The Saga of No Man's Land as seen in 1888 and 1889 : Early historical facts and stories of Beaver City, Oklahoma, Cimarron Territory, the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Beaver Okla.: Published and distributed by The Herald-Democrat, 1969

CHAPTER III
THE JAW WAS SHOT

Although during the first summer of its existance Beaver City had no more houses than would in the east constitute a cross roads village there was enough of what the cowboys called life about it to satisfy the cravings of an Eastern metropolis. The trains of freighters had passed up and down the old trail which formed Douglas Avenue, the main street of the city, in undiminished numbers, while the drivers tarried to rest their teams, but not themselves, longer than before. The news that a new city had been formed brought the cow boys from every ranch and range within 100 miles and thus, while the population numbered not more than twenty-five or thirty souls, there was not infrequently a floating population of 100 and upward, chiefly men. Floating is scarcely the word to describe the population temporarily there, but the English language contains no word fit for the occasion. If they floated it was on a sea of alcohol. If they sailed or flew the breeze that wafted them on was heavy with the fumes of tobacco and the smoke of gun powder. If they drifted they were stranded at the shortest of intervals on bars not built of sand.

The cowboy as he reached the brow of a low hill to the south of the town or crossed the Beaver to the north, spurred his horse into his wildest gallop, drew his six shooter and with screams and yells fired his weapon. Scarce checking the speed of his horse the cowboy rode thru the open door followed by the group of loiterers about the door and not infrequently by larger groups from about other doors and thereupon the new arrival ordered and generally paid for enough liquor to irrigate the crowd. Irrigation in this kind of climate makes a wonderful growth of vegetation on the farm and the hilarity in the saloon. Having no more pleasing method of working off their hilarity, the cowboy generally went out on the street and drove everybody inside to shelter by shooting their revolvers in all directions about the street. Hundreds of bullets were sent flying about the streets every day and night, and the front of all the buildings that were standing in these days are cut and bored through in many places by the deadly missels. It is a matter of which, the Beaver City man always boasts, however, that nobody was accidently shot in the town.

It was not until August that any one was purposely shot. The victim's name was Richard Roberts, though he was called Dick Davis. Roberts drove up from Tascosa, Texas, bringing two young women for t he dance house. He was one of the wild west show cowboys, with long hair and no end of fancy trimmings to his clothes and swagger to his gait. He was around town for two or three weeks, and began to think he owned it. However, while standing on the west side of the street opposite the dance house telling how great he was, some of his audience, disgusted with his bragging, said "Shoot the Jaw."

There upon a man literally shot his jaw, there was a flash of a revolver held by Soap Read, also of Tascosa, and a 44 calibre bullet crushed through both sides of Roberts lower jaw. The bone was splintered into nearly a hundred pieces, and every tooth but one on each side was knocked out of his mouth and fell on the ground.

Roberts clasped his hands to his face mumbling, "God, I'm shot", and fell fainting. The by standers caught him and carried him into Jim Donnelly's saloon, where Dr. J. A. Overstreet, the first physician who located in No Man's Land, picked over seventy small splinters of bone out of the wound and bandaged him up as well as possible. Roberts was kept at the expense of citizens for three months and then he was able to leave town. His only reward for those who cared for him was a return to the town where he jumped a claim of Widow Poggenberg. When notified to "let out that job" he stole a couple of horses and escaped the committee that followed. He is now with a gang of horse thieves said to have their headquarters in Squaw Canyon, near Rabbit Ear Mountain in the west end of No Man's Land.

CHAPTER V
THE FIRST EXECUTION

There is no way of learning who was the first man killed in No Man's Land, for no doubt a great many died here by violence at the hands of the Indians before Beaver City was thought of. Very likely a number were killed in the Strip by white men, but the first two who were killed as a punishment for crime, and as a warning to evil doers that the people of Beaver City might dwell in peace were O. P. Bennet and Frank Thompson. They were, as the people here say, executed. To one who hears the story from the executioner it seems as though they were murdered and in a brutal and cowardly fashion, whatever their previous crimes may have been, and that some other motive other than the desire to preserve the peace of the community animated the people who were dead.

As has already been told Bennet was one of the proprietors of the first dance house in No Man's Land. The business died out before Christmas, in 1886 Bennett and Charley Tracy put in a stock of dry goods, groceries, etc., in the building which had been used as a dance house. The change of business did not increase the popularity of the proprietors with the young men, who had recently remembered the old business with sorrow, nor did it improve the morals of the proprietors. The first grievance against Bennett grew out of his old business.

