MY 50-STATE STRATEGY

LEAVE THE BOTTLE, TAKE THE GLASS:  “Hey, Barkeep……Unhhh, Barkeep….?”

SOME INSIGHT ON SOME OUTLAWS

SITE OF THE WORLD’S FIRST rodeo in 1883, Pecos, Texas seems today to be a quiet municipality of about 10,000 citizens.
Once a stagecoach depot and a regular stop along a Pony Express route, it remains a railroad town. Hard by the Pecos River, its surrounding farming area is nationally known for its cantaloupes and onions.
It seems sedate now, but a lot has changed since …

Scene of the 1896 shootout.

When one enters the West of the Pecos Museum  on the site of the old Orient Hotel, you are directed first to the saloon. It was here at this bar on Oct. 2, 1896, that outlaws John Denson and Billy Earhart, members of “Deacon Jim” Miller’s gang were shot and killed in a Wild West showdown with all-round Pecos good guy Barney Riggs.
Miller, a Texas Ranger and reputedly devout family man who moonlighted as a murder-for-hire hood, had brewed up this plot to eliminate Riggs, one of the town’s top law-abiding citizens.
According to local lore, the “Deacon” had used his sham church-going ways to worm himself a badge from the Rangers. He was a double-threat (stop me when this sounds too much like the Boston FBI office, OK?). Using his badge as cover, he could slap you in handcuffs or a slam you with a six-gun – smiling just the same. Known as meanest outlaw in West Texas and New Mexico, the bloodthirsty Miller appeared to genuinely delight in murder. In pursuit of a buck, he reportedly killed over 20 “white men” and an untold number of Mexican men along the border. Always suspected, never convicted, he was tried numerous times, but escaped punishment time and again.
Miller was in Pecos the day of the showdown, but he was sure his two top underlings could handle Riggs.
He was wrong.
The two thugs, allegedly in Pecos to take in a circus, were rumored to be gunning for Riggs, gossip Riggs himself had heard. As Riggs arrived, the pair offered the crowd at the bar a drink on the house. Only Riggs accepted – a sure sign trouble was afoot. The barroom cleared out.

Riggs, left, and Miller.

Riggs was ready for this fight: previously he had slipped a steel plate inside his shirt to act as an improvised bulletproof vest. As Riggs lifted his shot glass to his mouth, Earheart drew on him. Steely-eyed, Riggs shot him dead. With both men now on the move, Denson fumbled his gun as he made for the door. Riggs let him have it too. The law moved in, including the Sheriff of Pecos, Buck Frazier, who had already tangled twice in gun battles with the “Deacon” with both men escaping death. Riggs, as he requested, was quickly tried and the jury found he acted in self-defense.
The backbone of his gang broken after the gun battle, Miller moved on to Fort Worth, Texas, continuing his criminal crusade. In 1908 at Las Cruces, N.M., Miller engineered the bushwhacking of Sheriff Pat Garrett, the man who “outgunned” Billy the Kid (more to come on this subject in a post to follow). Miller was later hanged from the rafters inside an Oklahoma barn with three co-conspirators after the murder of a prominent citizen there.
Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, Riggs had not fared much better. The solid citizen and hero of this morality play, Riggs was himself gunned down in 1901 after a dispute with his own son-in-law went sour over in Fort Stockton, Texas.



Some examples from the extensive saddle collection.



Bullish on Pecos!

The museum itself, located within the old hotel, has three floors devoted to memorabilia and photos and was painstakingly restored. It’s a good take, worth at least twice the $4 admission. One can wander through the old hotel rooms stuffed with Wild West artifacts, the telegraph and railroad offices, the saloon, the dining room as well as rooms recreating the sheriff’s office and the doctor’s and dentist’s offices with their instruments (Ouch!), local churches and some West Texas homesteads and get a real feel for how the cowboys and their families of the Old West survived and prospered. Of particular favor were the rooms that contained the saddles, spurs, branding irons and six guns the old cowpokes used in everyday life. Also of note were the rodeo rooms, where the spare and worn equipment makes one realize just how rough the initial rodeos must have been.


CLICK FOR SLIDESHOW

 One amusing side exhibit contained whittled wooden figurines of key U.S. Presidents from The Founding Fathers to JFK and Nixon, created by George M. Cowden. The display was then on loan from The Presidental Museum of Odessa, Texas. For a quick peek, click on slideshow link at right...
  Pecos was also the base for Judge Roy Bean, “The Law West of the Pecos,” and there is substantial reference to him here as well as artifacts and a replica of his “courthouse-billiards hall" next door to the museum.


The Republic of Texas reached

 north nearly to Yellowstone

 in Wyoming.

It was here in Pecos that the notorious Bean allegedly "bumped into" Lillie Langtry, a British actress and mistress to several members of English royalty, including King Edward VII. Bean later named a Texas town in her honor.

Some very shiny rifles here.

Pecos is well known its "hanging judge," who got the Hollywood treatment in 1972 with Paul Newman in the title role but, after just a brief tour, one senses Bean is just one part of the story.
Three of the elderly volunteers at the museum approached me separately to make sure I viewed the gun collection, of which they seemed very proud. And rightfully so: it contained a slew of vintage rifles and handguns under glass which had been collected and spiffed up to the point where, on many of the guns, you could see your own reflection on the firearm's metal.
The Texas Rodeo Hall of Fame is located in a section of the building. It will move across the street into a restored railroad depot in the near future, when it is expected to greatly expand. The West of the Pecos Museum, however, will retain its substantial in-house rodeo collection.
For more, go to http://www.westofthepecosmuseum.com/

The hanging judge, inset, and his courthouse and billards hall in replica outside the museum.