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Tom Horn was born near Memphis, Scotland County, Missouri on November 21, 1860. He was hanged for a murder he probably did not commit the day before his 43rd birthday, November 20, 1903, in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Life
Tom Horn left home as a young teen, probably in part because of an abusive father and his desire for adventure. He headed to the American Southwest, where he was involved in the Apache Wars and the Pleasant Valley War between cattlemen and sheepmen.
He worked as a Pinkerton's agent in Colorado, Wyoming, and other western states.
Over the course of the late 1890s he hired out as a stock detective for various wealthy ranchers in Wyoming and Colorado. He has been implicated in the murder of two known rustlers in northwest Colorado in 1900.
In 1901 he happened to be in the area where the 14-year-old son (Willie Nickell) of a sheepherding rancher was murdered. It occurred in the Iron Mountain country of Wyoming.
Tom Horn was tricked into making a dubious "confession," convicted and hanged in Cheyenne.
Execution
Tom Horn has the distinction of being one of the few people in the "Wild West" to hang himself. A local inventor had designed a special gallows, which made the condemned man hang himself.
The trap door was connected to a lever which pulled the plug out of a barrel of water. This would cause a lever with a counter-weight to rise, pulling on the support beam under the gallows. When enough pressure was applied, this would cause the beam to break free, opening the trap and hanging the condemned man.
On the morning of November 20, 1903, after a large breakfast, Tom Horn was led to the gallows, where straps were buckled around his arms and legs. By all accounts, Tom was the least nervous of anyone at the event, even to the point of half-way joking with the sheriffs gathered to witness the hanging. A noose was fitted around his neck, and the bound Tom was lifted onto the trap-door, which started the 'machine'. Thirty-one seconds later, the trap-doors opened and the life of the range detective was over. His body was claimed by his brother, Charles, and transported to Boulder, Colorado. Tom Horn is buried in south-east corner of the old Columbia Cemetery, in Boulder.
Films
Tom Horn would later be the subject of the two movies: Tom Horn (1980) based on his life starring Steve McQueen and Mr. Horn (1979) a made for TV movie starring David Carradine.
Cast for the 1980 film, Tom Horn
- Steve McQueen as Tom Horn
- Linda Evans as Glendolene Kimmel
- Richard Farnsworth as John C. Coble
- Billy Green Bush as U.S. Marshal Joe Belle
- Slim Pickens as Sheriff Sam Creedmore
- Peter Canon as Assistant Prosecutor
- Elisha Cook Jr. as Stablehand
Cast for the 1979 made-for-TV movie, Mr. Horn
- David Carradine as Tom Horn
- Richard Widmark as Al Sieber
- Karen Black as Ernestina Crawford
Further reading
- Dean Krakel, The Saga of Tom Horn, Powder River Publishing, 1954
- Chip Carlson, Tom Horn: "Blood on the Moon" -- Dark History of the Murderous Cattle Detective. High Plains Press, Glendo, WY, 2001
External links
- Tom Horn website
- (1980)
- (1979)
1860 births | 1903 deaths | 1980 films | American murderers | People executed for murder | People from Missouri | Western films
"Tom Horn"