Caching in Downtown Cheyenne 6/27/2010

We were off this morning into downtown Cheyenne to do some caching and some sightseeing. Our first cache was a NRV cache on a bridge over the highway. Next was a 2 stage multi cache in a small park, next was a cache under a bridge into the city by the Union Pacific RR tracks and next was a cache in an alley in downtown.

Next was a cache at the historic Whipple-Lacey House built in 1882. It was an ammo box chained to the front porch and had some kind of ties to Thomas "Tom" Horn, Jr. (November 21, 1860 – November 20, 1903) who was an American Old West lawman, scout, soldier, hired gunman, detective, outlaw and assassin. On the day before his 43rd birthday, he was hanged in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for the murder of Willie Nickell.
Horn's exploits as an assassin far overshadowed any other accomplishments he made during his lifetime, including during his time as a scout in tracking Apaches in southeastern Arizona Territory, southwestern New Mexico Territory, and into the states of Sonora and Chihuahua in northern Mexico along the Sierra Madre Occidental.
He left home as a young teen, probably in part because of an abusive father and his desire for adventure.
At sixteen, he headed to the American Southwest, where he was hired by the U.S. Cavalry as a civilian scout under Al Sieber and became involved in the Apache Wars and aided in the capture of warriors such as Geronimo.
Later, hiring out his skills with a gun, he took part in the Pleasant Valley War in Arizona between cattlemen and sheepmen, but it is not known for certain as to which side he was allied, and both sides suffered several killings to which no known suspects were ever identified.
He worked in Arizona for a time as a deputy sheriff, where he drew the attention of the Pinkerton Detective agency due to his abilities in tracking. Hired by the agency around late 1889 or early 1890, he handled investigations in Colorado and Wyoming, in other western states, and around the Rocky Mountain area, working out of the Denver office. He became known for his calm under pressure, and his ability to track down anyone assigned to him.
On one instance, Horn and another agent, C. W. Shores, captured two men for robbing the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (on August 31, 1890) between Cotopaxi and Texas Creek in Fremont County, Colorado. Horn and Shores tracked Thomas Eskridge (aka "Peg-Leg" Watson) and Burt "Red" Curtis to a house (the home a of man named Wolfe) in either Washita or Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, along the Washita River, without firing a shot. In his report on that arrest, Horn stated in part "Watson, was considered by everyone in Colorado as a very desperate character. I had no trouble with him".
His termination from employment, however, was not as a result of his killings. In Charlie Siringo's book, "Two Evil Isms: Pinkertonism and Anarchism", he wrote that "William A. Pinkerton told me that Tom Horn was guilty of the crime, but that his people could not allow him to go to prison while in their employ". More likely than not, this was due to the agency's desire to avoid negative press. Siringo would later indicate that he respected Horn's abilities at tracking, and that he was a very talented agent but had a wicked element.
Horn resigned from the agency, under pressure, in 1894. Over the course of the late 1890s he hired out as a range deputy US marshal and detective for various wealthy ranchers in Wyoming and Colorado, specifically during the Johnson County War, when he worked for the Wyoming Stock Grower's Association. In 1895, Horn supposedly killed a known cattle thief named William Lewis near Iron Mountain, Wyoming. Horn was exonerated for that crime and for another six weeks later, the murder of Fred Powell.
Although his official title was always "Range Detective", he actually functioned as a killer for hire. In 1900 he was implicated in the murder of two known rustlers and robbery suspects in northwest Colorado. Just prior to the killings, Horn had begun working for the Swan Land and Cattle Company. He had killed the two rustlers, Matt Rash and Isom Dart, while he was following up on what became known as the Wilcox Train Robbery, and he was possibly working freelance for the Pinkerton Agency when he did so.
During his involvement in the Wilcox Train Robbery investigation, Horn obtained information from Bill Speck that revealed which of the robbers had killed Sheriff Josiah Hazen, who had been shot and killed during the pursuit of the robbers. He passed this information on to Charlie Siringo, who was working the case by that time for the Pinkerton's. This information indicated that either George Curry or Kid Curry had killed the sheriff. Both outlaws were members of the Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, which was then known as "The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang."
