SUNSET FOR TIBURCIO

3/19/1875 - Plea for clemency denied by California Governor Romualdo Pacheco, the twenty-year criminal career of bandido Tiburcio Vasquez ends in San Jose with the outlaw's hanging for a murder actually committed by one of his gang ... the Hispanic desperado is thirty-nine when he has his neck stretched into eternity.

Pacheco

Vasquez

Born on April 11, 1835 in Monterey, Alta California, Mexico to Jose Hermenegildo Vasquez and Maria Guadalupe Cantua.  Roots deep in what will become the state of California, his great-grandfather is a member of the 1776 colonization expedition of Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza (approved by the King of Spain).  Growing into manhood, Vasquez is a lean 5'7" educated vaquero that can speak both English and Spanish fluently, plays the guitar, writes poetry, reads romance fiction, and loves the local senoritas (which will contribute to his eventual downfall), but falls under the dark influence of his older cousin, bandit Anastacio Garcia ( a supposed former rider with the notorious California desperado Joaquin Murietta).  Sparking the ladies at an 1852 fandango, the seventeen-year-old is present when a drunken midnight brawl breaks out that results in the gun death of Constable William Hardmount (over who has the next dance with a particularly beautiful senorita), shot in the head.  Believing he will be hung for the killing of the "Americano" lawman (which is the fate of Vasquez friend, Jose Higuerra, who doesn't fire any bullets in the melee, but is hung anyway when he doesn't flee), Vasquez flees the dance and goes into hiding with his bandit cousin ... and soon, Vasquez is a bandit too (and for the rest of his life he will justify his crimes as retaliation for the 'whites' of California discriminating against the region's Spanish and Mexican citizens).  Starting out as a hired gun in Monterey County's murderous Roach-Belcher feud (over control of $90,000 in gold and a huge ranching operation on 49,000 acres of land), Vasquez is a horse rustler when he is caught red-handed with a recently stolen herd near Newhall and sent to San Quentin Prison.  Reformed in no way, while he spends five years behind bars, Vasquez participates in four escape attempts that leave over twenty convicts dead.

Early San Quentin

Eventually released, Vasquez expands his criminal resume, adding cattle theft, burglary, and armed robbery to his list of known outrages against law-and-order (his "trademark" is binding his victim's hands behind their backs and leaving them face down in the dust at the scene of the crime).  During this period, he is also gravely wounded in a Monterey fight with Abelardo Salazar's over Salazar's wife.  Caught again after burglarizing a Petaluma store, he is sent back to San Quentin for three more years.  Out again in 1870, Vasquez becomes the leader of a band of desperadoes that includes the notorious Juan Soto (known as the Human Wildcat) and Procopio Bustamente (aka "Red Dick").  Robbing the Visalia stagecoach between San Jose and Pacheco Pass, Vasquez is wounded in a gunfight with Sheriff Charles Lincoln, but manages to escape from the posse seeking him and gains his Cantua Creek hideout.  Recovered from his wounds, Vasquez leads his men on a raid of the small town of Tres Pinos (now the town of Paicines in San Benito County) ... though the raid gains the outlaws watches, clothing, saddles, new mounts, and roughly $2,200 in cash, it also results in the deaths of three citizens; teamster George Redford is killed fleeing the bandits robbing the Synder General Store, Bernal Berhuri, a Portuguese sheepherder who speaks no English is gunned down in the street for failing to heed the "hands up" order he is given, and Leander Davidson, proprietor of the local hotel, is shot down in the lobby of his establishment when he tries to lock the front door (some have Vasquez killing two of the three men, but the outlaw will later claim he fires no shots in the raid).  State outraged, posses crisscross the state seeking Vasquez and his men, Governor Newton Booth places a bounty of $1,000 on the head of the outlaw, while the state legislature allocates $5,000 for the man's capture (the reward money will grow even higher in tally as frustration builds over the authorities inability to stop Vasquez), and the famous lawman, Alameda County Sheriff Harry Morse, is specifically assigned to bring in Vasquez (known as the "bloodhound of the Far West" he helps end the career of stagecoach pirate, Black Bart).

