The Virginian said:
fromolwyoming said:
LasCrucesPoke said:
Makes me want to round up an old fashioned posse.
Interesting little note on that, Laramie actually does have a history of rounding up a posse and lynching criminals when they wouldn't put up with those criminal's shit.
Here's a page about vigilante actions in Laramie:
Click Here
Laramie's "Hell On Wheels" past is pretty fascinating stuff. Bit of
Gangs of New York on the frontier. I've spent quite a bit of time digging into it, including hearing some interesting oral history accounts from several, since-passed Laramie natives including T.A. Larson.
The article isn't quite accurate as to where the Moyer Gang was hanged- it was actually an unfinished cabin just south of what is now Kearney along what would become Third Street. Steve Long was discovered hiding in a UP building a few hours later and was subsequently strung up. All of them were actually strangled to death, hauled up by their necks, not dropped to the end of the rope.
Prior to the events of October, vigilantes had lynched an associate of the gang now known only as "The Kid" right behind what is now Dodds Shoe Company for the robbery and murder of a miner near Dale Creek. Moyer was suspected of running a pretty wide-ranging organization (he was also, at the time, not a self-appointed marshal, but the mayor) that was involved with claim-jumping, armed robbery, livestock theft, and the robbery and murders of numerous customers of his saloon. Anyway, Moyer and his minions doubled down on their activities for the rest of the Summer and into October. It was the robbery and murder of a tie-hack in the Laramies between Laramie and Cheyenne that supposedly triggered the October vigilantes, who met and organized in the Tivoli Beer Hall (where Elmer Lovejoy's now sits) the week before the mob action. That's kind of the accepted historical version based on records. However, there's some things that don't add up...
Several of the old-timers I spoke to said there was heavy speculation that there was someone behind Moyer and some other local outlaws who were run out of town, but subsequently lynched in Colorado within about a year of the events of '68. For one thing- there's some uncertainty as to Steve Long's loyalty to Moyer. He was serving as an assistant marshal prior to Moyer's pseudo-legitimate elevation to Mayor (there are several references to an election he supposedly won). There was also the matter of a rather strange episode in which Long, supposedly wounded during the robbery and murder of the tie-hack in October, sought refuge with a local whore and confessed his crime to her, and her supposed attempt to turn him in to Nathan Boswell, who was one of the leaders of the vigilance committee (and would go on to be one of the most feared lawmen in the territory and state). There was also the matter of someone firing a shot early that gave warning to the people the mob was after. It wasn't just Moyer's saloon that was to be raided- there were around ten teams of approximately twenty men each that were to raid various locations. The shot that was prematurely fired resulted in many of the other Hell-On-Wheels denizens that had hung on in Laramie to clamber aboard a couple of UP flat cars and were subsequently hauled down the tracks. Moyer and his gang were actually trapped in their saloon after trying to hole up and return fire to the crowd that swelled to around a hundred after the other teams gave up on their assignments. Now here's where it gets really interesting- Boswell and most of his main guys, once Moyer and the other two were hanged, headed up into the area between Tie Siding and the old town of Sherman (roughly where Ames Monument now is) looking for Long. By several accounts, Boswell was looking to take Long into protective custody. It was while Boswell was up there that someone found Long in the UP building in the railyard near University Avenue. Some of the men Boswell had left in Laramie acted like Boswell and tried to take him into custody and away from the mob, but when the mob began to turn on them, they surrendered him and he was hanged just to the south of the old UP Railroad Hotel that stood on the west side of First (Front) Street roughly between Ivinson and University. When Boswell got back to town early the following afternoon he was very dismayed at what had happened to Long. In short order, however, with no real competition or objection, Boswell was appointed town marshal and was elected county Sheriff, and he pursued the matter no further.
The questions that were raised by Larson, et al, were- who was Moyer and the gang selling their stolen livestock to? Where did many of the deeds they stole pass to before they wound up recorded to people other than Moyer or his people? Who fired the premature shot? If Boswell (and others) did, indeed intend to take Long into custody (as opposed to hanging him the same as Moyer and the others), why? There was some pretty serious speculation that one of the now-respected, and perhaps even revered town fathers or UP bosses had benefited greatly from Moyer, et al's activities, and that Long's lynching was to silence the last person who knew about this connection.
Any way, that's the short version of things. For some good reading on these events and others, I recommend
The Front Streets of Laramie and
Saints and Sinners, both by Gladys Beery, and
Boswell: the Story of a Frontier Lawman, by Mary Lou Pence.
