Bad Men of the Black Hills

this episode of the history guy brought to you by nordvpn [Music] [Music] in february of 1881 james fowler who sometimes went by the nickname fly spec billy was in custer south dakota in a saloon drinking and causing trouble he got in an argument with a teamster in the bar and shot the man dead movies might exaggerate the number of gun fights that occurred in the wild west but it could still be a place of extreme violence and more than a few people who are trying to make their living through crime and for every butch cassidy or billy the kid there were dozens of lesser-known outlaws who never quite gained the notoriety to become well famous people like fly spec billy or his sometimes companion lame johnny and yet even these lesser-known outlaws can tell us something about life in the wild west history that deserves to be remembered and speaking of bad men it always seems that there's some bad men out there trying to get a hold of your data history deserves to be remembered but that doesn't mean that you want fly billy digging through your browser history face it it's crazy today to surf the internet without the protection of a vpn and at the history guy we use nordvpn and thank you to the good folks at nordvpn for sponsoring this episode and helping our channel take control of your internet today by going to nordvpn.com the history guy and using the code the history guide to get a very special deal a two-year plan plus four additional months at a huge discount and that's all risk-free with nordvpn's 30-day money-back guarantee how many times have you gotten a notice that your data is at risk it's simply insane today to surf without a vpn and we here at the history guy use nordvpn nordvpn has a partnership with the top cybersecurity consulting firm to ensure your data gets the best next generation encryption important features such as a strictly no logs policy and an automatic kill switch so that your ip address isn't accidentally exposed even if your vpn disconnects and nord has thousands of super fast servers in over 60 countries allowing you to enjoy the internet with no limits or borders you can easily switch servers which allows you to do cool things like see shows like the big bang theory on netflix it's on the netflix uk but not here in the united states or what a ms history guys favorites black books not on netflix in the us but available on netflix australia and nordvpn is honestly crazy easy to use it's got a user-friendly chrome browser extension it's got android and ios apps it's got 24 7 customer service and it's got that great 30 day money back guarantee take control of your internet today go to nordvpn.com the history guy and use the code the history guy to get that very special deal two years plus four additional months at a huge discount the black hills are full of legends of the west after the discovery of gold miners businessmen and fortune seekers flooded into the region the town of custer was actually set out before the region was officially open to white settlement men were interested especially area because the earlier custer expedition reportedly found gold on french creek which passes through modern-day custer the town was named by the earliest arrivals although there was some disagreement of whether it should be called stonewall after confederate heroes stonewall jackson or after custer and not because of custer's last stand which hadn't happened yet or because he led the expedition that found the gold there but for his service in the civil war most of the settlers were veterans of the war and it turned out union veterans outnumbered former confederates it's possibly the first permanent american settlement in the region custer boomed large by may of 1876 there were an estimated 10 000 people living in ramshackle huts and cabins in the area but discovery at gold at deadwood pulled nearly everyone away as she was 14 people remained in custer although there were about 100 by the end of the year the town was on the far frontier and before 1890 supplies had to be freighted to the town via ox pulled wagons from places like sydney nebraska and cheyenne wyoming the town was designed with wide 100 foot streets specifically to allow enough space for the wagon teams to make u-turns in 1876 a group of prospectors discovered the homestake deposit a large disposit of gold near modern deadwood in leed south dakota the claim was bought for seventy thousand dollars by a trio of mining entrepreneurs a year later the owners pulled equipment from the nearest rail head at sydney nebraska and began working the deposit digging deep mines despite the remote location an 80 stamp mill was built to pound ore dug in the processing the home stake mine was open continuously until 2002 was the largest and deepest gold mine in north america produced 40 million 20 ounces of gold during its lifetime the homestake mining company became one of the longest listed stocks on the new york stock exchange beginning in 1879 until the company was acquired in 2001 george hearst one of the owners and the principal manager of the mind in its earliest years and the father famous newspaperman william randolph hurst was himself a good representation of the kind of cutthroat business and lawlessness that often punctuated life on the frontier he purchased numerous adjacent claims legally but he acquired others in