Tuck Hoover – Ranching Gunfighter

Cowboys at work on the Palo Duro Ranch near Fritch,Texas. in about 1900.

Texas Ranch.

Tuck Hoover was a south Texas rancher who was a difficult man that made a reputation as a gunfighter.

Known to have been hard to get along with, he was in and out of trouble over the years. Somewhere along the line, he met and befriended another gunfighter — Dallas Stoudenmire. By the mid-1870s, Tuck and his brother Buck were virtually inseparable friends with Stoudenmire.

Buck Hoover was known as a great fiddle player who often got gigs around Texas. As Buck made the rounds to various venues, Tuck and Dallas accompanied him, drinking, courting women, and dancing. The trio also attended horse races and dog fights.

At some point, Hoover got into a feud with the Sparks Brothers over open-range cattle near Eagle Lake, Texas in 1878. Backing his friend, Stoudenmire and several other men were riding with Hoover when they encountered a party of the rival Spark brothers near Alleyton, Texas, a small village near Eagle Lake. Within no time, an argument began when the group began to dispute the ownership of a herd of cattle. The dispute led to gunfire and the Sparks ranch hand Benton Duke and his teenage son Little Duke were killed. Another member of the Sparks group was wounded.

Dallas Stoudemire

Dallas Stoudemire

Some years later, Hoover got into an argument with saloon owner Jake Burtshell. On April 30, 1894, Hoover confronted him inside the saloon with a cocked pistol, at which point Burtshell went for his gun, and Hoover shot him. When the smoke cleared, the saloon owner was dead. Hoover surrendered to the sheriff in Eagle Lake, was tried for murder, convicted, and given a 20-year prison sentence. However, the sentence was overturned, and Hoover was released pending a re-trial. However, before Hoover was retried, he was approached by a local hard case named Jim Coleman, who drew a gun and shot Hoover to death.

©Kathy Weiser-Alexander/Legends of America, updated November 2021.

Also See:

Adventures in the Old West

Old West Gunfighters

Old West Lawmen and Gunfighters Photo Print Gallery

Texas – The Lone Star State

Sources:

O’Neal, Bill, Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991
Handy With a Gun