He left that line of work briefly to serve a stint in the Army during the Spanish American War. Before he could steam from Tampa for Cuba, he contracted malaria.[10] When his health recovered he returned to Wyoming. Shortly after his return, in 1901, Horn began working for wealthy cattle baron John C. Coble.
On July 18, 1901, Horn was once again working near Iron Mountain when Willie Nickell, the 14-year-old son of a sheepherding rancher, was murdered. Horn was arrested for the murder after a questionable confession by Joe Lefors, an office deputy in the US Marshal's office, in 1902. Horn was convicted and hanged in Cheyenne in 1903. The prosecutor in the case was Walter Stoll.
During Horn's trial, the prosecution introduced a vague confession by Horn, taken while he was intoxicated. Only certain parts of Horn's statement were introduced, distorting the significance of the statement. Additionally, testimony by at least two witnesses, including lawman Lefors, was presented by the prosecution, as well as circumstantial evidence that only placed him in the general vicinity of the crime scene.
Glendolene M. Kimmell, a school teacher who knew the Miller family, testified on the Millers behalf during the Inquest. She further testified that Jim Miller (no relation to the Texas outlaw Jim Miller) was nervous on the morning of the murder. Jim Miller and the Nickell boy's father had been in several disputes with each other over the Nickells' sheep grazing on Miller's land.
In 1993, the case was retried in a mock trial in Cheyenne and Horn was acquitted.
It is still debated whether Horn committed the murder. Some historians believe he did not, while others believe that he did, but that he did not realize he was shooting a boy. Whatever the case, the consensus is that regardless of whether he committed that particular murder, he had certainly committed many others. Chip Carlson, who extensively researched the Wyoming v. Tom Horn prosecution, concluded that although Horn could have committed the murder of Willie Nickell, he probably did not. According to Carlson's book Tom Horn: Blood on the Moon, there was no actual evidence that Horn had committed the murder, he was last seen in the area the day before the murder, his alleged confession was valueless as evidence, and no efforts were made to investigate involvement by other possible suspects. In essence, Horn's reputation and history made him an easy target for the prosecution.
Tom Horn has the distinction of being one of the few people in the "Wild West" to have been hanged by an automated process. A Cheyenne architect named James P. Julian designed the contraption in 1892, earning the name "The Julian Gallows", which made the condemned man hang himself. The trap door was connected to a lever which pulled the plug out of a barrel of water. This would cause a lever with a counterweight to rise, pulling on the support beam under the gallows. When enough pressure was applied, this would cause the beam to break free, opening the trap and hanging the condemned man. Tom Horn was buried in the Columbia Cemetery in Boulder, Colorado.


Next cache was located on the top level of one of the parking garages in Cheyenne. It was a small electrical box with the cache inside of it and it was sitting on top of one of the light sensors. Next cache was at the new home of the Cheyenne Vineyard Church under the ramp up to the doors. The leaders at Cheyenne Vineyard Church say a series of blessings led them to their new home. The congregation now meets at the old Asher-Wyoming Wholesale Grocer building in Cheyenne's historic district. It's a 102-year-old red brick building at 1506 Thomes Ave., just steps from the Union Pacific railroad and a few blocks west of the Cheyenne Depot. The church takes up some of the second floor there, up a gray metal staircase, and shares the building with a few other businesses, office spaces and an art gallery.

Next cache was at a monument regarding the Cheyenne-Fort Laramie-Deadwood Stagecoach Trail. Perhaps the most historic stagecoach in existence is the famous Deadwood coach, which was carried for many years by Buffalo Bill in his Wild West shows all over America and Europe. Although not as significant as the Overland Stage, probably no stage line has attracted more attention than the Deadwood Stage, more properly, the Blackhills Stage and Express Line. The attack upon the Deadwood Stage was a centerpiece of Wm. F. Cody's Wild West Show, photo of Cody next to Deadwood Stage, left. The coach depicted was constructed by the Abbot-Downing Co., Concord, N.H. in 1863 and was shipped to the Pioneer Stage Co., San Francisco, around Cape Horn on the clipper ship General Grant. The coach was taken by Cody to Europe twice where it was billed as the "Most Famous Vehicle Extant." Among those given rides in the coach on its European tours was the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. The coach currently on an touring exhibit sponsored by a British museum is an original Deadwood Stage purchased by Col. Cody in 1911.
