On September 25, 1903, an execution took place in the courtyard of the Fremont County Courthouse in Lander. It was the only legal hanging ever committed in Fremont County.
James Keffer, a 30-year-old ranch hand working along the Rawlins to Fort Washakie stage line, was found guilty in Lander, lost an appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court in Cheyenne, and was refused a commutation by Governor Fennimore Chatterton before he made his final walk to the gallows. 
If you’re a fan of Westerns, there is a hanging featured in almost every episode. Hollywood’s depiction of the Old West and reality are juxtaposed. There weren’t all that many executions in the West and decidedly few in both territorial Wyoming and later after statehood in 1890.
Seven men were executed in Wyoming Territory between 1871 and 1890. Keffer was the third after Wyoming joined the Union on July 10, 1890. All 25 men were guilty of murder with a few charged additionally with rape and robbery. Mark Hopkinson was the last man executed in Wyoming, dying by lethal injection at the State Penitentiary in Rawlins on January 22, 1991.
The Keffer case was especially appalling to the citizens of Fremont County. Keffer worked various ranches and stage stops between Myersville near present-day Sweetwater Station and Derby, a stage stop south of Lander.
Keffer’s victim was C.J. Warren, an “old timer” who worked the station at Derby. Warren was well-known and well-liked throughout Fremont County with the reputation of helping those in need. It was his philanthropy that led to his murder at the hands of Keffer.
Keffer wandered into the bar at Derby on November 30, 1902. He drank heavily for most of the frigid afternoon before deciding to leave in sub-zero temperatures.
Warren offered Keffer a place to stay for the night, but he initially refused, setting out only the trail on horseback. A few miles down the road, he decided to turn back and take Warren’s offer.
Warren was not wealthy but was a man who saved his money. Area ranchers came to him for small loans which were always quickly repaid. Keffer heard of this and of the rumor that Warren kept $200 in gold and silver coins at the Derby Station.
Warren was sound asleep when Keffer quietly opened the door to the station. He took down a coach gun from a rack on the wall. A coach gun was a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun used by drivers to protect their passengers and freight from robbery attempts. Keffer took silent aim, pulled one of the double-triggers, and blew Warren’s brains and parts of his skull into the pillows and bed sheets.
The September 18, 1903, Edition of the Cheyenne Daily Leader described the crime in detailed prose – “Sickening in detail is the story of how he, with the baneful light of greed in his eye and murder in his heart, crept softly into the room where an aged and almost decrepit man sleeping peacefully and not even dreaming of the terrible fate soon to descend upon him. The invader perhaps noted with satisfaction the unconsciousness of his victim and deliberately blew out the sleeping man’s brain. Then rifling the pockets and marching the effects of his victim the murderer goes out again into the darkness of the night.”
That narrative came after the trial. Keffer had an entirely different version of the events of November 30.
Fremont County Coroner Schooner impaneled a Grand Jury, that traveled to the Carmody Ranch where Warren’s body had been taken. After an autopsy and inquest, the remains were taken to Mr. Firestone, the undertaker, and Warren was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Lander.
Keffer said he and Warren were friends while he was working at the Carmody Ranch and Warren was a stock tender at Derby.
In Keffer’s story, both men had been drinking heavily on November 30 at Derby. Keffer claimed Warren tried to shoot him with a Winchester rifle but missed. Both men fought for the rifle which went off, hitting Warren and killing him instantly.
That didn’t support the investigation done by Sheriff Stough who found no evidence of a rifle shot, but plenty of shotgun pellets scattered into the pillows and bed sheets, some of them scorched by the close-range muzzle blast of the 12-gauge.
That didn’t deter Keffer from his story. He claimed that he was at Bruce, (another small community on the stage line) with Warren the day before, the 29th, and they drank until around 3 p.m. Both men intended to return to their respective homes but instead went to find “Scotty the Freighter” who was camped on Beaver Creek below the Carmody Ranch.
Scotty had whisky and the two men drank all night before deciding to return to Derby the following day.
It was at Derby that Warren was shot and killed at close range. Keffer rode to Bruce with a couple of empty Winchester shell cases claiming they were the cartridges he used in self-defense against Warren.
The story didn’t sell. Keffer was a strong man of 30, and Warren was in his 60s, partially infirm, and had trouble walking.
Fremont County charged Keffer with premeditated, first-degree murder. He was unable to afford counsel, so the court-appointed attorneys Preston and Fourt to represent him.
The following afternoon, the attorneys approached the court and said Keffer would plead guilty to murder in the first degree.