courts and at least one man who wouldn't sell his claim was killed by a hearst employee that employee was acquitted when witnesses failed to appear in court hearst bought newspapers in nearby deadwood to influence local opinion but he feared for his own life when an opposing editor was attacked in deadwood he wrote a letter to his partners asking that his family be provided for if he was killed but ultimately hearst would escape the black hills alive and very rich the homestake mine ran its riches from deadwood via treasure coaches on stage lines to railroad locations like cheyenne wyoming where it could be taken to the east and stored in secure banks stage robbers were an unfortunately common part of life in the 1870s in a two-month period one gang robbed a stage line coming into deadwood four times in 1877. the stages pulled out all the stops to protect their valuable shipments one of the coaches that transported gold was the steel-lined monitor which had portholes to fire from and an iron safe that was supposedly so difficult to open without the combination that robbers would need days to get it open on september 26 1878 the monitor left deadwood loaded with gold a driver telegraph operator hugh campbell and three guards around the same time a band of outlaws was making their plans to rob the coach they rode into canyon springs station 37 miles southwest of deadwood in modern wyoming they locked the station attended in a room and hid nearby stages would only stay a short time at stations like these mostly to change out horse teams the driver and the guard riding shotgun jumped down from the coach to investigate the absence of the attendant only to be ambushed one guard galen hill was seriously wounded while campbell was killed in the volley the gunfight that ensued was brief but vicious gang member big nose mclaughlin was killed and another member reportedly injured the bandits still eventually managed to get the guards to give up the couch and commandeered it they opened the safe so much for being impregnable and discovered that they had just made a once in a lifetime hall inside the safe was hundreds of dollars worth of jewelry diamonds 3 500 in currency and 700 pounds of gold dust nuggets and bullion the stage company estimated the value of the stolen goods at 140 000. equaled about 3.8 million in inflation adjusted 2021 dollars although the value of the gold is likely to have been considerably more than that exactly who all was involved in the robbery wasn't clear but one of the prime suspects was a person called lame johnny born cornelius donahue he supposedly got good grades at the gerard college in philadelphia not a university but a primary school for poor white male orphans according to its charter apparently he was uninterested in academia and made his way out west as a cowboy he called himself john hurley among other names he had a pronounced limp which would lead to his nickname he may have gotten the injury as a child in a horse accident as was often reported or some other way he once told a doctor that he'd been shot through the legs but others have speculated that he had contracted polio he left for east texas where he became a cowboy for a time his condition seemed to make the work hard for him and at some point he turned to horse thievery stealing horses for resale his occupation got him into trouble in texas and so he wandered north eventually settling in south dakota where he got a job as a sheriff in custer county the reports we have suggests that he performed his job well and eventually got a job doing bookkeeping for the homestake mine telly was recognized by a texas acquaintance and lost the job afterwards he seems to have turned back to crime first to horse thievery and then putting together a crew for state dropping if he had done the books for the homestake mine he likely knew just how much money was often transferred on the treasure coaches and local papers reported that the coaches sometimes carried as much as 240 000 in a single load when the rob coach didn't arrive at jenny station relief messengers essentially hired guns rode out from the station one of them was boone may a well-known gunman called the fastest gun in the dakotas and first cousin of the wounded stage guard galen hill they met one of the treasure coaches guards riding towards them to report the robbery and all four of the gunmen rode to canyon springs where they found the coach abandoned and empty the surviving members of the coach's crew were tied up and left in the woods nearby upon investigation someone claimed to have recognized johnny at the robbery possibly because of his injury and soon the mind was offering a hefty reward and sending posses and detectives out all over the black hills in search of johnny or any of his crew but whether they identified the right man is a matter of some debate lame johnny had another acquaintance that he had worked with before called lame bradley besides big nose mclaughlin none of the other rubbers seem to have been positively identified either although al spears was sentenced to life in prison after confessing to firing the shot that killed hugh campbell regardless men were on lame johnny's trail he appeared again near pine ridge was attempting to steal more horses there he was tracked down by whispering smith a detective who arrested him johnny was jailed at shadra and nebraska