This episode is brought to you by Rooted in Legacy, Keeping Wyoming’s legends—and your family stories—alive beyond the grave.

 They say justice never rests—but neither does Tom Horn. 

 After the infamous gunslinger swung from the gallows inside the Laramie County Jail in 1903, the prisoners left behind began to hear things: the creak of the trapdoor, the sinister sound of running water from the “suicide gallows,” and a calm, steady voice saying, “Are you ready?” 

 Even after his death, prisoners swore Horn was still there with them, slowly pacing his cell and professing his innocence of murdering a 14-year-old boy. Each night, they could hear him being brought to the gallows as they listened from their own dark cells.  

 On Pioneers of Outlaw Country, we step inside those cold Cheyenne walls to uncover the haunting of Tom Horn—the outlaw who refused to die quietly.

 The Pioneers of Outlaw Country. 

 Cowboys, Lawmen and Outlaws… to the businessmen and women who all helped shape Wyoming. 

 Here are their stories

 The Haunting of Tom Horn 

 Over 120 years ago, Tom Horn was hung despite his claims of innocence. Soon after, prisoners claimed that when the lights went out at the Laramie County jail in Cheyenne, they could still hear the heavy footsteps of the condemned man pacing in his cell—waiting for a pardon that never came.

 Welcome to Pioneers of Outlaw Country, the podcast where Wyoming’s wild past comes back to life. I’m your host, Jackie Dorothy—Wyoming historian and storyteller—here to uncover the true tales and tall legends that shaped the frontier. 

 In this episode, we are stepping back in time to 1903 inside the old Cheyenne jail, where the spirit of Tom Horn was said to linger long after his hanging. 

 Was he a cold-blooded killer or a scapegoat for justice gone wrong? Was Tom Horn a restless spirit, haunting his old cell mates and demanding revenge? Or was he there to taunt those that may soon join him? 

 This Wyoming ghost story is brought to you by Rooted in Legacy because even the ghosts of the past have stories worth telling.

We help you preserve your stories that matter most—from your family memories to your personal history. Through one-on-one coaching and guided storytelling, we will turn those memories into a legacy that is lasting and unforgettable.

Book your free discovery call at LegendRockMedia.com
—or follow the link in the show notes.

Now back to our Wyoming ghost story…

 On November 20, 1903, convicted killer Tom Horn was hung inside the Laramie County Jail in Cheyenne. 

Sheriff Ed Smalley hid his face against the gallows and cried as the condemned man stood on the trapdoor, waiting for death. 

When death finally came, after 35 long seconds of waiting, Smalley wasn’t the only one present who was openly grieving as Tom Horn, a man that many claimed was innocent, swung from the gallows rope.

Tom Horn’s body was carted out of the jail in a coffin. However, that was not the end of Tom Horn. There were reports from frightened inmates that Horn’s spirit still roamed the jail and voices could be heard asking Horn if he was ready. 

John Charles Thompson, a reporter for the Cheyenne Leader, was one of the few people allowed to be present for the execution of Tom Horn. He recorded the scene for his audience and began by telling the story of how Tom Horn ended up at the gallows. 

 Let us go back in time with Thompson, before Tom Horn met his end. 

 Thompson said that Horn was a professional murderer who operated in Wyoming in the 1890’s and in Colorado in 1900, then back again in Wyoming in 1901. 

 On his return to Wyoming, Horn was employed by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, a group of cattle ranchers who Thompson said wished to liquidate rustlers and sheep-owners whose flocks intruded in “cattle country” by any means possible. 

 Some say that Horn was responsible for up to 17 murders during his long career as a hired gun.

 Horn’s fees for murder ranged from $500 to $700. He was believed to have “dry-gulched” his victims, meaning that he ambushed them and some never even knew who their killer was. According to Thompson, Horn’s trademark was a rock placed beneath the head of a victim for the purpose of proving to his employers that the “dirty work” had been his. 

 Horn was sentenced to death in 1902 for supposedly ambushing Willie, a 14-year-old boy whom he mistook for the lad’s father, a sheep herder who was a target of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. Kels B, Nickell’s crime was having sheep where the cattle barons wanted only cattle.

 Horn had once been a Pinkerton agent and met up with one of his former coworkers at a bar where he proceeded to get quite drunk. Joe LeFor was now a Deputy U.S. Marshal and had a motive behind this drinking spree. Through a series of leading questions, LeFor got Horn to confess to the murder. Horn allegedly bragged about ambushing Willie and said it was the best shot he had ever made.  Horn denied the charge as soon as he became sober.

