Keystone Hall, Laramie, Wyoming, 1868.
“Big Steve” Long allegedly served on the Confederate side of the Civil War before becoming a professional gunfighter. He landed in Wyoming in 1866, where he joined half-brothers Ace and Con Moyer in establishing a saloon in Laramie City. The Moyer brothers founded the town and appointed themselves justice of the peace and marshal, respectively. In 1867, Steve Long became deputy marshal.
Long quickly earned a reputation as an extremely violent lawman, killing eight men in gunfights within two months. Ruling with an iron hand, the trio meted out “justice” in the saloon’s back room, ordering ranchers to sign over deeds to their lands and miners to hand over their claims. Those who refused were shot to death by Long on the pretense that the victim reached for a weapon.
Steve Long Hanging.
Numerous others were killed when they objected to crooked card games run at the saloon. By October 1868, Long had killed thirteen men and was suspected of killing another seven who died under suspicious circumstances. The violence became so widespread that the townsfolk began to call the saloon “The Bucket of Blood.”
Meanwhile, a local rancher named N.K. Broswell began to discuss forming a vigilante group to put the trio out of business.
Long also moonlit as a thief, and on October 18, 1868, he tried to ambush and rob prospector Rollie “Hard Luck” Harrison. In the ensuing gunfight, Harrison was killed, and Long was shot. Though wounded, he made it home. While Long’s fiancée treated his wound, he confessed what had happened, and, incensed, she told N.K. Broswell. Wasting no time, Broswell gathered up several men in the town, and they stormed into The Bucket of Blood on October 28, 1868.
Seizing Long and the Moyer brothers, the mob dragged them to a partially finished cabin, where they began to string them up to the rafters. But before he could be strung up, Long asked the vigilantes to remove his boots. His last words were, “My mother always said that I would die with my shoes on.” He was hanged with his bare feet dangling.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
Also See:
Lynchings & Hangings of America
See Sources.