What if I told you there was an outlaw so slippery and unpredictable that even the likes of Pat Garrett and Charlie Siringo couldn’t keep him behind bars? A man who outdrank, outshot, and outlasted just about every lawman and bounty hunter of the Old West, only to then vanish, leaving behind nothing but a trail of rumors.
His name was Dan Bogan, and he is one of the lesser-known bandits of the American frontier. Born in Alabama and raised in Texas, Bogan escaped the hangman’s noose at the tender age of twenty-one.
He would go on to be arrested several more times for everything from horse theft to murder. He would receive a total of two death sentences, but he always managed to escape.
His last disappearing act occurred in the fall of 1887, and to this day nobody can say for certain what became of him. Was Dan Bogan shot dead in Mexico? Did he break his neck riding bronc somewhere in the Southwest?
Or did he live out his final days as a prosperous rancher down in Texas?
Daniel Bogan was born in Alabama sometime around the year 1860. As is so often the case with men of his stripe, there is not much else known regarding Dan’s early life.
That said, we do know that his father died when he was still a young child. We also know that his mother, Dora, moved the kids to Texas at some point in the 1870s.
It is also thought that two of Dan’s older brothers preceded him in a life of crime. One was shot and killed while resisting arrest, and the other was sent to prison for horse theft.
As to how true that is, I am not entirely certain. But I do know that Dan would have his own little brush with the law in May of 1881.
That is when he and his buddy, Jack Kemp, went on a little rampage over in the town of Hamilton. They went from saloon to saloon, getting more and more belligerent with each drink.
Things reached the point that Dan was actually bragging that he could whip any man in town. According to historian Robert D. R.
Mint, no one took up the challenge, and Kemp, more sober than Bogan, led the way to the horses at the hitching rack of W. T. Cooper’s store.
He mounted up and urged his friend to do the same. Bogan, however, was still spoiling for a fight.
Unfortunately for all concerned, that is also about when a local farmer, Doll Smith, pulled up in his wagon. A drunken Bogan began hurling insults at the man.
Smith ignored him at first. But when Dan pulled a chair from the back of his wagon and started smashing it on the ground, the farmer went ahead and dismounted.
As he approached, he noticed that Bogan was going for his gun, so he issued a warning. Touch that pistol, and I’ll knock you to the ground.
Well, I guess all that whiskey had caused Dan to be hard of hearing, because he did produce said pistol. And Smith, true to his word, did punch the younger man squarely in his arrogant face, knocking him to the muck of the thoroughfare.
That is when Dave Kemp got involved. As the farmer was bent over pulling that revolver from Bogan’s hand, Kemp ran up from behind and struck him in the back of the noggin with his pistol.
And then, when the old farmer spun around and went after him, Kemp got nervous and pulled the trigger. The only thing is, the pistol refused to fire.
So he tried again, just repeatedly thumbing back the hammer and squeezing the trigger to no avail. Finally, at the last second, a still somewhat dazed Bogan struggled to his feet and smashed a rock down on the farmer’s head.
This guy was just not having a great day. And as fate would have it, that is also when Kemp’s pistol decided to work.
Just as Smith began reeling from that second blow, Dave Kemp shot him twice. Why Smith never attempted to use that revolver that he took from Dan, I do not know, but he did throw it, striking Kemp in the neck before finally collapsing dead in the street.
Now the boys were arrested almost immediately. They would be tried for murder just a few weeks later in nearby Gatesville, and both defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death.
A judgment they did not take lying down. In fact, as soon as the judge pronounced the sentence, Dan grabbed a pistol from an unsuspecting guard and began shooting it off right there in the courthouse.
Luckily, nobody was hurt, but Bogan was able to use the chaos to his advantage, escaping through a second-story window. And he would remain a fugitive for the rest of his life.
He ended up heading to the Texas Panhandle, where he got a job as a cowboy under the alias of Bill Gatlin. Still couldn’t handle his liquor, though.
When Dan drank, he got mean, and when he got mean, folks had a tendency of winding up dead. Case in point, just a year after that escape, Dan and a few of his compadres got drunk and started riding their horses in the various saloons and shooting out the interior lights.
Eventually, they arrived at a dance hall looking to do more of the same. But they were blocked by the proprietor, who said that the only way they were getting inside was over his dead body.