 Reporter Thompson said that no other murder was ever proved against Horn but there was general belief that he committed at least four others. Horn was hung at the gallows not because the murder of the boy was proved “beyond reasonable doubt,” but on “general principle” that Horn “had it coming.”

When Horn realized the Governor of Wyoming was not going to grant him a pardon, he plotted his escape. He had no intention of dying on the gallows and did everything possible to escape his fate.

On the morning of August 9,1903, Horn teamed up with his cell mate “Driftwood Jim” McCloud, a member of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang who was also believed to have murdered a sheep herder in a separate confrontation near TenSleep, Wyoming.  

 The two inmates attacked and overpowered Undersheriff Richard Proctor in the cell block and took his keys. They unlocked the door to the sheriff’s office and dragged him in, beaten almost into unconsciousness. 

 They were searching the office for firearms when Snow, the deputy who had heard Horn’s drunken “confession,” walked in. Instantly, Snow bolted out of the room, ran along the court-house corridor to a more open area. He fired his gun to give the alarm.

 Horn and McCloud fled from the courthouse in opposite directions. McCloud ran to the sheriff’s barn, commandeered the only horse there. He was endeavoring to mount the skittish animal when Sheriff Edward Smalley appeared with a revolver. Smalley fired twice at the fugitive, “creasing” him with each bullet. 

McCloud abandoned the horse, threw up his hands, and submitted to seizure by citizens who had been summoned by Snow’s shots. Eventually, he was sent to the penitentiary for post-office robbery committed in Buffalo.

 Horn ran out of the main door of the courthouse with an automatic pistol he had found in the sheriff’s office. He ran eastward along Nineteenth Street a block, turned north on Capitol, then east on Twentieth. Across Nineteenth from the courthouse was an roving merry-go-round outfit. 

 The owner, middle-aged O. M. Eldrich, pursued the fugitive, armed with a cheap nickel-

plated revolver. At Eldrich’s heels went a growing pack of citizenry who had just emerged from Sunday morning devotions at a near-by church.

 As Horn turned into Twentieth, Eldrich began firing at him. As two bullets smacked into a building he was passing, Horn stopped, threw down his pistol, and threw up his hands. Eldrich confidently kept him covered, unaware that he had exhausted the cartridges in his nickel-plated gun. Horn had not fired a shot; the “safety” of his pistol had not been released.

 Citizens and a police patrolman, Lou Stone, seized Horn, and began to march back toward the jail. As they approached the building, Snow appeared with a rifle. Seeing Horn, he quickly reversed the weapon and attempted to club the helpless prisoner. Stone threw up an arm to shield Horn and suffered a fracture of the limb.

 Thompson said that the popular explanation given at the time of Horn’s failure to use his pistol was that he was unfamiliar with the weapon’s “safety” and was unable to fire it. The truth, Thompson believed, was that Horn was familiar with the operation of the “safety,” but was too shrewd to fire at Eldrich and other pursuers, realizing that another killing would surely seal his fate. 

 He still had hope that legal action might enable him to avoid the noose. A reprieve did not occur, however, and the Suicide Gallows were erected inside the county jail.

 It had been decided by authorities that Tom Horn would be the second man to be hung by the Julian gallows. This invention of death was designed so that a man legally condemned to death would be compelled to execute himself. 

 With only a canvas curtain masking it from Horn’s view, the gallows had been assembled two days before his execution. Its mechanism had been tested repeatedly—the last time only 30 minutes before the hanging. Horn could hear every movement; a more barbaric ordeal for the condemned man could hardly have been arranged, Thompson said.

 Thompson had been given a demonstration of how the gallows worked. The morning before the day of execution, Undersheriff Proctor had slipped the reporter through a side door into the jail. He then operated the mechanism with a 200-pound sack of sand as a “stand-in” for Horn.

 The undersheriff pointed out to “Charley” that when the sack stopped it only made a half-turn. Proctor had arranged it that way so Horn’s back will be to the spectators when he was hung.

 Sure enough, Thompson noted, the sandbag made only a half turn, then hung motionless save for a slight swinging.

 Calmly from behind the curtain came Horn’s voice. 

 “Did she work all right this time, Dick?” 

 The Undersheriff Richard Proctor replied with an affirmative.

 “Sure, slick as a whistle.” 

 Horn then responded.

 “That’s good. I don’t want any slips.”

 The morning of the hanging, Thompson was marched through the Sheriff’s office into the jail between a gauntlet of nervous guards, each with a rifle presented in his direction. 