Whether Keffer understood what he had pled to or not was undetermined. The two previous men executed for murder, Charles Miller, a 17-year old who in 1892 was the first man executed in Wyoming, though they waited until he was 18 to carry out the sentence. Frank Howard was found guilty in Rawlins and executed in December 1894.
It didn’t matter what his plea was, the Fremont County Attorney, Mr. Hardin refused to accept it. A plea brought life in prison rather than the hangman’s noose, and the prevalent sentiment in Lander would have likely instituted a lynching, with Keffer hanging from a tree rather than the gallows.
Keffer’s attorneys filed a motion asking for time to prepare for trial and the case was continued with a suggestion from Judge Bramel that as soon as the Fremont County Commissioners provide funding for court expenses the trial would take place in 1903.
The trial began in late June 1903.
Keffer’s defense quickly fell apart once he took the stand. His stories of the crime were never the same, and his claim of self-defense fell far short of the evidence of Warren’s death by a shotgun blast in bed, rather than from a close-range rifle shot after a struggle.
During Keffer’s initial statement to Sheriff Stough, he claimed he couldn’t remember anything about the incident since a head injury gave him amnesia if he started drinking hard.
That worked for a while, but when the shotgun evidence was introduced he suddenly recalled the scuffle with Warren and the Winchester rifle. He couldn’t have it both ways.
He gave himself a double-whammy, contradicting his amnesia claim and presenting a story that evidence could not possibly support.
He was convicted by twelve well-connected Lander businessmen and area ranchers in a very short jury deliberation and was sentenced to death.
Ross Dollard shared a cell with Keffer. Dollard was awaiting trial for killing Ross Stringer outside the Free Silver Bar in Lander by fracturing his skull with a shovel, then three hours later shooting Frank Bryant in the back. Alcohol was again involved and used by Dollard’s attorneys as an excuse.
The death sentence caught Dollard’s attention.
The presence of a pair of murderers held in the tiny Fremont County jail ignited a fire of vigilantism throughout the area. Sheriff Stough kept deputies on guard as word of lynching spread around Lander.
When Keffer’s attorneys appealed the decision to the Wyoming Supreme Court immediately after the sentence was administered the talk, especially in the Free Silver Bar and other similar establishments ran high each night, with the threat escalating with each round of whisky slid across the bar.
In Cheyenne, the Supreme Court Justices Samuel T. Corn, Charles N. Potter, and Jesse Knight received the appeal on August 20, 1903. They reached a decision four weeks later on September 18 with this headline detailing the news.
Cheyenne Daily Leader – September 18, 1903
Supreme Court Sustains Decisions of Judge Bramel. Will Be Executed September 25th
James Keffer Refused Second Trial For Murder Committed Over Two Years Ago. Supreme Court Affirms Decision of District Judge.
People of Lander and Fremont County Receive News With Great Satisfaction, Sheriff Stough Making Precautions For the Hanging
“The Supreme Court has sustained the decision of Judge Bramel and James Keffer, the murderer of an aged man at Derby over two years ago, will be hanged at the Lander court house during the day of September 25th.
After months of impatient waiting the sentiment of an outraged community is to be satisfied, the demand of a righteously indignant people are to be complied with and James Keffer will receive the just penalty for one of the most atrocious crimes ever perpetrated in Wyoming.”
Keffer’s last hope resided in Governor Chatterton. That hope flickered quickly with Chatterton sending a wire to Fremont County Attorney Kimball corroborating the newspaper story.
In a related story in the September 18 edition of the Cheyenne Daily Leader, Chatterton stated his opinion of a pardon or commutation of the sentence.
“In speaking of the case, Governor Chatterton said: “I have Investigated the case very thoroughly and am convinced that Keffer was guilty of cold-blooded murder with robbery as the motive for the crime. In such case, It is not my duty to interfere with the finding of the Supreme Court.”
Sheriff Stough had a week to prepare for Fremont County’s first and only public execution.
Gallows Built
Workers constructed a gallows in the courtyard of the county courthouse of rough-cut, locally milled Douglas fir. The platform was raised about 10 feet above the ground, with a short set of stairs leading up to it. Approximately 11 feet above the platform a sturdy 6×6 cross member was set with the hanging rope tied to it.
The engineering of the trap door took some planning and a lot of trial and error on Sheriff Stough’s part, along with his carpenters.
They eventually tied another rope to hold the door in place as Keffer stood on it. Cutting the rope proved to be a challenge. Originally they planned to cut the rope and release the trap door with a knife, but in tests, the knife method didn’t work. Instead, they sharpened a hatchet to a knife edge, hit the taught rope with it and the mechanism worked.