Soto

Bustamente

Moving his base of operations to Southern California where he is not as infamous as in Monterey (one hideout in the Sierra Pelonia Mountains of northern Los Angeles County, a maze of caves, deep crevices, and overhangs is known today as the Vasquez Rocks), and sheltered by the Mexican-American community of the region, the outlaw participates in the robbery of the Jones Store of Millerton in Fresno County, the sacking of the Fresno County town of Kingston (the bandits ride off with over $2,500 in cash and jewelry after controlling the town and its residents for three hours), the robbery of a stagecoach carrying silver from the Cerro Gordo Mines near Owens Lake (Vasquez wounds a man for not following orders quickly enough), robs another stage of $300, six horses, and a wagon near the town of Acton, and kidnaps prominent sheepman, Alessandro Repetto, for ransom.  As with so many other criminals over history, the outlaws final undoing comes because of Vasquez's love of the ladies.

Vasquez

Vasquez Rocks

Sleeping with married women not a problem for the outlaw thus far, Vasquez's first mistake is 
 getting caught screwing the voluptuous wife of gang member Abdon Leiva (gun play avoided, Leiva is allowed to leave the gang and goes straight to the sheriff of the first town he enters and turns into a state witness against Vasquez for the Tres Pinos murders).  His second mistake involves living in the adobe home of Yiorges "Greek George"Caralambo (also known as George Allen, he is a former camel driver for the Army Camel Corps of General Edward Beale) in the northwestern corner of Rancho La Brea (located about 200 hundred yards from the present-day Sunset Strip in West Hollywood) while he plans his gang's next job ... a hideout picked because it allows the outlaw easy access to Caralambo's pretty girlfriend.  Whether betrayed by the family of the girl, Caralambo, or Caralambo's wife, someone sends a note to Los Angeles Sheriff William R. Rowland that the outlaw is in town and a posse is soon organized to arrest Vasquez.

Leiva

Greek George

The Hideout

Creeping up on Caralambo's home in the back of a large wagon driven by a pair of local Mexican-Americans, the posse surrounds the structure, then breaks in on the outlaw being served a breakfast of fried eggs, tortillas, and freshly brewed coffee.  Unwilling to being taken easily, after Constable Sam Bryant breaks down the adobe's wooden door with a hatchet, Deputy Sheriff Emil Harris wounds the outlaw in the chest as he crashes out of the trap through a window, San Francisco Chronicle reporter George Beers (there to cover the story he then participates in) puts a bullet in the fleeing bandit's shoulder, and Police Chief B. F. Hartley finally stops Vasquez with a load of buckshot.  Captured, Vasquez is kept in a Los Angeles jail for nine days, then moved by steamship up the coast to San Francisco, before being transferred to San Jose where he stands trial.  Behind bars, Vasquez admits he is an outlaw, claims his efforts were in the cause of returning California to Mexico, and claims to have killed no one at Tres Pinos.  A celebrity to the state's Hispanic population, Vasquez spends much of his time signing autographs and posing for pictures, which he sells from the window of his cell to pay for his legal fees.  Despite the support of many of his fans, his trial is a slam dunk that takes only four days, and the jury returns a death sentence for the bandit after only two hours of deliberations.  Walking to his own execution flanked by a shotgun holding officer and a priest, the outlaw is hung on 3/19/1875 by Santa Clara Sheriff John H. Asams shortly after 1:30 in the afternoon ... the only word he speaks from the gallows is "pronto."
 
San Jose Gallows

Buried at the old Santa Clara Mission, Vasquez remains a touchstone for California Hispanics.  Despite being a confessed outlaw, there are now geographical California features named after him ... the previously noted Vasquez Rocks, Vasquez Canyon in Saugus, Vasquez Tree in Morgan Hill, a day-use area named for Vasquez in the Angeles National Forest, and two climbing routes, Tiburcio X and Vasquez's Monolith, in the Pinnacles National Park.  Additionally, there is a Vasquez High School in the town of Acton and two Tiburcio Vasquez Health Centers in the towns of Hayward and Union City.  And wisely renamed Monte Bella Elementary in 2016 ... the Alisal Union School District near Salinas decides that their new school will change its 2012 name, garnering much criticism for actually okaying a place for educating yoiungsters to be called Tiburcio Vasquez Elementary School.  Buried over a century ago, his final resting place is a site where gifts are still left for the deceased bandit and crazy women kiss his tombstone in admiration.

