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KS 66285
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Old West
Lawmen - Last Name Begins with "L"
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Joseph "Joe" S. LaFors
(1865-1940) - Born in Paris,
Texas
in 1865, LeFors grew up to be a cowboy and after driving a herd to
Wyoming
in 1885, stayed there. Later he would become and inspector-detective
responsible for tracking stolen cattle in
Wyoming
and Montana.
In the process he was involved in a number of gunfights. In 1899, he
rode with a posse sent to capture those responsible for the Willcox
Train Robbery and was appointed as a
U.S. Deputy Marshal the same year. In this capacity, he pursued a
number of train robbers and other
outlaws
in the northwest. In 1901, he became famous for arresting and
documenting a confession from the former
lawman
turned hired killer,
Tom Horn. Horn was later tried, sentenced to die and hanged. In
1902, Lefors was working for the Iron Mountain Ranch Company in
Helena,
Montana, allegedly with the intention of infiltrating a gang of
cattle rustlers. However, he was unsuccessful in aiding with the gang
and was fired in 1904. Afterwards, little is known about his life,
other than he died on October 1, 1940 and is buried in the
Willow Grove Cemetery in Buffalo,
Wyoming. |

U.S. Deputy Marshal
Joseph LaFors became famous
for arresting and documenting
lawman
turned hired
killer,
Tom Horn's, confession
This image available for
photographic prints and downloads
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John
M. Larn (1849-1878) - Born in Mobile,
Alabama on March 1, 1849,
Larn
traveled to
Colorado as a teenager where he found work as a ranch hand.
However, he was almost immediately in trouble when he argued with his boss
and shot and killed him sometime around 1869. Fleeing through
New Mexico,
he killed a sheriff who he thought was trailing him. Next, he went
Fort Griffin,
Texas,
where he got a job as a trail boss and killed two Mexicans and a sheep
herder while running his cattle up to
Colorado.
Afterwards, he got involved in a tough
vigilante group called the
Tin Hat Brigade, he allegedly earned so much respect from the town
that so badly needed law enforcement, that they elected him sheriff.
Larn soon
deputized an old friend,
John Henry Selman. However,
these two were not what they appeared to be. Instead of controlling
the area crime, they controlled the
vigilantes,
rustling cattle and otherwise terrorizing the county. But it did not last
long. Those very same
vigilantes
finally locked
Larn
in his own jail and shot him to death.
More ...
James Franklin "Bud"
Ledbetter (1852-1937) - Ledbetter was born and raised in
Arkansas
where he began his career as a
lawman and served as a deputy sheriff in
Johnson County. Gaining a reputation as a fierce fighter who was hard on
thieves and killers, he was soon recruited as a
U.S. Deputy Marshal. Working under Morton Rutherford, who was in
charge of the eastern Indian Territory District, he moved to
Oklahoma.
Ledbetter was quickly known for his gunfighting skills and is credited
with single-handedly brining in four members of the train robbing
Jennings Gang. He later became the Police Chief of Muskogee,
Oklahoma.
Isaiah W. Lees (1830–1902) - Detective, San
Francisco, California.
Police Department.
Ras Lewis - See
Willard Erastus Christianson
William Sidney "Cap" Light (1864–1893)
- Light served as an exemplary Deputy
marshal, in Belton,
Texas and Temple,
Texas before
joining up with his brother-in-law, the notorious Soapy Smith, in Denver in
1891. When Soapy moved is criminal operations to Creede,
Colorado,
Light joined him, becoming the deputy marshal. In this capacity, he helped the
"King of Frontier Conmen" become the "boss" of the city. After killing a man,
Light quit the Soapy Smith Gang and returned to Texas.
More ...
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Lighthorse Police (1844-1889) - The
Indian
Police in
Oklahoma
were given the name Lighthorse by the Five Civilized Tribes when the state
was still
Indian
Territory.
