O’Day was outlaw, but a comical criminal

That would be horse thief, bank and train robber, ladies' man and Wild Bunch front man Tom O'Day, whose legend - or lack thereof - is being perpetuated by Cody resident Ray Maple. Maple has high hopes that O'Day will one day be recognized for his colorful role in Wyoming history. O'Day's life of crime began when he took up the work of scouting out information in preparation for a bank robbery by the Wild Bunch. He did his snooping, and grew more and more thirsty as he waited for his outlaw friends. He tied up his horse outside a local bar and began swilling beer. By the time his friends arrived, O'Day was pretty pickled. "He was so drunk he couldn't get back on his horse," Maple says. It's one of his favorite tales. Lawmen went after all the outlaws, but they could only catch O'Day, whom they found stumbling around near the hitching post, inadvertently spooking the horses. Maple relates how another time O'Day was riding by a wealthy rancher's spread when 15 well-bred horses caught his eye. He probably figured they were unhappy in their present circumstances, so he decided to wrangle them into a better life. He herded them to a hideout on Copper Mountain. Unfortunately, the horses belonged to an ambitious and wealthy Wyoming rancher, B.B. Brooks. He noticed the absence of his fine horses, and lawmen soon followed the trail that led to O'Day, who likely felt he was merely taking part in a popular cottage industry of the time, namely, horse thievery. For that horse stealing he was sentenced to several years of state hospitality in Rawlins. A lone deputy was assigned to transport O'Day to court on one count of horse thievery. There would have been 15 counts, Maple explains, one for each of Brooks' stolen horses, except that the horses had been held at an area stockyard as evidence and, ironically, someone re-stole them from that facility. That still left the hot horse O'Day had been riding, which was evidence enough. He was sentenced to five years of state hospitality in Rawlins. Luck again turned on O'Day, who learned that Rancher Brooks had by then become Wyoming Governor Brooks, whose term began in 1903. Uh-oh. Tom O'Day, was now guilty of stealing horses from the governor...more