Spare Time

When I am not writing or researching for a book, I enjoy playing chess, watching college wrestling, and following the Colorado Rockies baseball team. My partner, Barbara, and I owned two horses up until a couple of years ago. I enjoyed feeding and watering them, and just walking with them in our pasture just to stay acquainted. One of them named Ugly, followed me whenever I was in the pasture, and sniffed my back pocket for treats. They brought back fond memories I have about growing up on the ranch and riding the high lonesome.

There are important stories about Wyoming that have yet to be told in their entirety. We suffer from the nearsightedness of what the screenplay of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” says: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes Fact, print the legend.” Facts have always interested me more than legends.

“Big Nose George: His Troublesome Trail” is my attempt to sift through the legend of this outlaw and focus on supported facts. It has been difficult, but quite rewarding. I know our theories about these events may evolve over time, but I hope to have provided some fuel to the fire of curiosity.

#Wyoming

Big Nose George

The story about the outlaw Big Nose George Parott has fascinated me since I was a young child growing up in Rawlins, Wyoming. His lynching in that community in 1881 remains one of the most talked about events in our early history. When I found out that one of my ancestors played a role in those events, I knew I would have to write about it someday.

Residents elected my great-grandfather, Isaac C. (Ike) Miller as Carbon County Sheriff in

1880 while Parott sat in the county jail a convicted murderer. Parott was one of eight gang members who killed Deputy Robert Widdowfield and railroad detective Tip Vincent in 1878 in a remote canyon adjacent to Elk Mountain. Two years later, authorities arrested Parott in Montana and brought him back to Rawlins to stand trial.

The judge ordered Ike to hang the outlaw on April 2, 1881, but Parott made a desperate

jail break attempt on March 22 when the sheriff was away in the Sand Creek country. Rosa

Rankin, wife of the jailer, foiled the escape attempt, locking a corridor door that confined Parott in the cell area. That night, a gang of masked vigilantes broke him out of jail and took him to a telegraph pole where they hanged him.

#BigNoseGeorge #Wyoming