The Texan Joe Walker moved into Robbers Roost and discovered his cousins the wealthy Whitmore’s were very prominent in Eastern Utah.  Walker tried to convince them he was their long lost relative to no avail.  He later took on a vendetta against them by stealing their prized horses.  A posse surprised him near Mexican Mountain and a gun battle resulted in Walker shooting Emery County Sheriff Azariah Tuttle. Walker then helped Butch Cassidy in the Castle Gate Payroll Robbery. The next year he continued his vendetta against the Whitmore’s by stealing their cows and beating their foreman. A large posse chased them across the Green River and up on the plateau.  They eventually surrounded them at daybreak and a gun battle resulted in two dead outlaws: Joe Walker and Butch Cassidy, and two other captured outlaws.  The posse took them to the railhead, then via rail to Price where an inquest was held affirming their identities.  Afterward debate ensued if the one identified as Butch was really him so they dug up the buried body to resolve his identity. Subsequent auctions of the outlaws gear and the captured horses were held to off set the posse’s expenses. Later, to the dismay of the posse, there were no rewards for the buried Butch Cassidy as it was determined the body was that of Johnny Herring.

This is one of the most daring and well executed robberies in the annals of the old west. This event in 1897 elevated Butch Cassidy and Elza Lay into national prominence.  This presentation covers the actual robbery and the significant events before and after the robbery including the celebration in Baggs, Wyoming where Butch and Elza held a Kangaroo Court in a bar.

If you are interested in hearing “the rest of the story”

please e-mail, mail or telephone Joel Frandsen here:

A. Joel Frandsen

P.O. Box 207

Elsinore, Utah  84724

kerry_joel@yahoo.com

435-527-4118

Sanpete County Sheriff James C. Burns went to Reeder Ridge on the Wasatch Plateau to investigate the stealing of some sheep in September of 1894.  In the middle of a sheep corral when the sheriff was asked if he had a search warrant, he patted his .45 and said “this is the only warrant he needed.”  It wasn’t enough as the resulting gun battle was his last.  His assailants were two teenage cousins, Moroni Koffard and Jim Mickel, from Spring City, Utah. They escaped into Castle Valley where a Doctor removed a bullet from Jim.  They then fled into the San Rafael’s. They were never captured, but rumors of their existence lasted for years.

Milton Burns, the son of the slayed sheriff, followed his father into a career in law enforcement.  He too was subsequently killed in the performance of his duties in 1925 as the town marshal of Castle Gate, Utah.  Robert Marshall, the black person arrested for the killing of Milton Burns, was taken away from his captors by vigilantes and hung to redeem the town marshal’s death, the last lynching in the state of Utah. A unique corollary of the three killings is that none of their assailants were ever tried for their crimes.  This common thread has carried on into the 1990’s when an event was held to bring reconciliation and redemption for the hanging.

A gun battle on the streets of Price on July 23, 1898 resulted in the death of one of the toughest characters the old west had ever seen. This shootout between Jack Watson, a well traveled soldier, Texas Ranger, lawmen and part time outlaw, and J. Wesley Warf, the Carbon County Attorney, resulted in Jack Watson being sent off to meet his maker.  Only months earlier these two combatants were both members of the sheriff posse that went in search of the outlaw Joe Walker and came back with his body and that of Butch Cassidy, they thought.  After this shared experience, and while Watson was trying to get his share of the rewards, the posse members had a fall out over irrigation water.  This resulted in Jack Watson being beaten almost senseless by the county attorney.  Warf was then tried and acquitted for assault. After Jack recovered, threats were made, vile epithets were exchanged, and eventually a gun battle at the Senate Saloon, resulted in a permanent home for the traveling old Texan.

Matt Warner is one of the west’s most colorful characters because he led a life on both sides of the law.  Originally born as Willard Erastus Christensen, he learned the outlaw trade from his brother-in-law Tom McCarty. Tom and Matt were the principle mentors of Utah’s most famous outlaw Butch Cassidy. This trio robbed the Telluride Bank in 1889 and escaped into Robbers Roost and then into Wyoming.  Later Matt was involved in numerous daring robberies in the Pacific Northwest.  After a stint in jail where bribery helped his acquittal, it hastened Matt’s departure back to Utah’s Diamond Mountain with a vow to go straight.  An incident to help remove some claim jumpers from a mining claim resulted in a shoot out where Matt killed two of the men and his imprisonment in the penitentiary.   Upon his release Matt went to work as a uncover agent for the governor to divert his friend Butch Cassidy from his outlaw ways.  Matt later served as a lawman, a justice of the peace, and ran for sheriff of Carbon County, Utah.  This is an overview of his life with emphasis on the stories and folk tales that made him such a colorful character.