As a precaution against possible interference by Horn’s friends with the execution, the gallows had been erected inside the jail. The cell block was in two tiers. Horn’s cell was at an end of the upper tier. A narrow gangway surrounded this tier and the gallows platform had been put up on a level with this gangway. Its edge was not four feet from Horn’s cell. 

 The newspapermen were crammed into a little space at the end of the platform adjoining Horn’s cell; the visiting sheriffs were marshaled on the first-tier level below. The Irwin brothers, Big Charlie and Little Frank, flanked by guards, stood beside them. They were close friends of Tom Horn and had tried unsuccessfully to free him through legal channels. 

 The executioners and an Episcopal clergyman, Dr. George C. Rafter, an acquaintance of Horn, were on the gangway at the opposite edge of the platform. Standing beside the Irwin brothers were two physicians, Dr. George P. Johnston and Dr. John H. Conway. 

 Horn, his back against the cell grill, was half-reclining on his narrow bed, puffing a cigar. He was perfectly composed. His soft shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, exposing the scar of the wound he had suffered in a knife fight at Dixon.

 Proctor opened Horn’s cell. It was time. 

 “Ready, Tom.”  

Horn arose, carefully placed his cigar on a cross-reinforcement of the grill, strode firmly the few steps required to take him to the side of the gallows platform.

 He nodded to the Irwins and then disdainfully scanned the peace officers below. He addressed the sheriff.

 “Ed, that’s the sickest looking lot of damned sheriffs I ever seen.”

 Big Charlie spoke to his friend as Tom Horn headed to the gallows. 

 “Would you like us to sing, Tom?” 

 “Yes, I’d like that.” 

 So, while Proctor buckled straps that bound Horn’s arms and legs, the Irwins, each in a rich tenor, sang a rather depressing song popular on the range, “Life Is Like a Mountain Railroad.”

 The clergyman read his church’s prayer for the dying. Horn, standing relaxed, listened without a tremor.

 “Would you like to say anything?” asked Smalley. 

 “No,” replied Horn.

 Big Charlie Irwin spoke again. 

 “Tom, did you confess to the preacher ?”

 “No,” was the reply.

 Proctor adjusted the noose, formed with the conventional knot of 13 wraps, to Horn’s neck; drew a black hood over his head. 

Proctor then asked a final question of the doomed man.

“Are you ready?” 

 Tom Horn answered that he was. 

 Sheriff Smalley was on one side and a friend of Horn, T. Joe Cahill, was on the other and together they lifted the doomed man onto the trap door. 

 Everyone present, including the inmates in their cells, heard a soft click as the suicide gallows began its work. 

 Instantly the constant sound of running water permeated the breathless stillness of the jail. The instrument of death had begun to operate. 

 To the straining ears of the listeners that little sound had the magnitude of that of a rushing torrent. Water poured out from a balance tank into a shallow pan. When the balance became light enough, it would pull the bolt out of the trap door with a thud, plunging Horn to his death.

 Smalley, his face buried in the crook of an arm resting against the gallows, was trembling.

 Tom’s voice was calm through the black cap.

 “What’s the matter? Getting nervous I might tip over?”

 The sound of escaping water ran on, seeming to have no end. 

 Horn, addressed his friend, Cahill, standing beside the gallows.

 “Joe, they tell me you’re married now. I hope you’re doing well. Treat her right.”

 Undeniably, Tom Horn was the best composed man of all present in the chamber of death.

 The sinister sound of running water continued, then mercifully, the leaves of the trap parted with a crash and Horn’s body dropped through the opening.

 Thirty-one seconds had elapsed since he had been lifted onto the gallows.

 Tom Horn fell only four and one-half feet; his head and shoulders projected above the gallows floor. 

 This drop was not sufficient. Horn’s neck was not broken. Proctor had feared to arrange a longer drop, apprehensive that stoppage of the fall of a body so heavy as Horn’s might tear the head off. 

 The slam of the massive hangman’s knot against the side of Horn’s skull shocked him into unconsciousness, however, and he did not suffer. For 17 minutes the physicians, with fingers on his pulse, felt impulses as a mighty heart labored on; then the pulse ceased.

 Tom Horn was dead—unconfessed of the murder of young Willie Nickell. 

 Thompson did not see Horn finally die. Immediately upon Horn’s plunge through the trap the witnesses were required to leave. Thompson had hesitated briefly and with horrified fascination, watched as the dangling body turned. It made precisely one-half turn and then stopped. Proctor’s reckoning in this respect had been accurate.

