Tom Horn and terrorism on the range

When Tom Horn was about to be hanged on Nov. 20, 1903, he realized several people present were tense, including Laramie County Sheriff Ed Smalley. "Don't be nervous boys," Horn said. "You're only doing your duty." Two cowboy friends sang a song for Horn — "Life is Like a Mountain Railroad." Then a minister prayed for him. A hood was placed over Horn's head, and he stepped onto a trap door on the gallows. Then he dropped to his death — and into history and legend. Tom Horn — sometime Pinkerton agent; veteran of military campaigns against Geronimo and his Apaches; civilian mule packer during the Spanish-American War; stock detective and self-described killer — had many friends in Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona. But he had also developed powerful enemies. Historians still dispute whether he killed 14-year- old Willie Nickell in July of 1901 — the crime for which he was hanged. But there is little doubt he assassinated multiple suspected cattle rustlers at the behest of large ranch owners. Two of those murders probably occurred in northwestern Colorado's Brown's Park in 1900, when cattleman Matt Rash and African-American cowboy Isom Dart were both killed in an ambush...MORE