the language, many of which are still used today"bucking the tiger," "you picked a sleeper," "a square deal," and "keeping tab."

  .Sr'r' ako; EARP, WYATT BERRY STAPP

  FAST Draw

  The fast draw is equated in the popular mind with the High Noon walkdown, made famous by movie star Gary Cooper. Two men stand roughly 50 yards apart, facing each other in the street, hands poised over six-guns holstered to the hips. Then at a certain signal, such as the ringing of the village clock, they draw their weapons and fire. The faster draw wins.

  Although Old West gunmen such as Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, and a few others are generally thought of as "fast guns," speed actually had little or nothing to do with their success or number of killings. Guns were awkward and sometimes undependable. Holsters were fine for saddle work, but in town most men carried their weapons in coat or trouser pockets, and sometimes inside their shirt. Most communities had laws, and most saloons had rules, against the open carrying of weapons, although many men kept pocket weapons conveniently out of sight. To draw quickly meant the possibility of a gun's hanging up in the clothes. The fast draw therefore was a myth. Who lived following a shootout usually depended upon who was the luckier. Some men just seemed to have more luck than others.

  FEDERAL Marshals and Deputy Marshals

  New territories in the American West invariably called for federal courts and for U.S. marshals and deputy marshals. They were the only lawmen. Initially, they handled every variety of crime, from shoplifting to train robbery, from rape and embezzlement to assault and murder. As areas became settled, however, with counties organized and civilian government taking over, U.S. marshals and deputy marshals became primarily officials of the federal courts.

  Public opinion to the contrary, the position of U.S. marshal in the opening of the West was practically always a political appointment, a reward that did not always have anything to do with law enforcement experience or ability. The post frequently became a political payoff to washed-up politicians, lawyers, or brothers-in-law, and the incumbent changed only through death or when political parties or personalities shifted in Washington. The toughest thing most marshals did was defend their congressional requests for more money, and explain away inquiries and accusations of fraud and embezzlement. In short, professional lawmen were almost never chosen for the position of U.S. marshal.

  U.S. deputy marshals, however, were appointed by federal marshals, and these officials usually handled the law enforcement caseload. These individuals were paid on a mileage and fee basis, and likely as not had steady jobs as deputy sheriffs, sheriffs, city marshals, or deputy marshals. These city and county lawmen considered the U.S. deputy marshal position and pay as supplemental income. Sometimes these deputy marshals held dual commissions for months or several times a year. While the public tends to think of them as enforcing federal laws, for the most part they eased the transition from territory to state,

  located witnesses, served subpoenas, sold condemned property, took the federal census, moved prisoners back and forth, and kept order during federal trials.

  In places such as Indian Territory (Oklahoma), U.S. deputy marshals provided practically the only law enforcement. Bass Reeves, a black man, did an exceptionally fine job. Some better known (occasional) U.S. deputy marshals were Wild Bill Hickok, Pat Garrett, and the Earp brothers.

  EARP, MORGAN; EARP, VIRGIL; EARP, WYATT BERRY STAPP; GARRETT, PATRICK FLOYD JARVIS; HICKOK, JAMES BUTLER; REEVES, BASS

  FEELY, J. H. (1868-1912)

  J. H. Feely, a father of six children, and the first sheriff of Culberson County, Texas, in the far western reaches of the state, miscalculated on just how hot the partisan political cauldron could boil during a crisp February afternoon at the county seat of Van Horn.

  J. Y. Canon, the Culberson County judge, had a long-standing political dispute with O. J. Hammit. One afternoon the hard feelings boiled over. The judge ducked behind a telegraph pole near the Texas and Pacific depot and commenced firing his Winchester at Hammit, who was himself armed with a double-barreled scatter-gun. Bullets were zinging, and buckshot was belching, all with little effect until Sheriff Feely, a dedicated lawman, intervened in an attempt to restore sanity to the town. However, the sheriff stepped between the two men, and judge Canon's rifle put a bullet through his heart. At about the same time, Hammit staggered and fell, a bullet in his right testicle and groin. Judge Canon, wounded in the hand from one of those shotgun pellets, dropped the Winchester.