Thompson was the first man to get out of the courthouse. He emerged at a high lope and was intercepted in the middle of the street by Kels Nickell, who had contrived to get through the police line blocking the Laramie County jail. 

 He demanded to know if his son’s killer was dead.

 Barely pausing in his run, Thompson said that Tom Horn was dead. The reporter then ran on. He had an extra to get out.

 An hour later Thompson saw Horn body on a slab at the Gleason Mortuary. The hired gun was dead. But that didn’t stop Tom Horn. 

 Two weeks later, on December 5th, Thompson was once more writing about Tom Horn for the Cheyenne Daily Leader. 

 His title was “Ghostly Sounds” and he shared a story of how the prisoners left behind in that county jail heard a phantom hanging on the week anniversary of Tom Horn’s hanging.

 Inmates of the cells were frightened by voices repeating words used at Horn’s execution, shuffling footsteps, hissing of flowing water, the bang of a falling trap and frightful howling.

 Thompson asked his readers, is the Laramie County Jail haunted?

 This is a question that the prisoners are asking, for they have heard things, strange noises and terrifying sounds, which they cannot explain.

 Two weeks ago yesterday morning at 11:04, Tom Horn was hanged, Thompson wrote. A week ago yesterday the prisoners heard sounds, and again last night, there were noises that broke the stillness of the jail with startling suggestiveness.

 The clock in the sheriff’s office had rung the hour of eleven. An intense stillness prevailed in the jail and the majority of the prisoners were sleeping soundly. 

 Outside, the moon shone brightly and its pale radiance, streaming through the barred windows in silver floods, illuminated with a ghostly light the corner where the gallows had stood and there the criss cross shadows of the bars traced upon the wall in broad, black bands the pattern of a gibbet, looking strangely real in the dim, half-light.

 The face of the moon was veiled by a film of cloud and the radiance changed from silver to pale blue. The sharper rays from the arc light on the corner, entering the eastern windows, flickered, were diminished, disappeared.

 Suddenly the silence was shattered by a rasping clang as of steel grating on steel. The prisoners started in their berths – they knew that sound, the best-oiled bolts slide harshly. 

 With tense nerves the men in the cells waited, listening. 

 Distinctly, but sounding far away like a whisper in a corridor some voice said, “Are you ready?”

 “Yes,” came back, strong and clear, and the listening felons felt the prick of their raising hair – those words were familiar – they had been spoken in that very place two weeks before and spoken in such wise that they who heard could not forget – What was the meaning of their repetition at this time; what awful thing was being done close at hand, audible but invisible?

 Following the pregnant words were shuffling sounds – shuffle, shuffle, shuffle – such as a man in soft shoes might make in stepping over a hard floor – such as all steps in prison make, where only soft shoes are worn.

 Not the slightest glide of those footsteps was lost to the straining ears in the lower cells where every nerve was taut as a bow-string and every sound was magnified by the metallic walls. 

 The shuffling stopped and was succeeded by low murmurs, the inflections of questions and answers – then more shuffling, more murmuring, then clearly again those words:

 “Are you ready?”

 Now the answer was muffled as though obstructed, but strong, “Yes,” it came.

 The suspense of the men in the cells was becoming unbearable and from one grated opening came a sound as of a sob. Still that shuffling continued, then close at hand came a new noise, the unmistakable gurgle of running water, soft, constant, sinister.

 Through the heavy air, that seemed suffocating, the water hissed and the walls sent back faint echoes. To the listening ears the sound seemed to grow in intensity as does the sound of escaping steam; each second seemed an eternity, each succeeding eternity longer than the last. There was something to come before that sound ceased, the listening prisoners knew that, each mind had gone into the future where a scene of the past was to re-enacted, and each brain knew what next would come.

 Slowly the second dragged their weary length along – twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirt- BANG! 

 A crash clove the air and rent the tense suspense to fragments.

 Then there should have been silence; but no. What is that new sound? 

 That wheezing, snarling, strangling struggle that suggested fight for breath. Louder it grows, with each instant, and more creepy, more eerie, more awful. This is too much for flesh and blood to stand; there is an to nerve control – one the tortured air breaks a new, and a more awful sound. 

 A cry, a shriek, a rent souls howl, rising louder and louder, prolonged and quivering – fearful, freezing, indescribable. 

 In the sheriff’s office, a deputy arose and slammed the barred door to the hall. 

 “Are you ready?” he asked another deputy.