The first against Thompson was the stealing of a rifle. Thompson broke into a room occupied by Addison Mundell and took a Winchester Mundell had Thompson's house searched for it witout success, and Thompson swore he would shoot Mundell for making the search. He met Mundell in front of the post office one day and got the drop on him, but Rube Chilcott, a stalwart frontiersman, grabbed Thompson's six shooter before it was discharged. Rube was anxious only for the lives of innocent by standers of whom there were a number including two or three ladies.

The next of which Bennett was guilty was an attempt to steal a pair of mules. The mules were brought down the trail from Kansas with the harness on, and stopped at the livery stable for feed. Tracy saw them, and concluded they were stolen and determined to "round them up." They let the man ride away with the mules and an hour later got on their horses and with six shooters loaded started after the outfit. They followed the trail to the farm of Thomas Pemberton. The mules were in the corral there. "Is the owner of them mules here?" asked Bennett.

"Yes," said Pemberton, as he was standing in the door of his house. Well, we want him." "What for," "The mules are supposed to be stolen and we want the man and the mules."

Pemberton disappeared in the house. When he came out again he had a Winchester rifle at his shoulder. "You can have the man or anything else you want," said Pemberton.

They didn't want the man or anything else except to get back to town as soon as possible. The man was a friend of Pemberton and had come down after a wagon he had borrowed.

Some weeks later Bennett and Tracy drove Mr. Hinton off a couple of lots on which be was building a house because Hinton would not be blackmailed.

Bennett's last act of this kind was after Thompson stole Mundell's rifle. He went upon a claim adjoining town on the south side which George Scranage had plowed around. Bennett furnished Thompson with such lumber as was necessary to the building of a small dug-out, and in this age had no right to any claim save the one he was living on elsewhere. Thompson had a perfect right to improve and live on this one, but Scranage wanted it for a brother-in-law named W. J. Kline. As a matter of fact, Thompson wanted merely to make Kline pay blackmail for he did not move on the claim until he heard Kline was coming.

Kline and Scranage took the matter before the respective Claim Board, nominally, but really before the business men of the place. The meeting was public, was well attended, and everyone was free to make speeches, a privilege of which many availed themselves. Thompson pleaded his right to take up any unoccupied claim. Scranage argued that Kline was a settler in good faith, and Thompson a boomer. Thompson said (truthfully too) that Kline had come merely to get hold of a claim and never work the land. Bennett and the two Tracys were there to side in with Thompson, but the citizens were almost unanimously against the four and for Kline and Scranage. The previous misdeeds of Thompson and his friends were retold with marked effect.

At the fifth meeting which was held on the night of March the 1st, 1887, it was determined to oust Thompson from the claim the next day and the determinations were carried into effect by those who had rendered the decision against Thompson. About 11 o'clock on the mor-ning of the second Scranage and Kline and a chum of their named L. N. McIntosh, who had helped Scranage in taking up claims to which he was not entitled, got a gang together, which included Addison, Mundell and a tough of the toughest character named W. P. or Billie Olive. Bill was as a matter of fact, himself executed some months later.

Armed with rifles, shot guns and six shooters, the gang started up the trail to go to the dug-out and drive Thompson out. Mundell was the last man to start up the trail and was some two hundred yards behind the rest.

He says when going along the trail he heard his name called, and on looking around he saw Thompson over at the house west of the trail, where he got his meals. Thompson had come down for an early dinner, had put his pony in the stable and was on his way to the house. Mundell said that Thompson said:

"You ---, are you going to that claim? I'll stop you now," and raised the Winchester.

No one else heard Thompson say that or anything else; and it is not likely that a man of Thompson's experience would have been so slow with his rifle as he must have been to enable Mundell to get in the first shot. Mundell said he whirled around as he heard the words brought his rifle to his shoulder and fired, shot Thompson through the right knee, all while Thompson was trying to take aim.

"I throwed my gun down and pulled as a man would shoot a bow and arrow," said Mundell in telling about it.

Two eye witnesses told the Sun reporter that when Mundell saw Thompson come from the stable door he ran behind a low sod wall at the side of the trail, and thence shot Thompson, who was walking unsuspiciously homeward.