  Famed cowboy preacher L. R. Millican eulogized at Feely's memorial service. In the meantime, Hammit and Judge Canon posted $5,000 bail bonds, while Culberson County citizens pondered the wisdom of seeking elected office.

  FERGUSON, Lark .S6 SPENCE, PETE

  FENCE-CUTTING War

  In 1883, fence cutting became epidemic in Texas, as some cattlemen preferred to graze on open range, while others purchased or otherwise acquired land and wanted to fence it in with barbed wire. In general, the fences encircled regions containing grass and water, which meant that neighbors who might have used that grass and water for decades were denied access. So when fences went up, a man's neighbors tended to cut those fences-and the war was on. By the end of 1883, damages were estimated at $20 million. At least three people had been slain, and the Texas Rangers were called out to restore order in some counties. In 1884, the Texas legislature made fence cutting a felony, and its punishment between one and five years in prison.

  S66 G.19c! BAYLOR, GEORGE WYTHE; TEXAS RANGERS

  FEUDS

  These can best be classified as wars between families, although sometimes just between individuals. They happened in all parts of the American West, though Texas seemed to have more than its share. Examples were the Sutton-Taylor feud, the Pleasant Valley War, and the Earp-Clanton feud.

  FIMBRES, Manuela (1868-?)

  Manuela Fimbres was the only female to serve time in the Arizona Territorial Prison as the result of a murder conviction, and while incarcerated she gave birth to a bouncing baby boy.

  Juan Enriquez and Manuela were escorted under the strap-iron sally-port gate and delivered to prison officials on March 30, 1889. The pair had been convicted of the cold-blooded murder of Ah Foy, a.k.a. "Sullivan of Tucson," a wealthy Chinese businessman. Enriquez was sentenced to 30 years. Manuela received 15. At the time she entered prison, Manuela had a secret-she was pregnant. The prison superintendent, John Behan, gave her the run of the prison, but when the pregnancy could be hidden no longer, Republicans gleefully pointed partisan fingers
at Democratic prison administrators, implying that they, or perhaps one of the prisoners, had fathered the child. Obviously that had not happened, as a normal boy was born to Manuela on October 26, only six or seven months after she entered prison.

  Despite a plea to the governor from the Catholic Church, Manuela at first failed to obtain an early release. But on September 24, 1891, when the prison was under Republican control, Governor Murphy

  granted her and her son a pardon. His stipulations were that she "immediately go beyond the boundary lines of this Territory [Arizona], and that she remain forever outside its limits, otherwise this grant of freedom and pardon shall be void."

  A kindly prison executive's wife gave Manuela and the boy a week's provisions. They disappeared without a trace, but no one ever completely quashed the rumor that she was pregnant again when she walked out of the prison gate to freedom.

  See (JARGD BEHAN, JOHN

  FISHER, John King (a.k.a. King Fisher) (1854-1884)

  John King Fisher was a frontier dandy, but not a superficial one. With black hair, strong teeth, and mustache, he stood about five foot ten or eleven and weighed about 185. One of his friends described him like this:

  Fisher was the most perfect specimen of frontier dandy and desperado that I ever met. He was tall, beautifilly proportioned, and exceedingly handsome. He wore the finest clothing procurable, the picturesque, border, dime novel kind. His broad-brimmed white Mexican sombrero was profusely ornamented with gold and silver lace. His fine buckskin Mexican short jacket was heavily embroidered with gold. His shirt was of the finest and thinnest linen and open at the throat, with a silk handerchief knotted loosely cwound the wide collar. A brilliant crimson sash wound around his waist, and his legs were hidden by a wonderful pair of chaps as cowboys called them-leather breeches to potect the legs while riding through the brush.