Case Study (K)

The Ketchum Gang, one of the most infamous criminal gangs of the Old West.
The Ketchum Gang (or the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang) of murderers and robbers ran in the regions of Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico from 1897 to 1899, creating chaos wherever they went. But who were the Ketchum Gang? What crimes did they commit? Why did they commit crimes? And how did they met their ends? This breif case study with look at the members of the Ketchum Gang and how their story can help others understand the climate of the Wild West.

At the core of the group was Tom and Sam Ketchum. The two brothers were nothing alike in nature. Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum was known to be a cold individual with black hair and black eyes, called by a family acquitance as "undoubtedly one of the crullest and most cold blooded killers oin the whole history of the frontier." Tom was the leader of the group with unnerving will while his older brother Sam was the opposite. Sam was said to be fair-skinned and had reddish hair, a man that was affectionately called "Dad" by some of the group members. "Sam Ketchum was a brave and courageous man and if his brother hadn't been such a bad influence he would have been alright." Next in the gang was Will Carver, described as a good man and cowboy until his wife and infant daughter's deaths where he ran with the wrong crowd and became cold to relationships. The last member was Dave Atkins, the member of the band that survived twenty years after most of the band had been caught, fleeing to fight with the British in North Africa for a time. There is also other criminals that joined the gang for months at a time, but they were the main four. The gang and other accomplices would go on to commit train and express robbery, bank robbery, and murder in the years they were together. In that time, it was estimated they stole an estimated $150,000-$180,000, a massive amount for the time period. But why did these individuals get into crime? There has been many different ideas from the sense of adventure robbery brought to another reason that historian Jeffrey Burton brings up from an account of the Ketchum gang. "It looks more as if the outlaws were driven by sheer destructiveness. Such mentality could have been engendered by a rage against the failure of their own live, or against things, or people in general." It is hard to know why these men turned from their lives to lives of crime, especially when many of them had lives on ranches before they became criminals. Whatever this why was, it was enough for them to commit heinous acts against individuals and property for years. However, there is evidence that Tom Ketchum's violence started early, when he committed petty crimes of theft and eventually shot a man in his youth. All of these individuals lived hard lives on the range, where their lives were made of rivalries with other families for land and cattle, and rivalries with larger cattle operations. It was a life of competion and more often than not feuds. Growing up in this environment may have had some type of influence on their later selves as criminals. This could be argued as a mentality that spread to other criminals in the time period as well

But Tom Ketchum's end is what has caught fascination. Tom was arrested in early 1899 and had made enemies with his former gang members over various disputes. At his trial, it was clear that the state was going for the death penalty for the robberies and multiple murders he committed, but his attorneys argued under the Eighth Amendment, citing hanging as a cruel and unsual punishment for the crimes he had committed. The courts swiftly rebuked this, sternly citing his robberies and lack of empathy for those he murdered when they were in the way of his crimes. The courts were harsh and swiftly placed the execution nose around Tom Ketchum's neck for the act of train robbery, not murder. When riding into the town where he was to be executed, Tom even commented that everyone should come see his execution, not just those who had paid to see his execution. His hanging was a public execution, one that was popular. On the day of his execution, Tom signed his confession, donned new clothes, went to a barber and prepared for his end, and echoed what he said earlier to the press, he was going to die like a man. But in his speech before his execution, he said that his punishment was too harsh for the crimes he committed, denied he had involvement with some of the crimes he was charged for, he also blamed railroad corporations for greed, and said that he never killed a man. Tom went into execution without fear, and it was good that he did. The man passed with cutting the rope to his noose failed to hit the mark and had to strike again. In the second strike Tom Ketchum was executed, but not by execution through hanging but rather decapitation. Years ealier, Tom has said that he would not die by hanging, and in the end he was correct.

In the end nearly all the of the Ketchum Gang member's met their end by the rope, but in their deaths they became infamous. They were famous for their brutality, the money they stole, and in the end, their death's. Their stories became Wild West culture in how outlaws came, stole, murdered, and died in the eyes of the law. While large criminals gangs and larger than life individuals were not the norm in the Old West, they were enough of an occurrence to warrant a culture around them and a fascination now to understand who they were and how they came and ended as outlaws.

Written by Kim Krueger.