When Thompson was shot he fell to the ground but managed to crawl into his house. The woman who was living with him called Dr. O. G. Chase. The doctor found the knee completely ruined and amputation necessary. He therefore temporarily bandaged the wound, intending to get Dr. J. A. Overstreet to assist in cutting off the limb during the afternoon. He left the wounded man lying on the bed placed on the floor, and went home to dinner.

Meantime, the report of Mundell's rifle had brought Kline, McIntosh and Billie Olive, and the rest back down the trail. They had started out to run one man out of the country; they came back determined to kill three men. The wounding of Thompson, instead of exciting their pity, whetted their thirst for blood. They went down to the store of Bennett and Tracy, but found only O. P. Bennett there. They wanted Charley Tracy very badly, but were too eager to kill somebody to stop and hunt him up. Bennett saw that danger was ahead but he was taken by surprise and could make no defense. He did not even have his six shooter with him.

"Yer partner, Thompson, wants to see you," said Mundell to Benett. "He's been hurt, I want you to take care of him."

They escorted Bennett out to the house where Thompson lay on the floor groaning with pain. The door was open and Bennett walked in ahead of the rest. He was smoking a big meershaum pipe, and had just put his right hand to it to take it from his mouth that he might speak to Thompson, when he heard the clicking of the hammers of the guns in the hands of his executioners. Whirling partly around he threw up his left hand as if to ward off the bullet. Thompson stopped groaning and began to beg for mercy. Then the posse fired. One bullet pierced the hand that Bennett had raised and passed through his head. He fell headlong with his pipe in one hand and the other still raised. Thompson was shot full of bullets as he laid there on his bed. The two were killed very much like wolves in a den.

There is but one man of the posse who will talk about the killing. Mundell justified his killing of Thompson even when helpless, on the plea that Thompson had already tried to shoot him at the post office. As for the others, Billie Olive is dead and the rest say nothing.

The possee then went back to the store for Charley Tracy, but Charley had jumped on a pony and fled for his life. Pat Tracy was then told he might close out the business. This he did inside of two weeks. No one here knows where he is now.

An inquest followed: Here is the verdict of the jurymen: "We the jury appointed to view the remains of O. P. Bennett and Frank Thompson, find that they came to their death from gunshot wounds received at the hands of many law abiding citizens, thereby inflicting as near as possible the extreme penalty of law as it should be in such cases. The deceased were bad citizens-one having run a house of prostitution and the other living in open adultery in our town. Each was accused of stealing and receiving stolen property, some of which was found on their premises after they were killed. They had each been firing into houses, holding a dozen or more claims and driving honest settlers away from the country and their untimely end is but the results of their own many wrong doings. (Signed) J. A. Overstreet, M. D., Laf Wells, James Deveris, Joseph Hunter, H. D. Wright, G. R Myers, Jury. O. G. Chase, Secretary.

While the charges against the deceased were all doubtless true, it is also true that Beaver City at this minute knew several of its most prominent citizens were doomed, were the death penalty inflicted on all who have been guilty of the same crimes.

After the inquest came the funeral. It was the first funeral service in No Man's Land. The Rev. R. M. Overstreet officiated. His text was taken from the 8th and 23rd verses of the 94th Psalm, as follows: Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye fools when will ye be wise? And He shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall put them off in their own wickedness: yea, the Lord our God shall cut them off.

The sermon was very comforting to the posse that had "cut them off." Dr. O. G. Chase says that after the ceremony the preacher came to him and said: "We will mould public opinion, and let the young men do the work."
The people here say that there were goods worth five thousand dollars in the store, and that Bennett was a third owner, that Pat Tracy made charges in the book that deprived Bennett's heirs of the amount due. Bennett, however, had other property, such as horses and buildings, which brought at auction $800 cash. The Rev. R. M. Overstreet, W. J. Kline and W. M. Dow took charge of the estate as administrators. They have never made any public report of what they did with the money. It Is said that one of the items of the bill for funeral expenses was $20.00 for hauling the corpse to the grave a mile and a half from town. Mr. Dow says that the estate just paid the expenses of settling it.
Bennett's father is a man of wealth in California. He came as far on his way to No Man's Land after the death of his son as Meade Center, in Kansas. He was afraid to come further. Mr. Dow went up there and made a report on the settling of the estate. There was nothing left of the eight hundred dollars.