To which Bogan responded by laughing and saying, That’s easy, before shooting him dead in Dick’s hatband. Full disclosure, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot in the way of evidence concerning this particular shooting.
I don’t know when or where it occurred, other than possibly in the Texas Panhandle at some point in 1882. And I also cannot determine the name of the man who Bogan allegedly murdered.
I am not saying that it didn’t happen. All I am saying is there is not much in the way of evidence.
And by the way, drunken proclivities notwithstanding, Bogan did seem to maintain a pretty decent reputation amongst his fellow cowboys. Not only were they not overly concerned with his occasional indiscretions, but they also weren’t nosy when it came to his background.
To once again quote Robert D. R. Mint, many of the cow punchers working the ranches of the district had dark and unsavory pasts, and few questions were asked of a newcomer.
Even the general manager of the Big LX Ranch, W. C. Moore, was known as Outlaw Bill, and it was common knowledge around the campfires that he was wanted for murder in California and Wyoming.
Gatlin, aka Dan Bogan, fit in well with these tough cowmen. Now be that as it may, there was trouble brewing there in the Panhandle.
You see, by the early 1880s, many of the Western cattle ranches had attracted big-money investors from back East and even as far away as Europe. And with these new owners came some very unpopular changes.
I will give you a for instance. Back in the day, it was fairly common for cowboys to take out part of their wages in newborn calves. They were also allowed to brand Mavericks and even run small herds of their own on their bosses’ land.
Which does make sense, right? I mean, these guys were in the saddle for like a hundred-plus hours a week, just basically working themselves to the bone. And little perks like keeping Mavericks and building their own herds were really the only way they could get a leg up.
Well, unfortunately, those new investors were more concerned with turning out a profit than they were to cater into the hired hands. And as such, they did begin implementing changes.
No longer were the cowboys permitted to brand Mavericks or raise their own animals on company property. They were also forbidden from gambling or carrying firearms, and many of them even had their wages frozen.
As I am sure you can imagine, this new way of doing business proved extremely unpopular. So much so that in the spring of 1883, several hundred cowboys there in the Panhandle, or roughly three-quarters of the entire workforce, decided to go on strike.
And Bogan was included. Matter of fact, Dan was one of the ringleaders. To be honest, these guys really weren’t asking for all that much.
They didn’t demand a right to the Mavericks or to be able to graze their own livestock or even a reduction in hours. All they wanted was better wages.
A few of the ranches did offer small concessions, but for the most part, the strike proved completely ineffective. The cowboys ran out of money rather quickly, and with no other options, they were forced to head back to their employers, ten-gallon hats in hand.
And even then, many of them, including Dan Bogan, found themselves blacklisted. In other words, they were deemed unhirable, no matter their skill nor experience.
So that being the case, Bogan went south and hired on with a different outfit out of Wilbarger County. And despite proving himself to be a top hand, at one point even turning a stampeding herd all on his own, Dan did still have a penchant for getting drunk and causing trouble.
Story goes that once the herd got to Dodge City, he and the boys went on a spree that was so wild that one of them got shot dead by then Marshal Jack Bridges. No word on Bogan’s involvement, but he certainly didn’t waste any time in getting the hell out of Dodge.
And for whatever reason, he decided to head straight back to the Panhandle. Turns out in his absence, many of the blacklisted cowpokes had formed what they took to calling the Get Even Cattle Company.
These guys really were causing a lot of problems for the big outfits. Fences were cut, pastures were burned, and livestock was stolen.
And just as soon as Bogan returned from Dodge City, he was right there with them. Hell, these boys were so good at altering brands that the only way you could tell is if you skinned the cow and turned the hide inside out.
In fact, they did so much damage that the big ranchers called in none other than the famous Pat Garrett to help put an end to the mayhem. Garrett, of course, had made a name for himself just a couple years prior by killing Billy the Kid.
And although he wouldn’t remain there in Texas all that long, he did manage to arrest our very own Daniel Bogan. Found him hiding in a little line shack on the Canadian River in February of 1885.
Bogan initially refused to surrender, but after a brief standoff, I guess he saw the error of his ways and laid down his guns. At least temporarily.
You see, later on that night, one of his buddies slipped him a file, which he then used to remove his irons and haul ass up to Wyoming. For historian Robert D. R.
Minck, Dan Bogan, alias Billy Gatlin, again went north with a trail herd.