In the Summer of 1876 several attempts were made to reach Deadwood by stage from Cheyenne but turned back due to the danger of marauding Indians following their defeat of Custer at the Little Big Horn. On Sept. 25, however, Dave Dickey brought the first stage into Deadwood.
The stage line initially ran from Cheyenne via Horse Creek, Bear Springs, Chugwater, Chug Springs, Eagle's Nest, Fort Laramie, Rawhide Buttes, Hat Creek north of Lusk, Cheyenne Crossing and on up to Deadwood through Custer City. The line used both smaller coaches drawn by four horses and giant 18-passenger coaches pulled by six horses. The drivers often in arriving at their final destination would make "a show of it", thundering into town with the red and yellow Gilman and Salisbury coaches "licky-cut", pulled by a matched team of six horses.
With the stages carrying gold, the danger from road agents was always present, indeed, to such an extent that the line used a ironclad coach named the "Monitor" for transporting gold. The Monitor, itself, was held up by road agents on September 26, 1878, near Canyon Springs Station. The guard, Gale Hill, was wounded and one passenger killed. The agents had little difficulty in breaking open the supposedly impregnable safe used for carrying the gold. Hill died several years later from complications from his wounds. An armored stage known as "Old Ironsides" was also used for a three-year period on the Deadwood-Sidney run and was robbed only once.
During one two-month period the Deadwood stage was held up four times by the Sam Bass Gang, consisting of Bass, Joel Collins, Tom Nixon, Bill Heffridge and Jim Berry. The first driver killed was Johnny Slaughter on March 25, 1877, driving a stage bearing eleven passengers and $15,000. The stage was delayed by spring snow and mud and a breakdown five miles north of Hill City. Two miles outside of Deadwood road agents led by Sam Bass attempted to rob the stage a fifth time. In the process Slaughter was killed, the horses bolted, running off toward town only to be stopped when the lead horses became entangled in the leads. Slaughter's body was returned by special coach to Cheyenne, where his hearse was drawn by six dappled grays matching the team he had driven in Deadwood.
The gang fled to Nebraska where they robbed the Union Pacific train at Big Spring of $60,000 in freshly minted double eagles from the San Fransisco Mint, $450.00 from the mail car safe and $1,300.00 from the passengers. Following the robbery Collins and Heffridge were killed by a sheriff's posse near Buffalo Station, with $25,000 being recovered. Berry was captured at Mexico, Missouri and Nixon disappeared carrying, according to Berry, $10,000, never to be seen again. Another alleged member of the Bass Gang, Frank K. Towle, was killed later the same year while attempting to rob the stage. One of the guards on the stage, Boone May, upon his return to Cheyenne discovered that there was a price upon Towle's head. May then returned to the scene of the attempted crime, found Towle's remains, cut off the head, and returned with his gory proof to Cheyenne in order to collect the reward. Unfortunately, word had already gotten out about Towle's demise and the reward had been cancelled. Thus, May's trip was for naught and all he had for his efforts was a rather unusual souvenir. It has been written of May, reputedly the "fastest gun in the Dakotas," that "his corpses were invariably those of undesireable citizens, never of the law abiding."
Sixteen months after the killing of Slaughter, Bass was ambushed at Round Rock, Texas, by Texas Rangers to whom Bass was betrayed by Jim Murphy, a member of his gang. A compatriot, Frank Jackson, escaped with an indeterminate amount of gold coin, which Bass had being carrying in his saddlebags. Two days later on his 27th birthday, July 27, 1878, Bass died from gunshot wounds received in the ambush, his last words, "The world is bobbing around."
Others who traveled along the stage road included Martha "Calamity" Jane Cannary Burk, photo below, who achieved fame and, allegedly, her name as a result of her rescuing Capt. Egan from Indians at Goose Creek Camp (now Sheridan). Unfortunately, Calamity Jane, as a result of alcoholism was a continuous calamity. In 1874, she was working at a hog ranch five miles west of Ft. Laramie. She signed on for several military expeditions as a bullwacker but was fired when her gender was discovered. In 1876, she served several terms in the Cheyenne jail for disturbing the peace. She then drifted to Deadwood but, after James "Wild Bill" Butler Hickok's demise at the hand of Jack McCall, continued to drift. On one stage trip between Custer City and Rock Creek she was unable to pay her fare and her trunk was retained by the stage line. It was found to contain only clothes and a photograph of Hickok. Reportedly, the last place the trunk was seen was in the attic of the pump house at Ft. Steele.