for a time until they loaded him up on a stage and headed for trial they had a blacksmith fashioned leg shackles which were then riveted to the metal plate to test the floor of the stagecoach one of the coaches guards was jesse brown who described what happened on the ride smith was one of the coaches guards everything went along all right up to buffalo gap when looking out towards the foothills to the west we could see a horseman riding parallel to us at a swift gallop johnny became nervous about the man when brown asked why john responded that i think i recognized him as boone may at buffalo gap brown changed horses and rode further behind the coach we'd reached a small creek that's now called lame johnny creek when sure enough i heard the old familiar command halt brown thought it was likely either a hold up or some of johnny's gang come to free him so he dismounted and tried to sneak up on the coach but before he reached a voice called out go back don't come any farther and he stopped smith appeared a few minutes later asking to take brown's horse to recon order the area brown walked up to the coach to find that the shackles been pried up from the floor and johnny was hanging from a nearby elm a victim a vigilante justice the area has been reported to be placed where johnny robbed another coach legend says that johnny refused to give up the location of his treasure johnny's body was discovered the next day by a group of men led by pete osland they cut johnny down and buried him lame johnny's reputation has its own controversy a number of writers have claimed that he was basically an innocent man killed for no reason while others are sure that he robbed the coach at canyon springs and possibly others at least one scholar suggested the crew that robbed the canyon springs coach was led by charles carey who was only a few years later also hanged as for johnny's treasure some weeks after the robbery the mine reported that 60 of the stolen goods had been recovered but several gold bars remain unaccounted for rumors remain that it's buried somewhere in the area i grew up in the black hills and we were always told that lame johnny's gold was buried under a flat rock along the stream i turned over a lot of flat rocks in my youth johnny wasn't the only member of his crew to find a similar bad end another acquaintance in possible robber was flyspec billy described as a desperate character an outlaw connected with lame johnny billy was born james fowler but became known as fly spec billy because of his unkept appearance and a sprinkling of dark freckles on his face he hung around the black hills reportedly stealing horses and committing other crimes some with lame johnny in february of 1881 he begged to ride aboard a coach with some freighters led by abe barnes said he was trying to get to custer barnes let him join him they arrived in custer that afternoon and billy went to saloons and establishments generally making a nuisance of himself billy was able to get barnes to give him his pistol after claiming he needed to be able to defend himself fly spec billy then went about with a gun about every man who saw him during that evening had the pistol stuck in his breast the custer chronicle reported he later reportedly fired the gun three times demanding that a man drink with him later in the night he returned to a barnes who was playing billiards the words come take a drink and the shot were simultaneous billy shot barnes dead right in the saloon barnes cried oh i am shot and ran a few steps before he fell over dead killed by his own pistol billy attempted to flee but was hit over the head and knocked out cold was said directly into the arms of sheriff code after his arrest code held him for hours at a nearby saloon before attempting to transfer the prisoner but found himself and several deputies overpowered when they tried to bring fowler to the sheriff's cabin fly spec billy was taken towards the nearest tree as rapidly as 20 men could haul him and strung up near french creek the custer county chronicle reported that it was the most thrilling and exciting scene that custer has witnessed no one was ultimately charged because no one would identify any of the attackers to give you an idea how complex the wild west was daniel boone may who developed such a reputation as a lawman in the black hills eventually immigrated to south america where he was hunted as a murderer killing first a peruvian army officer and then later a brazilian man in a fight over a woman he reportedly died there of yellow fever the stories of lame johnny and fly spec billy are representative of hundreds of other stories in the wild west the black hills robbers were often pursued across state lines some of them were killed in gun fights some were brought back to trial but others found vigilante justice at the end of a rope saying that the wild west was lawless might mean that it was a place where there was opportunity for crime but it also meant that vigilantes could punish criminals outside of a system of justice which is its own kind of lawlessness i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 127,528

Rating: 4.9642577 out of 5

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, south Dakota, black hills, custer, wild west, true crime

Id: IN5M4Zd2vQI

Length: 14min 56sec (896 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 25 2021