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The Trial of Tom Horn
"[This] account of the trial of Tom Horn for the murder of a 14-year-old boy … places it in perspective as part of a larger struggle for control of Wyoming’s grazing land…. Tom Horn, employed as a Pinkerton and then as a range detective, had a reputation as a loner and a braggart with a brutal approach to law enforcement even before he was accused of murdering young Willie Nickell. Cattlemen saw Horn as protecting their way of life, but most people in Wyoming saw him as a hired assassin, an instrument of oppression by cattle barons willing to use violent intimidation to protect their assets. The story began on July 18, 1901, when Willie Nickell was shot by a gunman lying in ambush; the killer was apparently after Willie’s father, who had brought sheep into the area. Six months later Tom Horn was arrested. The trial pitted the Laramie County district attorney against a crack team of...
