Tom Horn

Horn was born near Memphis, Missouri on November 21, 1860. In 1863, he and his parents moved to Ohio. He ran away from home at 14, possibly after a disagreement with his father. He first worked on the railroad in Kansas, then joined a freighting team traveling to Santa Fe. From there, he got a job with the Overland Stage line delivering the mail from Santa Fe to Prescott, Arizona. He also worked as a night herder near Camp Verde. While there, he learned to speak fluent Spanish and Apache.

At San Carlos, he joined the Indian scout Al Sieber as a Mexican interpreter on the Apache reservation. While there, he met Mickey Free, the famous one-eyed Apache-Mexican scout, who became his good friend. During that time he was a liaison between the army at San Carlos and Fort Apache. That October he and Ed joined the cavalry at Fort Whipple. This was the group that captured Geronimo the first time. After that Horn worked for the Tuly, Oches, and Company of Tucson, supplying beef to the Apache at San Carlos.

In May 1880, the Apache War broke out. Tom rode 32 miles to Fort Thomas to alert the army of the trouble. Horn acted as scout for these troops. He was also chief scout for a force led by Captain Crawford, when they crossed the border into Mexico to recapture Geronomio in 1886. He played an important part with his knowlegdge of Apache in trying to barter with the Indians. The Indians, including Geronimo, finally surrendered after a council was held in 1886. The Indians were transported in boxcars to be imprisoned in Florida. They were not allowed to return to their homeland until 1906. Horn had a few jobs after that, then became a Pinkerton detective.

He was responsible for bringing in "Peg Leg" Watson and Joe McCoy, notorious train robbers. The Denver & Rio Grande Railway had been held up between Cotopaxi and Texas Creek (Colorado?) about 1890. Horn and C.W. Shores trailed the robbers through the Sangre de Cristo range, through the Villa Grove Iron Mines, down to Trinidad, through the Texas panhandle, and into Indian Territory in Oklahoma. They finally caught up to them there at a shack near the Washita River. One of them was going by the name of Wolfe. His real name was Burt Curtis. Shores headed back to Denver with him while Horn sat down to wait for Wolfe's partner to return. Several days later, Watson showed up, and Horn captured him. Horn had suspected that Joe McCoy had been involved and tried to get Watson to reveal McCoy's part. But Watson denied McCoy had been a part of it. However, he gave enough clues that Horn was able to find him. He took McCoy in anyway, because he was also wanted for a murder in Fremont, Colorado. Both went to trial. McCoy only got six years for involuntary manslaughter and was paroled in three. Watson and Curtis got life in a Detroit prison. The extra time was justified because they had supposedly tampered with federal mail, though in actuality they hadn't even touched it.

Horn got bored by this work and left the Pinkertons in 1894. He went to work for the Swan Land & Cattle Company in Wyoming as a hired gun. His victims were rustlers and other homesteaders who tried to break up the free range. The "cattle barons" had grown tired of seeing the courts let rustlers go free, so they hired men like Horn to "take care of them." Why did Tom suddenly go bad? Some speculate that it was just the times. He had spent a lot of time with the army, where they attitude was that the only good Indian was a dead one. Perhaps this cheapened the importance of human life. He had just joined forces again with the most powerful force in the land.

His "legitimate" job with the cattle barons was as a bronc buster. But he missed the times of the Apache War when his adversaries were was skilled as he was. So when the Spanish-Americans War broke out in 1898, he enlisted. He contracted malaria in Florida, so he never saw action. In July 1900, he returned to his old stomping grounds for a little while. Then in the spring of 1901, he went to work for John Coble, owner of the Frontier Land & Cattle Company, at Iron Mountain, Wyoming. He looked out for rustlers there too. While there he charmed Glendoline Myrtle Kimmell, a local schoolteacher.

During that time, 14 year old Willie Nickels was killed. His family and the Millers had been dueling after the Nickels had brought in sheep to graze. Horn was immediately suspected, but he seemed to have an alibi. But Joe LeFores, U.S. Marshall in Cheyenne kept after it. He trapped Horn into admitting that he had killed Nickels himself.

His trial was in the fall of 1902 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The cattle barons paid for his defense, Union Pacific general counsel John W. Lacey, also a onetime Wyoming chief justice. It was a sensational trial to a packed house. On October 23, 1902, the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to hang. In August 1903, while in jail waiting for the appeals, he attempted to escape. He and another inmate, Jim McCloud escaped about 8:40 a.m. after overpowering the deputy. They only got two blocks away before they were caught.

Then rumors began that his cowboy friends were going to break him out of jail. The army was called in to guard the jail. People came by train loads to witness an escape or an execution. Horn's lawyers fought to the last moment to save him. Miss Kimmell provided evidence that someone else had shot the boy, but no one would believe her.

On November 20, 1903 he was hanged. At the last minute he gave his autobiography to Coble, who had it published about a year later. His body was taken to a Boulder, Colorado cemetery, where family posted guards to prevent his body from being dug up and displayed.

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Last updated: 3/18/99