Barney Riggs - Infamous West Texas Gunfighter

TEXAS LEGENDS

Barney Riggs - Infamous West Texas Gunfighter

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Barney Kemp Riggs (1856-1902) - A West Texas gunfighter, Riggs originally hailed from Arkansas, where he was born on December 18, 1856. The second of seven children born to Thomas and Hannah Felton Riggs, the family moved to Texas shortly after his birth. There, the family would begin a history of violence that would last for decades. Not only would Barney grow up to be violent man, but, several of his brothers and descendants would as well.

His first killing allegedly took place when he was just 18 years old. Described as an accidental shooting, he killed a friend named Hugh Armstrong in Salado, Texas.

Five years later, in 1879, when the sheriff was looking for him to ask some questions, Barney took off instead. He was next in Cochise County, Arizona where two of his uncles had settled. He went work for his uncle Jim Riggs, working as a cowboy on his ranch. He soon met a woman named Vennie Hicklin from Dos Cabezas and the two married on February 21, 1882.

Barney Kemp Riggs (1856-1902)

At about the same time, he was said to have been involved in a number of criminal activities, mostly stealing horses in Arizona and Mexico. On one of these occasions, he allegedly killed two Mexican men when they got into a dispute with his cousin at a watering hole. Three women, who were with the Mexican men, were initially left unharmed. However, after leaving, he worried that the women would identify him, so he went back and shot them as well.

Despite these activities, or perhaps because of them, when corrupt Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan deputized a number of men to go after the Earps and other gunmen who were in the midst of their infamous “Vendetta Ride,” Riggs was one of the posse.

Riggs next victim was the stepson of his Uncle Jim, a man named Richmond Hudson, who was also his boss at the Riggs Ranch. After Barney had returned from a cattle-buying trip in Texas, he came home in September, 1886 to rumors that his wife had been having an affair with Hudson. When Riggs approached Hudson, the other man denied the story and Riggs let it pass for the moment. However, just a few days later, Hudson was heard to have boasted of his seduction of Vennie Riggs. On September 29, 1886, he was shot and killed by an unseen gunman.

However, the ongoing dispute between Riggs and Hudson was well known and Barney Riggs was the prime suspect. When a $250 reward was offered for Riggs’ capture, he took off into the mountains. Soon, Fred Dodge, a lawman in Tombstone , went after Riggs. Working with Deputy Sheriff Charley Smith, the two set up a surveillance overlooking the Riggs Ranch. After they spied a rider signaling Vennie Riggs from a hill overlooking the ranch, they captured the couple and took them to Tombstone .

Vennie was soon released but Barney was held for trial. During the first trail held on November 11, 1886, the jury could not reach an agreement, as several of them held that killing a man for making sexual advances on his wife was justified. A mistrial was declared and a second trial began the next month. This time Riggs would not be as lucky as the jury could not condone an ambush murder. On December 31^st he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life at the Arizona Territorial Prison in Yuma.

However, in October, 1887, when prison warden, Thomas Gates, was jumped by seven convicts in an escape attempt, his life was saved by Riggs. Somehow, the convicts had obtained guns and when the attack occurred, general melee broke out. The prison gates were closed but, as one of the convicts used Gates as a shield, Riggs snatched a gun from another escapee, and killed the convict holding Gates. Riggs bravery won him a pardon and he was released on December 31, 1887, just one year after his conviction.

Notorious killer Jim Miller

He then went to California, where his wife Vennie, along with their son, William Earl Riggs, were then residing. However, it was evidently too late for the couple and Barney soon took his son and went back to Texas, leaving his wife behind. He then formed a partnership with his younger brother, Tom, in operating a ranch about 30 miles west of Fort Stockton Texas.

In the spring of 1889, the Albuquerque Citizen reported that he had been arrested for killing a cowboy, but Riggs denied this ever happened and there is no record of him being jailed at the time.

There is also no record that he ever legally divorced his first wife Vennie, but Barney Riggs married again on September 23, 1891 to a woman named Annie Stella Frazer Johnson, the divorced wife of former Pecos County Sheriff, James Johnson, and the sister of George A. “Bud” Frazer, the Reeves County Sheriff. The couple would eventually have four children, but the marriage would be strained with difficulties.

In 1891, Riggs' brother-in-law, Sheriff Bud Frazer made the mistake of hiring the notorious gunfighter Jim Miller as his deputy. Suddenly, cattle rustling and horse theft increased up and down the Pecos Valley. Riggs pointed out to Frazer, that perhaps Miller should be looked at as a suspect. But, without proof, Frazer kept him on. However, when Miller killed a Mexican prisoner who was "trying to escape," Frazer began to investigate.

Riggs alleged that Miller had murdered the man because he knew where the deputy had hidden a pair of stolen mules. When Frazer found that Riggs was correct and located the stolen mules he immediately fired Miller. This would be the beginning of the deadly Frazer-Miller feud, which would last for the next several years.

In 1892, a corrupt man named Andrew Jackson Royal was elected as the the Pecos County Sheriff and soon hired Riggs as one of his deputies. Most often called A.J., Royal was a controversial figure from the start. Area citizens were initially split in their opinions. While some thought he was a tough lawman who worked hard to establish law and order, others thought he abused his power as sheriff, often terrorizing those who disagreed with him. During his two year term of sheriff, Royal got more aggressive and intimidating, and was accused of several assaults. Though it is unknown as to whether Riggs participated in these events, it would not at all be surprising if he did. When it came time for re-election in 1894, a bitter political feud erupted that necessitated the Texas Rangers coming in the quell the matter. In October, Royal along with his deputies, Barney Riggs, Camilio Terrazas, and John P. Meadows, were arrested by the Texas Rangers for conspiring to let a Mexican prisoner named Victor Ochoa escape from the jailhouse. Royal lost the election later that month and was assassinated in November.

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