Using a new name, Bill McCoy, he next came to public attention in distant Wyoming, where he is believed to have joined for a time the Teton Jackson gang of horse thieves operating out of Jackson Hole. He is known to have punched cattle for Quit Pinnick, foreman of the LC Ranch at Rawhide Buttes, Wyoming in 1886 before being drawn to the booming new town of Lusk in Laramie County.
Now, that guy that Mr. D. R.
Minck mentioned, Teton Jackson, his real name was Harvey Gleason. I don’t know a ton about him, but apparently he and his gang would steal horses from Idaho and sell them over in South Dakota.
And then, on their way back to their hideout at Jackson Hole, they would steal even more horses to sell in Wyoming. As to how long Dan rode with Teton or why they ultimately parted ways, I am not entirely sure.
But I do know that Bogan would soon drift east to the town of Lusk and go partners in a saloon and livery stable. It is also there in Lusk where he started feuding with town constable and Laramie County Sheriff’s Deputy Charles Gunn.
And really, this just goes back to Dan not being able to handle his liquor. This guy would routinely go on wild sprees, getting drunk and waving his pistol around, and then the aforementioned Deputy Gunn would have to rein him in.
Hell, at one point, Gunn even had to pull a pistol on him. This was repeated on several occasions until finally Gunn told Dan that if he didn’t stop acting a fool, he would have to lock him up.
To which Dan replied that he would continue doing as he pleased. Skip ahead to January 14th, 1887, and once again, Bogan got drunk and disorderly over at a dance hall.
And once again, Deputy Gunn had to intervene. Now, by this point, Dan was getting really tired of this interference, so the following day, he confronted the deputy over at his favorite saloon and inquired as to whether or not he was armed.
Gunn replied that yeah, he was always heeled, at which point Bogan whipped out a revolver that he had hidden behind his back and shot the deputy in the belly. Gunn fell to his knees, clutching his stomach, as Dan stepped forward and coolly finished him off with a bullet to the head at almost point-blank range.
Now, there was another deputy sheriff there in Lusk, a guy by the name of John Owens. He had been bedridden for the past several days due to some unknown illness, but it just so happened that he was back on his feet making his rounds with a shotgun as Dan came running out of the saloon to make his getaway.
Deputy Owens hollered for him to stop, and when Bogan ignored him, Owens let loose that scattergun, striking Dan in the shoulder and blowing him plumb out the saddle. Moments later, when Deputy Owens asked why he killed Charlie Gunn, Dan responded with, Well, I would not have done it if I hadn’t supposed that you were home and in bed.
Now, there were no jails there in Lusk, so Dan was simply shackled in the back room of one of the saloons. And just like back in Texas, he once more managed to escape and slip off into the night.
This time it was a bit different, though. Not only was he wounded, but he escaped in the middle of a damn blizzard.
Deputy Owens quickly deduced that he wouldn’t be able to go that far, and sure enough, just a few days later, Dan sent word that he wanted to surrender. He had made it as far as a cabin some sixteen miles away, but he was just burning up from a fever due to those festering wounds.
So it is there at the cabin where Owens took him into custody. And by February 4th, Dan was a guest over at the Laramie County Jail down in Cheyenne.
Now, here is where things get interesting. Despite being a damn drunk and a horse thief, Bogan did manage to make friends with a few members of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.
And if you know anything about the Johnson County War or just Wyoming history in general, then you already know just how powerful the WSGA really was. I mean, these guys were literally running the entire territory.
And due to Bogan’s connections, he was able to secure some of the best lawyers that money could buy. Only problem was, he was still wanted down in Texas.
And just as soon as his true identity was discovered, he was paid a visit by one Charles K. Bell, same old boy who had prosecuted him for the murder of Doll Smith back in 1881. And joining Bell was Hamilton County Sheriff J.
W. Massie.
Remember, Bogan had been sentenced to hang for helping to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 Smith. So, even if those high-powered lawyers were able to win him an acquittal there in Wyoming, he would still have to make a trip south and pay the piper.
Not that it matters much, as he was ultimately found guilty of murdering Deputy Gunn. And just like down in Texas, Dan was sentenced to hang by the neck until he was dead, dead, dead.