Final Resting Place
 
Vasquez           
   

THE YOUNGERS LOSE A MEMBER

3/17/1874 - At about 2:00 in the afternoon, recuperating from the dance they attended the night before at the Monegaw Springs Hotel, 26-year-old James Hardin Younger (known as Jim) and 23-year-old John Harrison Younger, members of the James-Younger outlaw gang, are enjoying a leisurely day visiting with friends near Roscoe, Missouri when they encounter suspicious strangers, "cattle buyers," looking for the nearby Sims farm ... actually two Pinkerton agents assigned to find the Youngers (guided by local part-time deputy sheriff, Ed Daniels), sudden gun death will be the fate of three men in what becomes known as the Roscoe Gun Battle.

Memorial

Born into a bloodline that will eventually include four Younger outlaws and four Dalton bandits, the brothers are the progeny of Henry Washington Younger (a businessman and mayor of the town of Harrisonville that attempts trying to walk a dangerous high wire ... he supports the Union cause, but also owns slaves) and Bersheba Leighton Fristoe (daughter of a Tennessee judge) ... Jim is the 9th of 14 children, while John is the 11th born to the Youngers.  Growing up in the wilds of Missouri, the boys learn how to ride and shoot, and see the violence of America's battle with itself over slavery at first hand.  Attacked by both sides, when Henry Younger is shot and robbed of $1,500 by Northerners in 1862, Cole and John Younger decide they've had enough, and join Quantrill's Raiders ... Jim will be there for the Lawrence Massacre (over 150 civilians are butchered in the attack), and will be captured by Northern forces during the raid on Kentucky in 1865 that sends Quantrill to any early grave.  Too young to follow his brothers into the guerrilla force himself, John and his brother Bob, spend the war on their ranch watching over their mother and sisters, but that does not free them from participating in the region's violence themselves ... Bob witnesses his home being burnt to the ground by Union soldiers, while John grows up being the fastest Younger with a gun, an angry young man not to be trifled with; a lesson an ex-soldier named Gilcreas learns in Independence, Missouri when he insults the Younger Family and slaps John in the face with a frozen fish.  Leather slapped instantly, the soldier dies from a John Younger slug that hits him right between the eyes (a killing that will be ruled a justifiable homicide).  Family harassed constantly despite the war being over, Bob beaten unconscious, John hung four different times by men seeking information about his rebel brothers, it is no surprise at all when the youngsters join their brothers, Cole and Jim, the brothers Frank and Jesse James, and a number of other former Confederate raiders in a retribution of robbery and murder that will last until 1876.  Immediately a menace, in 1871, John kills two Texas deputy sheriffs seeking his arrest.

Cole

Jim

John

Bob

Tasked to bring law-and-order to the area by several banks and railroads they have security contracts with, agents for the Pinkerton's National Detective Agency begin prowling about Missouri seeking the outlaws (headed by Allan Pinkerton).  One prowler, John W. Wilcher, looking for the James boys while pretending to be a farm hand seeking employment, is identified as being a spy for the detective agency and assassinated on 3/11/1874 ... warning system in place among the former guerrillas and their supporters, the word goes out to beware of strangers.  Unaware of the fate of their fellow detective, assigned to find the Youngers, Louis J. Lull, a former Chicago police captain (answering to the alias of W. J. Allen), and agent James Wright (operating as John Boyle) arrive in St. Clair County, Missouri, and assisted by local Ed Daniels, begin combing the area for information disguised as cattle buyers.  Finding nothing of value in their early efforts to infiltrate the area, in early March the men move their base of operations from the Commercial Hotel in the county seat of Osceloa, to the Roscoe House Hotel in the town of Roscoe, a hospitality operation run by former Quantrill gunman, Oliver Burch.

Pinkerton

Enjoying themselves between jobs (both men are believed to have participated in the gang's robbery of the Iron Mountain Railway at Gads Hill, Missouri earlier in the year), on 3/16/1874, Jim and John Younger attend a country dance at the Monegaw Springs Hotel (a three-story log structure) in which they squire young ladies about the dance floor and drink heavily from the moonshine made available for the event.  Afterwards, the brothers spend the night sobering up on the nearby farm of family friends, John and Hannah McFerrin.  The next day, the Youngers sleep in before moving further south, and visiting the farm of another friend, Theodrick Snuffer.  Conscious they are wanted men, the Youngers tie up their horses behind the farm's chicken coop where the animals can't be seen.  Sitting down to a late lunch with their friend, the brothers hide in the attic when the trio of law officers arrive at the farm claiming to be buying cattle and requesting directions to farm of Colonel Sims.  Directions given, the Youngers are surprised when the men ride off in the opposite direction shortly after 2:00 in the afternoon.  Encounter discussed, the hot-headed John convinces his brother that the suspicious men should be investigated (he threats to investigate on his own if his brother is unwilling to accompany him), and so, armed with shotguns and pistols, the two men mount their horses and ride off in pursuit of the strangers.  Reigning to a halt when they hear the Youngers galloping up behind them, the five men confront each other on the rural road to Roscoe (about three miles from the small town).

