By ED PECK
As we come upon the 127th anniversary of the famous Oct. 13, 1896, Meeker Bank Robbery [attempt], I would like to take a different slant on the event. With exception of our Ute conflicts, sheep wars, and the various Roosevelts, Meeker and Rio Blanco County did not get much ink in newspapers outside Northwest Colorado. The robbery of the Hugus building hit the newspapers all the way back East.
Headlines in the Rawlings, Wyoming, news were copied and published by the New York Times on Oct. 15, 1896. Readers were hungry for tales of cowboys wearing six-guns and black hats shooting it out with the good guys. In any case, our story was as exciting as any dime-novel ever written by some dude who never traveled west of Pittsburgh. The planning and progress of the robbery has been recorded with most witnesses agreeing on what happened before, during and after the robbery.
Two Meeker citizens, Victor Dikeman and William Henry Clark, were wounded. Two robbers were killed within yards of the Hugus Building, and one robber was fatally wounded. Before the last robber died, he gave three names to his captors: Charles Jones, George Harris, and “The Kid.” Unfortunately, he lied! The names he gave were fictitious. Perhaps he did not want to shame their families, or maybe he thought he might live to see trials on other misdeeds. We will never know. The sheriff, E.P. Wilbur, had three dead bodies, a crime, witnesses to be cleared of shooting, and no reliable identification.
A good portion of the town’s citizens filed past the bodies while they were temporarily laid out in the Hugus Building’s storeroom. Five photographs were taken of the bodies by F. M. Grove. The photographs were reproduced and sold as souvenirs. Travelers leaving Meeker showed them in Vernal, Utah, where some claimed knowledge of two of the robbers. Citizens of Vernal claimed that Charles Jones was really James ‘Jim’ Shirley, who worked in Brown’s Park. George Harris was recognized as young George Law, a step-son of Ed Bahen of Vernal and nephew of George Law, of Brown’s Park. Both were reported to be hard working folk gone wrong.
I was able to find a George Law in the 1880 Wyoming census. This George Law was born about 1855 in Scotland. He was working in Salt Wells Basin, Sweetwater County, as a “herder.” Interesting, one of his bunk mates was named George Harris, the alias that popped into his mind before he met his death. The one called Billy Smith was recognized as a young man from northern Wyoming. The Rock Springs, Wyoming, newspaper, in January of 1897, reported that Angus McDougal had brought back “pictures of George Law, Bill Shirley and ‘Kid’ Smith, who were shot at Meeker while in the act of robbing the bank. ‘Kid’ Smith, alias Bill Olmstead of Gregg, Natrona County [Wyoming] was supposed to be the leader of the gang.” This newspaper was the only reference to Bill Olmstead that I could find. Where the newspaper got the information, I do not know. I tried searching for an Olmstead family in that area and drew a blank. Territorial records are hard to come by. His grave stone reads “The Kid PIERCE” died Oct 13, 1896”.
An inquest was held by John W. Welch, acting coroner, on Oct. 13, 1896. Witnesses were sought to identify the horses and brands in hopes of narrowing down the names. E.M. Cole traveled 40 miles to bring in J. B. Nay as a witness on Oct. 15. The three robbers were taken by wagon to the Highland Cemetery and buried in plots owned by the county for those who had no means. The cost of digging the graves was taken out of funds provided from the sheriff’s sale of the robbers’ effects. You might say, they dug their own graves.
The names of the three hapless bank robbers shot and killed in an attempted heist in 1896–George Bain, ‘The Kid’ Pierce, and Jim Shirley– are immortalized on gravestones in a corner of Highland Cemetery.
