Never Caught Twice by Matthew S. Luckett;

Author:Matthew S. Luckett; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS036040 History / United States / 19th Century, HIS036090 History / United States / State & Local / Midwest (ia, Il, In, Ks, Mi, Mn, Mo, Nd, Ne, Oh, Sd, Wi)
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Cheyenne County

Cheyenne County witnessed a more dramatic shift in its crime statistics. Sidney’s early history more closely corresponds to the “Wild West” stereotype than North Platte’s, both in terms of reputation and documented fact. However, there is little evidence that North Platte’s relatively more violent counterpart witnessed any comparable escalations in horse theft. Between 1872 and 1880 the Cheyenne County District Court adjudicated approximately seventy crimes. Half of these indictments were for violent crimes, and eleven defendants faced trial for murder. Two other suspected murderers never made it to trial: mobs lynched Charles H. Patterson and Charles Reed in 1875 and 1879, respectively. Several others escaped justice, extralegal or otherwise: of the 211 people buried at Sidney’s Boot Hill cemetery between 1867 and the end of 1882, at least 30 died as a direct result of violence. The most common non-violent crime during this period was horse theft, with nine men standing trial for stealing geldings, mares, or mules. But since four of the men were tried in pairs, the grand jury only issued seven separate indictments. “Pedro,” a local vaquero, would have also likely faced trial for stealing a horse, but the sheriff shot and killed him as he tried to escape. Four other cases involved cattle theft or horse stealing–related crimes, including two defendants who were accused of breaking horses with the intent to steal them. Notably, the court also arraigned three men for malfeasance in office and adjudicated several disputed elections.10 This suggests that Sidney’s early leaders, like those of many other frontier towns, had a fondness for graft and abuse of power.

After a tumultuous first decade as a “wild and wooly” railroad town, by 1882 the community had settled down considerably. During the next eight years only 19 percent of the district court’s cases concerned murder, felonious assault, or assault with an intent to kill. The number of defendants accused of murder dropped by half, even though the county’s population had more than tripled between 1880 and 1890. The court only arraigned one man for assault with an intent to kill, as opposed to nine defendants facing similar charges before 1881, suggesting a dramatic reduction in the number of brawls and barroom fights. Meanwhile, non-horse-related property crimes skyrocketed: the court indicted nine men for grand larceny, five for burglary, and four on forgery charges. The number of horse-stealing indictments declined as well, from seven to five.

Between the lower number of horse theft arraignments and the county’s fast-growing population, Cheyenne County’s falling rate of horse stealing echoed similarly dramatic declines in Lincoln County. Not only did just five men face horse-stealing charges in district court, but the justice of the peace dockets suggest that few horse-stealing cases were dismissed prior to being referred over to the district court for trial. Robert Shuman served as a justice of the peace in Sidney from 1884 through 1887, and his court near Sidney heard over 170 cases during that time. Of those cases 126 were criminal complaints. The vast majority

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