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John Allen - A gunman
and gambler, Allen had been in
Dodge City,
Kansas
prior to making his way to
Trinidad,
Colorado. There, he ran into an "old”
Dodge City acquaintance and gambler,
Frank Loving. Allegedly the two had been
arguing for some time over loans the two had made to each other. On April 16,
1882, their argument came to a head in what is known as the
Trinidad, Colorado Shoot-out, in which Allen shot and killed
Loving. Charged with murder,
John Allen was tried
in September, but was found not guilty and walked away a free man. Later
he headed back to
Dodge City
and eventually became a street preacher and traveling evangelist.
Joseph Allen (18??-1909) - A
gunfighter who was involved in a bitter feud in Ada,
Oklahoma, was later arrested for the murder of Gus Bobbitt. On April 19,
1909 a
vigilante mob of 150-200 men stormed the jail, and dragged out Allen,
along with Jim Miller, Jesse West, and D.B. Burrell. The four were hanged in
an abandoned barn behind the jail.
Robert A. "Clay” Allison (1840-1877)
- Allison was said to have killed at least fifteen men, moving between
Colorado,
New Mexico and
Texas. He was killed near Pecos,
Texas when he was run over by his own wagon on July 1, 1887. See full
article HERE.
Hugh Anderson
(18??-1873) - The son of a wealthy Bell
County,
Texas
cattleman, Anderson followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a
cowboy and
driving the herds up the
Texas Trails
to
Kansas.
Though he came from a good family, he was prone to running with a rough crowd
and in 1871, this would become extremely evident. That year, while working on a
trail drive bound for Newton,
Kansas,
he allegedly helped
John
Wesley Hardin to track down a man named
Juan Bideno, who had killed a friend of
Hardin's.
When Bideno was found in Bluff City,
Kansas,
Hardin
shot him.
By August, 1871, the
cowboys had arrived in
Newton,
where one of Anderson's friends, a man named
Bill
Bailey, was shot and killed
by another man named
Mike McCluskie.
On the evening of August 19, 1871, Anderson confronted McCluskie in Tuttle's
Dance Hall and shot him, which instigated one of the largest gunfights in the
Old West - the
Hide Park Gunfight, also known as the Newton Massacre, which left in its
wake several dead and wounded. In the melee, Anderson took two shots to his leg,
but would survive. Though a warrant was issued for Anderson's arrest, he was
smuggled out of town by his father and friends.
Anderson then returned to
Texas to
recover from his wounds. In the meantime, Arthur McCluskie,
Mike's brother, wanted revenge against Hugh Anderson
and for the next two years, Arthur and his friends kept a lookout for Anderson.
In 1873, Anderson made the mistake of returning to
Kansas,
where he was working as a bartender at Harding's Trading Post in Medicine Lodge.
Arthur McCluskie soon tracked him down and on July 4, 1873 he sent a man into
the trading post to invite Anderson to a dual. Giving Anderson a choice of
weapons -- either guns or knives, Anderson chose pistols and soon emerged from
the trading post. In a particularly brutal dual, both men emptied their guns
into each other, but amazingly were still alive. They then resorted to knives
and in the end, both were dead.
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Reese Anderson - A
cowboy
and vigilante, Anderson worked for the
Granville Stuart Ranch in
Montana during a time when the area was rampant with cattle rustlers
and bandits. In 1884, Grantville formed a vigilante group, known afterwards as
"Stuart's Stranglers
,” and Anderson became its leader.
Within just weeks, Anderson led a group of some two dozen volunteers to track down the
many outlaws hiding out in the area between the Musselshell and Judith Rivers.
In the end, they caught and hanged some 23 men that they caught red-handed with
stolen cattle or horses.
William Anderson -
Anderson was a drunken gunman who lived in a
Delano, Kansas, a small town just outside of Wichita. His excessive drinking and
tendency towards gunplay had him constantly at odds with the law. In the spring
of 1873, Anderson and several other men were involved in an argument in a
Wichita livery stable. Within no time, the confrontation turned to gunplay and
one of Anderson's shots went wild, killing an innocent man just passing by.
Though, Anderson was arrested, he was later released when the death was ruled
accidental. Several months later on October 27, 1873, Anderson was in "Rowdy
Joe" Lowe's saloon when
Edward "Red" Beard, who owned a saloon
next door, burst into the bar with his guns blazing. Beard had argued with one of the "ladies" in his own saloon
when she fled into Lowe's place. Instead of hitting his intended target, Beard shot one of Lowe's "girls."
Lowe then grabbed his shotgun and began to fire at Beard, who staggered outside. As the bullets were flying, Anderson got
caught in the crossfire, taking a load of buckshot in the eye, permanently blinding him. Anderson spent the rest of his days sitting outside cowtown saloons,
with his hat in his hands and begging for coins.
Continued Next Page
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