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NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
FOR
BARBER COUNTY, KANSAS
ATTEMPTED BANK ROBBERY
The President and Cashier Fatally Shot for Refusing to Surrender
Kansas City, May 1 - A Times Harpoe, Kas., dispatch says: During an attempt made yesterday morning to rob the Medicine
Valley Bank, of Medicine Lodge, thirty-five miles west of there, the cashier was killed and the President fatally
wounded. At 10 o'clock four men, armed with Winchester repeating rifles and revolvers, rode up to the bank. Two
remained with the horses while the others entered the building and demanded money. Mr. Payne, the president and
George Goppert, the cashier, were in the bank. They refused to comply, with the result above stated. The city marshal
then appeared and opened fire on the men. The citizens gathered rapidly and the robbers, seeing their game was
up, quickly mounted and galloped away without having secured any booty. Within ten minutes thirty men were in hot
pursuit and the chances are that the robbers will be captured and summarily dealth with. There is no clue to their
identity. Goppert was a prominent business man, while Mr. Payne was editor of the Index and a wealthy and influential
stock man. (Macon Weekly Telepgraph and Messenger, May 9, 1884, page 7)
SIX DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON
Biggest Day in Old-Time History of Medicine Lodge - Four Men Robbed A Bank
President and Cashier Shot
Mistaken Flight of the Robbers into A Blind Canyon - Later, After a Break for Liberty, One was Shot and Three were
Hanged
"Did I ever tell you about the time we had the big funeral in the Lodge, six men died and all died with their
boots on?"
The speaker was an old cattleman who knew the range from the days when Abilene was the cattle market of the great
west down to the present time, says the Kansas City Star.
He had just taken a big drink with an old friend behind the stove in a southern Kansas joint watching a game of
poker. The old veteran got up, gave the sand box a kick to provide it a more convenient location, and took a fresh
chew from a long plug, then settled down to tell his story.
"When I first went west in 1880," he said, "I had no experience with the range and there were many
new things for me to learn. I bought a bunch of cattle on to the Panhandle and trailed them through to Barber County.
I and my cowboys squatted on some vacant quarters of land in the brakes west of the Medicine River. We were in
the rough country several miles west of Medicine Lodge."
"Medicine Lodge is an old town as towns go in Kansas. Away back in early days the Indians gave the stream
that runs through the town the name of Medicine River. It has peculiar properties and really served them as medicine.
The Lodge got its name because it was a camping place for sick Injuns, and they would come two days' ride on their
ponies across the ranges to get the water. Later the government made some treaties at the Lodge that made it headquarters
and a trading post sprang up. By the time I located in the brakes to the west, the Lodge was right smart of a place.
It had a faro bank and a dance hall and plenty of saloons and a bank of deposit for the cattlemen. The town is
just east of a country of peculiar formation. The prairie is cut up with great canyons, some of them 100 feet deep.
Part of them are great sinks with sloping banks, but most of them have banks with very steep sides. They just break
square off and a bunch of cattle that gets stampeded will tumble into these canyons and break their necks. To be
candid with you, that country ain't worth a damn except for grazing cattle. You can't hardly raise cattle out there
to rough your stock through the winter. It's just simply no account except for grazing and not much for that.
ROBBERY AND DOUBLE MURDER
"But I'm on the wrong trail. You wanted to know about that promiscuous funeral affair. It was the 1st day
of May, 1884, and we had had big doings in the town the day before. I told you we had a bank there then. The saloons
had degenerated into joints under prohibition and the town was getting mighty civilized by that time."
"Wiley Payne was president of the bank and a young fellow named Gebhart was the cashier. Gebhart had been
down east and had just got back that morning. He and Payne came down early and opened the bank a little earlier
than usual. I was on the way to the bank myself and was about a block away when I saw four men ride up and tie
their horses. Three went into the bank. There was an old woman across the street and all of a sudden she yelled
"bank robbers" at the top of her voice and began to run. Both the president and cashier were shot to
death by the robbers. Every man in town who had a gun and we all carried 'em, got ready to shoot. There was a lot
of cowboys at the hotel and in the joints. They had rode their horses into town and left them in the livery stable
with the saddles on. When the shooting began to get hot the robbers ran for their horses, climbed up and started
up Medicine creek. The cowboys were right behind them, riding add shooting. They couldn't get in range so it would
be convenient to drop so they quit shooting and made the bronchos climb. They never once lost sight of them robbers.
I don't know whether they'd have caught them very soon if the robbers hadn't made a blunder."
"Harry Brown, the city marshal of Caldwell, and Ben Wheeler his deputy were the head robbers. Ben was a big
fellow more than six feet high and weighed 225. He was too heavy for his horse, and the horse was losing his wind.
So what does they do but turn into one of the deep canyons, thinking they could hide somewhere, I reckon. Anyhow,
they started up the canyon with the cowboys after them. It was a deep one without any outlet at the upper end.
First thing they knew we had 'em penned in by the steep banks of the canyon on three sides and the cowboys on the
other. It was a tight place, I want to tell you, and it did not take them long to agree to surrender and go back
to jail. I guess we did promise 'em protection, leastwise we said if they would go back with us we wouldn't hang
'em on the way to jail. But we declined to be responsible for accidents. That's natural enough. How could we help
it if something did happen to them after they got back to jail?
WORK FOR JUDGE LYNCH
"Course something did happen. They knowed and we knowed that it was goin' to. They had been caught in the
act of killing respectable citizens and they had nothing else to expect. We put 'em in jail safe enough and put
handcuffs on 'em. Along toward evening the boys began to ride in from all over the country. They had heard about
the killing and after much deliberation it was decided that the jail was no safe place no how and the state had
expenses enough of its own. So, for the good of the community, it was thought best to make a short, sure job of
them and relieve ourselves from further anxiety."
"Along in the evening some of the boys went up to the jail to see how the prisoners was. As I told you, they
was all in irons when we left 'em in the morning, but when we went up there that night, they had got the irons
off. How they done it I never did know and they didn't have time to explain. When the door was opened, they broke
for to get away. Brown got such a start that it was necessary to perforate him then and there. He died without
a kick. He was a pretty game fellow and was town marshal of Caldwell at that time, as I have already remarked.
His deputy, Ben Wheeler, the big fellow, had to be winged. They shot him so he couldn't run and held him for the
final ceremonies. The other two robbers, Billy Smith and John Wesley, was cowboys, but being poor runners and having
been previously relieved of their Winchesters and side arms, they were easy to handle. Besides the boys all knowed
'em and did not want to disfigure them. They rounded up the prisoners and took 'em to a lonely tree hand to town
and near the river."
"Then the three was strung up on one tree. Of course, as Brown had already departed this life, there weren't
no need of stringing him up. It was a big funeral we had the next day, six men dead, and all had died with their
boots on. It was the biggest day we ever had in Medicine Lodge. (The Helena Independent, January 12, 1900, page
3)
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