CHAPTER VII
THE SHOOTING OF BILLIE OLIVE

Among the thirty-four men who signed the call for the mass meeting at Beaver City at which were made the first crude efforts to establish some sort of law and order in the territory was W. P. Olive It will be remembered that Mr. Olive was one of the executioners of O. P. Bennett and Frank Thompson, and one of the charges against Thompson; was that he was living with a woman unlawfully. Mr. Olive had been all along one of Beaver's other citizens who were outraging good morals as Thompson had been doing, but Olive nad appeared among those who wanted law and order, and thus had escaped the fate of Thompson. He had found safety, as others did in hypocrisy. He had come from Smoky River in Nebraska, where he had just killed a man just to show that he was not afraid to kill one and has lived with slight labor in Beaver City since early in the summer of 1886.

His means in getting a living consisted chiefly in stealing cattle on the range and slaughtering them and selling the meat to citizens in Beaver City. This was his occupation during the days when the good citizens were considering the advisability of Killing Frank Thompson and O. P. Bennett for stealing a rifle and jumping claims. But stealing cattle on the range is a very different crime in the eyes of the people here from stealing a rifle or jumping a claim. There is, or was, a constant warfare prevailing between the settlers and the Nomad cowboys. The cowboys not infrequently drove their herds into settlers fields and destroyed their crops. The theft of a few steers was looked upon as a sort of providential retribution for the previous sins of the cowboys.

Occasionally Billie went out with some friends, rounded up a few wild horses that are still found on the plains west of here. Early in September, 1887, Billie went away on such a trip as this and was gone a week. The woman he lived with took advantage of his absence to flee from the country, for Billie, when drunk, abused her shamefully. Billie came back, found her gone, and followed and overtook her at Cimarron, a station on the Santa Fe railroad. The woman, to escape Billie's wrath, told him a lie. She said that William Henderson, the saloon keeper in Beaver City had told her that Billie was not coming back. Billie took her home and spoke to Henderson about the woman's story. Henderson denied it. That night-It was the night of September 14, 1887-Billie with John, commonly called "Lengthy" Halford, another friend, went on a spree. They gambled and drank all night and the next morning went to Henderson's saloon. Here Billie "drew down his six-shooter on Henderson" and said: "Set up the drinks or I'll kill you."
Henderson set them up without delay. While he did so Billie shot the lamps and glassware to pieces about the saloon, and fired several shots into Henderson's trunk in one corner of the room. After drinking the crowd went out.

In a few minutes Billie appeared through the back door of the saloon, Winchester in hand he ordered Henderson to throw up his hands. With his hands up, Henderson asked what was wanted.

"Go down town," said Billie, and thereupon Henderson marched out the door and down the street, with his hands above his head, while Billie walked behind, striking him in the back with the Winchester.

Pretty soon Lengthy Halford came along and both men pounded the helpless saloon keeper. The business men and their customers gathered at the doors and windows of the stores along the street and looked on but did nothing.

Then Olive got tired of pounding his victim, and aiming the rifle at him pulled the trigger. The cartridge failed to explode and Henderson began to run. Olive pumped a new cartridge into the chamber, and pulled again but neither this one nor the third one exploded. People here regard Henderson's escape as little, if any short of miraculous. No other such failure of cartridge was ever known.

Meantime, Halford had fired several shots at Henderson from a six-shooter, but he was not a dead shot as Olive was. Henderson fled across the Beaver river to the sand hills.

Several hours later fie returned. He was called on by about all of the business men of the town and advised to bushwhack Olive. They determined that Olive and Halford were bad citizens and should die. Henderson got a rifle and with three other citizens started up town behind the buildings that lined the west side of main street. He was told that Olive was prowling down the east side of the street with Halford, pistol in hand looking into every saloon for he had heard of Henderson's return. As Olive stopped to look into the building now occupied by Frank Palmer, so Henderson, peeking around the back end of a building across the street saw him, and drawing his rifle up behind the wall he was concealed behind, shot Olive through the heart.
It was by this time sun down. Halford fled to Nichols store near by and escaped the men who were with Henderson. He got a girl who was living with him and putting her on the horse, mounted another, and the two fled down the bottom lands of the Beaver river east of town. It was not long until the citizens found his trail and were in hot pursuit. Four hours later they overtook him. Leaping from his horse, he dodged the volley of bullets which were sent after him and escaped by crawling away in the tall prairie grass, although his pursuers rode up and down for hours in the search.