As early as 1808, when the
Cherokee were still located in the southeast,
they appointed "regulators" to stop crime, protect widows and
orphans, and kill those who resisted authority. The tradition
continued after the
Cherokee
were forced on the "Trail
of Tears" to
Indian
Territory
and was taken up by the other "civilized" tribes including the Chickasaw,
Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes. The police force got its name from Revolutionary War hero, General
Henry Lee who was called "Lighthorse
Harry" due to how quickly his cavalry responded to conflicts. The first official Lighthorse Company was formed in 1844 by the
Cherokee
National Council. Composed of a captain, lieutenant and twenty-four
horsemen, the men were tasked with the pursuit and arrest all fugitives
from justice before turning them over to the
Indian
courts for trial and punishment. Though history tends to focus on
the
U.S. Deputy Marshal's
activities in
Indian
Territory,
the Lighthorse Police were just as important and their tales,
unfortunately remain mostly "unsung." When the Five Civilized
Tribes lost their tribal lands in the late 19th century, the Lighthorse
Mounted Police were disbanded. However, today, some tribes still use
the Lighthorse name for for elements of their police forces.
Seldon T. Lindsey (1854-19??)
- Reared in
Louisiana, Lindsey's family moved to McClennan County,
Texas after his
father returned from the
Civil War. Upon settling down, Seldon's
father established a law practice and in 1870, at the age of sixteen,
Seldon found work as a
cowboy. Over the next several years he worked on a
number of cattle drives to the
Kansas railroads. He also spent some time
hunting buffalo, where he had the opportunity to meet
Buffalo Bill Cody on
two occasions. In 1881, he married and the couple would eventually
have eleven children. Appointed as a
U.S. Deputy Marshal in 1890, he
worked out of Paris,
Texas and was involved in a number of gunfights as he
brought in
outlaws
for sentencing. On June 8, 1894, Lindsey, along with
U.S. Deputy Marshal
Loss Hart, shot and killed
Bill Dalton, the last of the
Dalton Gang.
Steve Long, aka: Big Steve - A
lawman
and
outlaw,
Long ran the "Bucket of Blood"
saloon in Laramie City,
Wyoming
and appointed himself assistant marshal. Long and his two partners were lynched
on October 28, 1868. More ...
Harry Love (1809–1868) - Love
was said to have known
Davy Crockett and Sam Houston in his boyhood and had a brother who
died at the Alamo. He fought in the Blackhawk
Indian War
in 1831 with Abraham Lincoln, and later in the Mexican War in 1846.
He was also a scout, an army express rider, a
Texas Ranger,
and an explorer of the Rio Grande in 1850. He then moved onward to
California,
but after failing to make his fortune in the gold fields, he became
a deputy in Santa Barbara,
California.
On May 11, 1853,
California
Governor John Bigler signed a legislative act authorizing the organization
of a band of
California Rangers under the command of Captain Harry Love. Their
purpose was to capture or kill the infamous bandito
Joaquin Murrieta,
ringleader of a gang of men believed to be responsible for much of the
cattle rustling, robberies, and murders taking place in the Mother Lode
region. In July of 1853, the Rangers came across the group of bandits near
Arroyo Cantúa in San Benito County and in the ultimate gunfight, killed
two of them who were allegedly the famous
Joaquin Murrieta and his right
hand man, Three Fingered Jack. Love was killed in June, 1868
in Santa Clara,
California when he was in a wrestling brawl with a man named Christian
Ivorson. During the scuffle, Harry's own pistol accidentally
discharged into his armpit and Love died the next day.
Continued
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Index
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From the Rocky Mountain General Store
Saloon
Style Advertising Prints - What were on the walls of the
saloons in
the Old
West? Likely, much of the same as those you find today -
advertisements for liquor, beer, and tobacco. Plus the "decadent"
women of the time. In our
Photo Print Shop, you'll find dozens of photographs for decorating
your "real"
saloon or den in a
saloon type
atmosphere.
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