Interest in the methodology of a local hanging filled the newspapers. An example of the hundreds of stories written and reprinted across Wyoming the week before appeared on the day of the execution 300 miles away in Cheyenne.
Cheyenne Daily Leader – September 25, 1903 – Gallows Again Tested – “Today the gallows was again tested, 175-pound green cottonwood log being used, and the trap worked perfectly. The rope will be attached firmly to the cross beam above the gallows, extend down a distance of only five feet to Keffer’s head, where the hangman’s knot has been formed. Another rope will hold the trap in place.”
Further speculation about who the executioner would be evaporated when Sheriff Stough announced that he would swing the hatchet.
The Daily Leader hadn’t forgotten Dollard:
Dollard Nervous. – “James Dollard. the other murderer In the jail here, is decidedly more nervous than Keffer. The fate of Keffer makes doubly Impressive and ominous his own position, and with the gallows staring him In the face, he has become nervous and irritable, while the doomed man has grown calm and cool in the face of the terrible ordeal.”
The day of the execution finally arrived. Keffer spent his final week reading the bible and conferring with Methodist minister James Leonard. His final meal was two fried eggs, three buckwheat pancakes, and two cups of coffee.
The execution was set for 10 a.m.
At 9:40 Sheriff Stough and Deputy James Crouch entered the jail and told Jailor Allen Axe to open Keffer’s cell. The three men entered and Stough called out to Keffer: “Jim, Your time has come.”
“Well, I am ready,” Keffer replied.
Keffer wore black pants, a striped shirt, and a pair of silk slippers.
Crouch and Axe prepared to force Keffer toward the gallows, but it wasn’t necessary. Keffer took the lead, walking confidently to his doom.
Outside a crowd of about 200 people had arrived to watch the hanging but were disappointed to discover the Sheriff had constructed a 16-foot tall board fence to hide the execution from view. A handful of official witnesses were inside the fence, and about 50 people were able to view Keffer’s death from vantage points in trees and on the roofs of nearby buildings.
Stough, Crouch, and Axe arranged Keffer on the platform.
After his legs were tied together, and his arms strapped to his side, Keffer made a final statement.
“Boys, I wish once more to proclaim my innocence of this crime for which am about to die. Great injustice Is being done and the blame lies with Judge Bramel. the Supreme Court and Governor Chatterton. Hereafter, boys. If you ever get on a jury, be careful and do only justice or other innocent men will be hanged as am about to be. The courts and the judges haven’t done what’s right and are hanging an innocent man.”
Sheriff Stough finished binding Keffer’s legs together and strapping his arms down and waited for Keffer to finish his speech. He stopped speaking, looked at Stough, and said: “That is all. Charlie. I am ready now.”
Stough checked the hangman’s knot, tested the rope a final time, and then placed the black hood over Keffer’s head. Seconds later, he picked up the hatchet, walked to the log the trapdoor rope was stretched over, and hit it with one whack of the hatchet. Keffer’s neck was snapped an instant later. It was 10:12 a.m.
Keffer’s body twisted and contorted at the end of the rope. After eight minutes three attending physicians Dr. Godfrey, Dr. Calloway, and Dr. Welty, Welty was the well-known Army surgeon at Fort Washakie. Welty examined the body and announced that Keffer still lived even though the neck had been broken by the fall. They waited another ten minutes to check the body again and pronounced Keffer was dead.
Sheriff Stough cut down the limp body and carried it with Deputy Crouch to a pine coffin placed near the gallows.
A key component of Keffer’s defense strategy was claiming he had a brain injury that led to the murder. The three physicians conducted a hasty autopsy of his brain at the base of the gallows and announced there were no abnormalities. The lid on the coffin was screwed shut and Keffer’s body was buried early that afternoon in Potter’s Field.
An interesting follow-up story in the Rock Springs Miner detailed Keffer’s execution down the left column on the front page of the October 1, 1903, edition. Two columns to the right was another story detailing the sentencing of Tom Horn to death for the killing of teenager Willie Nickell.
Horn had followed the Keffer case closely and knew his final hope at life ended when he read that Governor Chatterton would not commute Keffer’s sentence. Horn was executed in Cheyenne on November 20, 1093.
Dollard escaped the gallows, serving a 25 to life sentence instead. He died in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins.
Wyoming executed 13 men between April 22, 1892, and May 11, 1933, by hanging. From August 13, 1937, to the December 10,1965, execution of Andrew Pixley, they used the gas chamber in Rawlins. Mark Hopkinson died via lethal injection on January 22, 1992.
There are currently no inmates on “Death Row” in Rawlins, the last being Dale Wayne Eaton who had his death sentence overturned to life without parole in 2014.