There was no inquest. Olive's body was sent to his mother, who came from Nebraska, as far as Dodge City, Kansas, to get it. Within a year she had also to bury her husband, who was also shot to death and with much the same reason as Billie.

THE LAST BLOOD SHED IN BEAVER CITY

When the story of two deliberate and cowardly murders has been told and record of life taking in Beaver City will be complete to date. The murder and result in other parts of the territory which averaged not more than fourteen a year among the seven or eight thousand people, are illustrated by those done here. In all five men have been killed here and two wounded. The first two of these last killings is interesting too, from the fact that the murderer was put on trial before a No Man's Land Court, and although really guilty was acquitted for want of evidence.

About February the 1st, 1888, two strangers drove into town and registered at the hotel as Eugene Brusher and Andrew H. Morris of Beloise, Kansas. It was afterwards learned that the real name of Morris was John A. Clark. They said they had come to locate stock ranches, and as they had money, they were welcomed by everyone. Part of the welcome was numerous invitations to drink, all of which were accepted. The men stayed in town several days making several trips into the surrounding country, meantime to look up claims, but returning each night to Beaver, when they invariably went on a spree.
On the night of February 3, they were in Jim Donnelly's saloon next to the hotel with a number of others, apparently having a good time. In the crowd was Dr. J. R. Linley. The doctor wore a silk hat. He was the only man in town allowed to wear a hat of this kind, and it was only his reputation as a good fellow that saved the hat from being a target for the six shooters of the cowboy. "Shoot the hat" was a business rather than a slang phrase.

In the course of the horse play before the bar Dr. Linley exchanged hats with Brusher. Without an instance delay Clark drew a revolver and shot Brusher through the head, the bullet entering just below the hat brim. Brusher fell dead in a heap before the bar. Clark called for another drink, and then began to screw up his face in an endeavor to cry.

City Marshal Mundell, who was playing poker in the back room of the saloon and did not realize that any thing serious had happened until a boy came from the front room and said nonchalantly, in answer to a question about the noise, that a man had been killed.

Clark surrendered his pistol at Mundell's orders, saying that he had intended shooting the hat. Next day Clark was arranged before Mayor J. Thomas and the jury on a charge of murder. The trial lasted for three days and at the end City Attorney E. E. Brown, was obliged to accept the plea of guilty of criminal carelessness, Clark was fined $25 which he paid. Clark was advised privately to leave town, but remained and so lost his life.

A few days after the shooting came William Brusher, a brother of Eugene. He had never seen Clark. After going over the testimony in the case he pretended to be satisfied that the shooting was unintentional, and at once made friends with Clark. On the evening of February the 8th the two were in Jim Donnelly's saloon where Eugene Brusher had been killed. They were shaking dice for the drinks at ten o'clock when Brusher excused himselft and stepped outside the front door. There was one unpainted pane of glass in the front window, through which Clark could be plainly seen. Brusher drew a heavly revolver, aimed it carefully, fired and shot Clark through the heart. Then he jumped on his horse, which he had standing there ready all the time and galloped out of town. A posse pursued but never overtook him.

He was afterwards heard from at Rush Center, Kansas, but the civil authorities of No Man's Land made no effort to expidite him and try him for his crime.

Clark had been the owner of a hotel at Beloise, Kansas, which he burned for the insurance money, and Brusher was the sole witness of the crime. Clark had induced Brusher to come to No Man's Land with the intention of getting rid of him and had taken the first opportunity to do him up.

Clark was buried beside Frank Thompson and O. P. Bennett, and his part of the traveling and camping outfit which he and Brusher had brought were sold to pay the expenses of the funeral.

CHAPTER XI
COUNTERFEITERS AND MOONSHINERS

Very little can be learned here about the making of silver coin and of moonshine whiskey in No Man's Land. There is a distillery, they say, over on Clear Creek, and the product is brought here and taken elsewhere about this Territory and sold. Two men ventured to "bootleg it" into Kansas, and got caught by prohibitionists, and are now in the State prison. None of the saloon keepers here pays a license, although all of them did so until Dr. Chase went to Washington as a delegate and learned that there was no law under which they could be punished if they refused to pay. The counterfeiting was done in a sod house in the northeast corner of No Man's Land not far from Englewood, Kansas. There were two men in the business and they got on very well for a time by dodging back across the line when-ever the officers got after them in Kansas. But they ventured over once too often and were caught and are now in prison. Had they come to Beaver and got caught they never would have been sent to prison.

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