Tom Horn’s Iron Mountain Area Revisited: Was the controversial stock detective a murderer?
To say Tom Horn was controversial is an understatement. The last of the detectives-for-hire with no compunctions about taking the law into his own hands, he died in Cheyenne by hanging in 1903. He had a trial by his peers and was found guilty of murder.
As the granddaughter of a sheriff of Albany County (though he was killed in the line of duty before my time), I heard the stories from early childhood. Movies and books about Tom Horn abound. True West magazine suggests that his myth-like legend was partly due to the autobiography he wrote while imprisoned in Cheyenne. It didn’t include the last 10 years of his life, and embellished what he did. When published in 1904 after his death, it caught public fancy as a reference on the life of a self-styled western “hero” to some, predator to others.
Recently my friend Doreen Shumpert invited me to go on an adventure with her to visit the Mountain country in northern Albany County and western Laramie County, to see the places Tom Horn frequented between 1892 and 1901.
A confrontation
Not often mentioned in the many accounts of Tom Horn’s exploits is something that happened to his employer several years before Horn came on the scene. It sets the stage for an enmity that must have played a role in future events.
John Coble of the Iron Mountain Ranch and his foreman George Cross, were waiting for a train to Cheyenne on July 6, 1890. The station stop at Iron Mountain is long gone but survives as the place name “Farthing.”
Coble was a cattleman, his neighbor Kels Nichell, a sheep grower, was also there. Nickell argued with the men over cattle he claimed were trespassing. A story of the confrontation was published in the Cheyenne Daily Sun on July 26, 1890. Nickell is said to have drawn a big knife, Cross fought him off with a rock. Coble tried to intervene.
Nickell slashed at Coble, causing two body wounds, one so large that “the intestines protruded,” said the paper. Nickell was immediately arrested and Coble made a slow recovery. So far as I could learn, Nickell was not sentenced to jail time for the crime.
Tom Horn’s system
Three years later, Tom Horn was near Chugwater, and began his off and on employment with the Swan Land and Cattle Company. He was good with horses, and was popular among the men he worked with at the Two Bar Ranch the Swan Company owned. But his job was different—he was hired as a stock detective, tasked to gather evidence that could be used to obtain a legal conviction against cattle rustlers.
Horn had little respect for local courts he thought rarely convicted rustlers. At the time, he is alleged to have told leaders of the Wyoming cattle industry at the Cheyenne Club “Gentlemen, I have a system that never fails. Yours has.” That his “system” was assassination was suspected but ranchers who hired him apparently didn’t ask questions.
Two men, Fred Powell and William Lewis, were shot and killed near their ranches on Horse Creek after being accused of stealing cattle from both the Swan and Iron Mountain ranches. Previously they had received death threats—Tom Horn was the main suspect but was never convicted.
Coble acquires Horn
Tensions were high in the Iron Mountain country well before Tom Horn arrived. Clashes between sheep men and cattlemen were legendary. The argumentative sheep grower Kels Nickell, who wasn’t anywhere near, was even blamed for the accidental death of 14-year-old Frank Miller on a neighboring cattle ranch. The Miller family claimed that there wouldn’t have been a gun to accidentally go off had Nickell not been so threatening. Thus they had to be armed whenever they went riding or out in their wagons.
John Coble wrote to partner Frank Bosler with contempt that “the Iron Mountain, Wall Rock and Plumbago pastures are filled with sheep and look wooley.” Coble said he had a solution—he knew a man who could be relied upon to do the job, according to author Chip Carlson in his 2001 book titled “Tom Horn: Blood on the Moon.”
That job was getting rid of sheep men and cattle rustlers. It was well known to Wyoming cattlemen that Laramie’s rich ranch owner Ora Haley had hired Tom Horn to help out with the problem at ranches Haley owned in northern Colorado. There, Horn had been accused of killing some alleged rustlers, but nothing was ever proven.
Haley may have “loaned” Horn to the Iron Mountain ranchmen without ever making a verbal or written agreement. He probably wanted Horn to know nothing of Haley’s involvement, fearing consequences of whatever Horn might do. That might have included Horn blackmailing Haley himself, which almost did happen.
So Horn came to be known as an employee of John Coble’s, and was given a cabin on the Iron Mountain Ranch where he could ride out to keep an eye out for trespassing sheep and cattle rustlers. That cabin still stands and has been used by others over the years, even modernized now with paint and electricity. It is one of many other isolated cabins where Horn is thought to have stopped for the night or stayed with friendly settlers as he patrolled the country for those engaged in stealing cattle.
Who killed Willie Nickell?
On July 18, 1901, near Iron Mountain Ranch property, an unknown ambusher murdered Willie Nickell. It was a long shot; there were no witnesses. The victim was 14 years old, the son of Kels Nickell.
Newspapers were full of speculation about who the murderer was. It wasn’t just a local story, it made headlines all across the country. Alleged witnesses did emerge and were discredited. A sensational trial followed. Two years later, Tom Horn was convicted of the murder and hung. That did not end the speculation.
I’ve visited with folks who have been associated with the turbulent cattle war era. Everyone has a great story to tell. My friend Doreen has been investigating the Tom Horn story for many years and has new information to add to the wealth that has been written already. She got permission from landowners in the Iron Mountain area to go back and see for herself the setting for this drama of when the ways of the frontier were waning if not gone altogether. Tom Horn’s (and other’s) system of settling scores was outmoded in 1901.
You can go back through all this mountain of conflicting information and come to your own conclusion, namely: “Who besides Tom Horn should be suspect in the Willie Nickell killing?” Why did the big cattlemen not speak up more convincingly to defend Tom Horn? Did they want him silenced so they wouldn’t be implicated in this murder or the many others they may have hired Horn to commit? Was the one woman involved in this saga, schoolteacher Gwendolyn Kimmel, actually a prostitute, Tom Horn’s lover or a liar? And what about Tom Horn’s “drunken” confession to the murder of Willie Nickell?
The story goes on
Rand Selle has decided to help out with the lack of opportunities for socialization these days by holding an outdoor program called “Tom Horn Days; Cowboy Rendezvous” August 7 - 9 in the Bosler area. Part ranch rodeo, part food and entertainment and part history presentations, this outdoor event will be a time to hear these old stories come alive once more and enjoy chuckwagon suppers.
I’ll be talking about the Swan Land and Cattle Company from stories my maternal grandfather, Jim Mallery told of the days when he worked there. His time overlapped with Tom Horn’s employment as Swan’s stock detective. Doreen will be talking about her Tom Horn research. We’re part of the effort to uncover the truth about the past and to keep our rich history alive.
By Nancy Mickelson
Source: Nancy Mickelson, both cabin photos
Caption: Tom Horn’s cabin on the Iron Mountain Ranch is on private property; permission is required to see it.
Source: Doreen Shumpert photo
Caption: The modern Iron Mountain ranch, in a view that can only be obtained today through permission from the owner—it is a long way off from public roads. The historic cabins used by Coble and Horn are among these buildings, but hidden by the trees.
Caption: John Coble’s original cabin on the Iron Mountain Ranch. It has had additions on the back and has for years been used by ranch employees; permission required to see it.