 “Yes,” was the answer as the man arose and walked about the room seeing that everything was in order for the night. He did not hurry and his companion became impatient.

 “Are you ready?” asked the impatient deputy again.

 “Yes,” came in muffled tones from the second deputy who was arranging things in a cupboard.

 The first speaker walked to a faucet and, taking up a glass, began to draw off a drink. 

 A door, from the direction that of the barn, slammed loudly.

 “I’ll have to lock that door.” 

 The first deputy emerging from the cupboard; then after listening for a moment, he added: 

 “Great Scot; hear that inmate in the first cell snore.”

 He moved from the room and as his footsteps sounded on the board walk leading to the barn, his hound within the building, a magnificent brute of Russian breed, set up a loud, long harsh howl, a jarring, unmusical plea for recognition or release.

 Is the county jail haunted?

 Despite Thompson trying to show that the nightly sounds could be explained away, another mystery emerged.

 Once again, Thompson typed another ghost story for the Cheyenne Daily Leader, this time it ran on December 11th, 1903.

 The question of whether the county jail is haunted has arisen again, this time it is no jolly, Thompson wrote.

 Jim McCloud awaiting trial for post office robbery and believed to have the blood of Ben Minnick on his hands, swears that he holds nightly and highly edifying conversations with the wraith of Tom Horn. 

 McCloud has confided to the jail officials that he is the confidant of one who has gone to the other world and desires that someone watch with him throughout the night in order that his narrative may be substantiated. 

 As regularly as night comes down the conversations occur and on Friday night the exchange of small talk, for small talk in the nature of the communication, is unusually prolonged. 

 Tonight is the third weekly anniversary of the hanging, and McCloud is looking forward to a particularly edifying chat with his old friend and jailmate.

 McCloud did not seem to be at all alarmed by his communication with the alleged ghost, on the contrary professes to rather enjoy the experiences, which relieved the monotony of jail life and gave him food for thought through the day. 

He is not certain whether or not he has been able to distinguish the outlines of his ghostly visitor, but hears the voice distinctly and recognizes many of the expressions as counterparts of those commonly used by Horn during his confinement.

 None of the other prisoners of the jail have been honored by a visit from the specter, nor have they heard of the alleged conversations in McCloud’s cell, although ordinarily distinct sounds are audible in every cell of the first tier. 

 No prisoner has yet been confined in Horn’s old cell and the upper tier is entirely deserted. The fear of the prisoners that they will be taken there has worn off.

 This time, Thompson was unable to disprove the claim of Driftwood Jim McCloud that Tom Horn had indeed returned to the cell, haunting his last place of rest.  

 It is now up to you,  listeners, to decide if the ghost of Tom Horn haunted the Laramie County jail or if it was the delusion of those who had sat in silent horror as one of their own marched to his death.

 Whether it was guilt, imagination, or something darker, Tom Horn’s presence in that cell refused to die.

 Thank you for listening to this episode of Pioneers of Outlaw Country.

 If you enjoyed this story, please follow the show and share it with a fellow history buff who loves a good Wyoming ghost tale.

 This episode was brought to you by Rooted in Legacy—helping you preserve your family’s stories before they fade into the past.

 Book your free discovery call with me at LegendRockMedia.com, or follow the link in the show notes.

 I’m Jackie Dorothy, and as we close, imagine that cold November morning in Cheyenne—

Tom Horn standing calm upon the gallows, a black hood over his face,

and the Irwin brothers’ voices rising softly in the air… a final hymn for an outlaw that carried Tom Horn to the other side…

Life Is Like A Mountain Railroad

Life is like a mountain railroad

With an engineer so brave

We must make this run successful

From the cradle to the grave

Watch the curves, the fills the tunnels

Never falter, never fail

Keep your hand upon the throttle

And your eye upon the rail

Oh, blessed Savior, thou wilt guide us

Til we reach that blissful shore

Where the angels wait to join us

In God's grace forever more

As you roll across the trestle

Spanning Jordan's swelling tide

You behold the union depot

Into which your train will glide

There you'll meet the superintendent

God the Father, God the Son

With a hearty, joyous greeting

Weary pilgrim, welcome home

This has been a production of Legend Rock Media.

Join me next time on Pioneers of Outlaw Country, when we uncover the strange tale of 1866—
a private soldier ambushed by Indians returned to Fort Smith in Wyoming Territory… where he was shown his own grave. 

Until then, I’m Jackie Dorothy, and remember… in Wyoming, the past doesn’t always stay buried.