Gunfight Road

As if knowing what is coming, when John Younger produces a shotgun, and Jim Younger pulls out a pistol to question the strangers, Wright spurs his horse and bolts away from the encounter, his hat knocked off his head by a pursuing slug from the gun of Jim Younger (successfully escaping, he will never be seen in Missouri again).  The men questioned as to why they are so heavily armed and why their comrade fled into the nearby woods, in the momentary distraction provided by Jim taking into his possession the expensive English-made.43 caliber Trantor pistols of one of the agents (more proof to the outlaws that the men are not in the cattle business), Lull is able to pull out a hidden .32 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver and snap off a single shot in John Younger's direction ... a round that rips through the throat of the outlaw, who answers by sending a double barrel of shotgun buckshot into the left shoulder and arm of Lull, who gallops away, but not for long ... seeking refuge in the woods, Lull is knocked off his horse by a low hanging, wayward tree branch ... lying n the ground, he is quickly dispatched by a pursuing John Younger (already mortally wounded by the buckshot he's taken, the Pinkerton takes a revolver slug to the chest ... still alive, the detective will be taken to Osceloa for medical treatment, but will die from his wounds 23 days later), who then falls off his horse as a result of the loss of blood from the fatal wound he has taken to the neck.  Also dying of a fatal neck wound, a moment after his brother is shot, Jim Younger puts a fatal round in the throat of Daniels.

A Trantor Revolver

Younger Spurs Left Behind


County in an uproar as its residents pick sides, Jim makes quick arrangements for his brother's body to be buried nearby ... a duty that friends in the area take care of so well that John Younger's final resting place remains unknown to this day.  Then, aware that lawmen will soon be flooding the region, Jim rides south for Arkansas, and a secret hideout that he knows his brothers Cole and Bob are using near the town of Hot Springs.  Enraged by the deaths of three agents and continuing robberies, Pinkerton will continue his war on the gang, savagely striking again at the Kearney, Missouri farm of the James Boys in 1875.  But the raid only escalates the hatred both sides feel for each other ... botched, the brothers easily escape the Pinkertons, while their mother, Zerelda, suffers injuries from an incendiary device thrown into the James home that requires the amputation of her right arm at the elbow, and the death of Frank's and Jesse's half-brother, 9-year-old Archie Samuel (and of course, tit-for-tat, suspected of providing information to the Pinkertons, neighbor and former Union militiaman, Daniel Askew, will be shot to death in April by an unknown gunman).

Zerelda

Archie

The Youngers - Bob, Jim, And Cole
With Their Sister, Henrietta

Back and forth, the Missouri mayhem finally ends in Minnesota, in 1876, when the James-Younger Gang attempts to rob the First National Bank of Northfield (an establishment rumored to be tied to two former Union generals, Adelbert Ames and Benjamin Butler) ... in the raid, outlaws Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell are killed, Cole Younger is wounded in his left hip, Jim Younger is shot in the jaw, Bob Younger has his elbow shattered by a citizen bullet, Frank James is shot in the right leg, Charlie Pitts is wounded in the leg, and Jesse James is shot in the thigh (not without their own casualties, bystander Nicholas Gustafson is shot dead by Cole Younger, assistant cashier is gunned down for refusing to open the bank's vault, and teller Alonzo Bunker is wounded in the right shoulder running out of the building).  Finally brought to ground when the James Brothers break off from the group and flee south (Jesse will be murdered by Bob Ford in 1882, while Frank, in a deal that sees he is not returned to Minnesota to face justice, will surrender and then be found not guilty of two different robberies, dying in 1915 at the age of 72)  Charlie Pitts will be killed, while Cole, Jim, and Bob will be shot to pieces before surrendering to authorities (there will be fourteen pieces of lead in Cole's body when he dies at the age of 72 in 1916) and being sentenced to life in prison at the state prison in Stillwater (but not quite ... Bob will die in prison of tuberculosis at the age of 35 in 1889, while Cole and Jim will be paroled out of prison in 1901, with Jim committing suicide in St. Paul in 1902 at the age of 54).

Miller & Chadwell

Pitts

Bob

Jim

Cole .

















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