I’ve been interested in the history of America’s Old West since I was a little boy. One of my favorite modern historians in that field is Tom Clavin. I’ve just finished his latest book, “Bandit Heaven: the Hole-in-the-Wall Gangs and the Final Chapter of the Wild West.” It taught me some things I didn’t know, and reminded me of some I did.
“Gangs,” plural, in the subtitle is not a misprint. More than one gang operated out of more than one “hole in the wall,” locations where law enforcement posses couldn’t approach without being seen in time for fugitives to either escape or set an ambush.
You’ve probably heard of the famous incidents in Coffeeville, Kansas and Northfield, Minnesota in which armed citizens shot it out with, and defeated, the Dalton Gang and the James-Younger Gang respectively. Clavin gives us another: in October of 1896 in Meeker, Colorado another bandit gang was wiped out by armed citizens, who killed all three. Two innocent citizens and a deputy were wounded by the thugs, but survived.
Clavin gives us interesting factoids like this: “The death of Henry Love, of the Colfax County Sheriff’s Department in New Mexico, proved that when your time was up, your time was up. During (a) shootout a bullet struck a knife that was in his pocket, causing the knife to cut him. He had used the knife to treat sick cattle with a form of anthrax and was thus infected with the disease. He succumbed to it four days later.”
I found “Bandit Heaven” an informative read, and if you’re into Old West history, I think you will too.