According to a paper out of Cheyenne, without provocation or pity, he ruthlessly murdered a man far superior to himself in every way, and has murdered two other men. Since this infamous reptile has previously escaped merited punishment, it is not surprising that he would hear himself condemned to death without any change in his outward demeanor.
He appeared completely unconcerned. And yeah, turns out Dan wasn’t bothered because he knew he had an ace in the hole.
One of his buddies, a ranch foreman by the name of Tom Hall, who, if I am not mistaken, was also a fugitive from justice, went ahead and bribed a local safecracker to commit a minor infraction so he could get locked up in the same jailhouse as Bogan. Dude literally had saw blades hidden in his shoes, which he and Dan then used to saw through the bars of their cell.
Hall was waiting on him outside with the saddled horse, and just as soon as Dan was free, they made a beeline to a nearby ranch. And what happened next would go down as one of the largest manhunts in all of Wyoming history.
Officials placed a whopping one thousand dollar bounty on Dan’s head as newspapers described him as a reckless and bloodthirsty character who would refuse to be taken alive. Hell, even the infamous Charlie Siringo was called in to help capture him.
But for all intents and purposes, Dan Bogan had simply vanished. Now, legend has it that Dan drifted south to Utah, where he picked up a twelve-year-old boy as his traveling companion.
Yikes. The pair continued on to New Mexico, where Dan visited an old buddy of his named Lim Woodruff. Dan informed Lim that he was tired of running from the law and that he was planning on catching a ship for South America.
The only thing is, he didn’t want that boy going with him. Once again, for historian Robert D. R.
Minck, Bogan, fearing the lad would somehow give him away to authorities, refused to take him along.
The boy was insistent, but Bogan made it clear that he was going alone. And if the boy followed, he would 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 him.
Woodruff agreed to keep the youngster and also warned him not to try to follow Bogan. But shortly after the outlaw left, the boy slipped out of the cabin, saddled one of Woodruff’s cow ponies, and took off on a gallop on his trail.
Two days later, the horse, saddled and bridled, showed up in the Woodruff pasture. Dried blood covering the saddle provided mute evidence. Woodruff was convinced that somewhere along the trail, the boy had overtaken Bogan and met the fate the desperado had promised.
Now, we do know that Dan was successful in reaching New Orleans, as he did send off a letter from New Orleans to his buddy Tom Hall up there in Wyoming. But after that, who knows?
Charlie Siringo would later claim that Dan continued a life of crime in South America, only to return stateside several years later, where he became a prosperous cattleman. Matter of fact, when Siringo published his memoirs in 1919, he claimed to have known exactly where Bogan was living.
Why he didn’t spill the beans or try to arrest him, I have no idea, but according to him, he knew where he was living and he knew what name he was living under. That said, Charlie Siringo ain’t exactly the most reliable of sources, so you got to kind of take everything he says with a grain of salt.
But still, he wasn’t the only one who reported on Bogan’s whereabouts. The Laramie Sentinel reported in November of 1890 that Dan had died in Mexico, with his boots on after getting into an argument with a Mexican.
Another paper claimed that he was bucked from a horse in New Mexico in 1907 and that he broke his neck. Others, however, much like Charlie Siringo, maintained that Bogan was still alive well into the twentieth century.
Hell, even as late as 1932, it was rumored that Dan had married, owned a ranch someplace in Texas, and was branding Mavericks and raising Hoover Democrats, whatever the hell that means. So, what was the ultimate fate of Dan Bogan?
I have absolutely no idea. Maybe he was killed in Mexico like the papers reported, or maybe he lived to be an old man in Texas. Either way, he does seem to be one of the few outlaws who actually eluded justice.
And in the end, we are left with more questions than we have answers. You know, one thing that really stood out to me is that Dan did seem to have a lot of friends.
I mean, he was clearly a likable guy, right? Sure, he stole livestock on occasion, but he never robbed any banks or trains or anything like that.
His biggest problem was the bottle, and in that regard, he certainly wasn’t alone. A lot of notable figures from the Old West struggled with the bottle, and it almost always ended in disaster.
I think if Bogan somehow managed to sober up, maybe while he was down there in South America, then maybe, just maybe, he really did live to be an old man. If not, then I think the story of him getting killed in Mexico is probably much more likely.
Anyway, I guess that is about all I have got on Dan Bogan. Thank you so much for joining me. If you are looking for more true tales from the wild and woolly west, head on over to wildwestextra.
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