She ultimately married Clinton Burk in El Paso by whom she had a daughter. In 1896, after returning to Deadwood, Burk departed town after embezzling money. Jane's daughter was taken from her and placed in a convent to be reared by the sisters.
In her "Autobiography", regarded today as primarily fiction, she claims to have driven the stage in after Slaughter's death. However, Wm. F. Cody, recollected that she told the same story with regard to a stage driven by one Jack McCall, allegedly wounded by Indians on the Deadwood to Wild Birch run. In 1901 Calamity Jane was found ill and drunk in a Negro parlor house in Horr, Mt. Two years later she died, delirious, in Terry, S.D with her last words being of her daughter.
The Rawhide Ranch was owned by Col. Charles F. Coffee whose home ranch was near Harrison, Nebraska. Coffee Siding, just across the Nebraska line near Van Tassell, was established by Col. Coffee. Cattle would be trailed to the siding from Niobrara and Goshen Counties in order to avoid higher freight rates for cattle shipped from Wyoming. At its peak as many as five train loads of cattle would be shipped daily from Coffee Siding. Today, Coffee Siding does not appear on many maps of Nebraska, although Van Tassell, one of the smaller municipalities in Wyoming, population either 8, 9, or 10 depending on who is doing the counting, remains on most maps of Wyoming.
The hog ranch at Ft. Laramie was not the only such establishment along the stage road. At Rawhide Buttes, south of present day Lusk, Mother "Featherlegs" Shephard kept a parlor where the lads could take their ease. She was called "Featherlegs" because her pantalettes gave her legs the appearance of chicken legs. In 1879 Mother Featherlegs was murdered for her money. In 1964 a 3,500 lb. granite monument was erected along the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage Road in her memory.
The Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage was not the only stage line that had problems with road agents and danger. In 1863, George Plumb, a young military officer had a harrowing journey on the Overland Stage. On July 7, 1863, he was a participant in an all day's engagement with the Ute Indians in South Pass, in which several soldiers were killed and several wounded. On his return to the fort he received orders to report to St. Louis. July 9, 1863, he took the stage. At Medicine Bow the Indians had destroyed the station and the driver refused to go on until Plumb agreed to ride shotgun. The station at Rock Creek was also destroyed and the stage was required to proceed on to the next station without a change of horses.
At "Cachlepowder" [Cache La Poudre] Plumb took the eastbound Denver stage [At Camp Collins, now Ft. Collins, a branch line from Denver met the Overland]. The stage had three passengers, one being David Moffat, a first cousin once removed of Webmaster's grandfather. At the Nebraska line, about two miles after Cottonwood Station, the coach was halted by road agents, but Moffat threw open the door on one side as did Plumb on the other. Both quickly climbed to the top while the driver whipped up his horses leaving the road agents in the dust. The rest of the journey was apparently uneventful.
The Blackhills route lasted only 11 years. Railroads reached much of the territory served by the line in 1886. Service was, thus, discontinued with the last coach, drawn by six horses and driven by George Lathrop accompanied by John Noonan, leaving Cheyenne from in front of the Inter-Ocean Hotel on Feb. 19, 1887. By that time ownership of the line had changed hands and was owned by Russell Thorp. The route had also changed, the Line's literature advertising service to Chugwater, Ft. Laramie, Lusk, Douglas, Buffalo and Deadwood.


Our last cache was a puzzle cache where we had 3 pictures taken from a site, that we had determine where and then find the exact spot from which the pictures were taken as they were all taken from the same spot and that was where the cache was located. Well after driving around and finding 2 of the locations we figured that the pictures had to be taken from a high place and where was a high place in Cheyenne that we could get to? AHA another parking garage. So we drove to the top floor of the other parking garage and started walking around with the pictures in our hands and sure enough we found the spot where they were taken and we looked down and there was the cache container in a cubby hole near the wall of the garage. It was a fun cache to do as it made you think and still was interesting. After we were finished we drove up and down, back and forth and up and down all the streets in the downtown historic area looking at the historic buildings and homes. Then it was on back to the coach for the rest of the day. Well that's about all for today so until next time we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick