Sometimes events can cascade one after another until the original impulse is lost in the resulting tumult. That was the case in early 20th Century Wyoming with a pair of brothers caught up in a minor criminal act, a misdemeanor, which escalated into one of the worst lynchings in Wyoming history.
Coalville Times, Coalville, Utah, 4 Apr 1902
“Charles F. Woodard, convicted of the murder of Sheriff Ricker, was taken from jail at Casper, Wyo., at 12:40 Friday morning, by twenty-four masked men, who overpowered Sheriff Tubbs and secured the prisoner, and hanged him on the gallows which had been built for his legal execution. Woodard was to have been executed Friday, but on the previous Tuesday, the Supreme Court granted a stay of execution, which would have given the condemned man at least three more months of life.”
Charles Woodard, his wife Bertha, and his younger brothers Clarence and Harry lived on a ranch near the base of Garfield Peak, at 8,244 feet, the highest peak in the barren Rattlesnake Mountains that separate Fremont from Natrona Counties.
Charles and Clarence were outlaws, both riding at times with the “Wild Bunch” of Butch Cassidy, Kid Curry and the Sundance Kid fame.
Charles was a big-time outlaw, Bertha was along for the ride, and Clarence was more of a small-time thief and rustler.
At 19, Clarence did a three-year stint in the old Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie beginning July 6, 1896, for grand larceny. He was released early, credited with 155 days for good behavior and returned to his family ranch at Garfield Peak.
Charles was much busier in those years. On June 27, 1897, he along with Robert LeRoy Parker “Butch Cassidy” and other members of the “Wild Bunch” held up a bank in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, making off with $30,000, almost $1.2 million in today’s dollars.
Charles held the horses outside while the other gang members pilfered the cash from the bank. They escaped to the Big Horn Basin and split the take five ways. Charles had the equivalent of almost $235,000 in cash today.
He returned home to the ranch but was instructed to ride north to Montana and find out what people were saying about the bank robbery.
After cooling his heels for two years, he was back handling the horses on one of the most famous robberies conducted by the “Wild Bunch,” the holdup of the Union Pacific train at Tipton, Wyoming, west of Rawlins on August 29, 1900. Charles Woodard again held the horses about a mile from the scene of the robbery. This time, the gang of five made off with $50,000 in gold. A posse was quickly organized by Sheriff Swanson of Sweetwater County and Sheriff McDaniel of Carbon County, with the help of U.S. Marshall Frank Hadsell, who soon followed in hot pursuit. Technology was making train and bank robberies more difficult. The agent at Tipton telephoned Sheriff McDaniels’ office in Rawlins to tell of the robbery. The outlaws escaped after an early September thunderstorm obliterated their tracks.
Charles Woodard now had $10,000 in gold, $380,000 today, in addition to the $235,000 he’d stolen just two years before. Why he turned to a petty crime that eventually led to his execution is anyone’s guess.
Charles, Clarence, and Bertha rode to a neighboring ranch owned by Sam Hanes. While Hanes and his wife were away, they broke into the house and literally stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. Food, furniture, bedding, clothes, all of it ended up at the Woodard ranch.
Hanes was furious and went to Casper to sign a complaint.
Natrona County Sheriff Charlie Ricker and his deputy Ed Cameron picked up a warrant and headed 55 miles west to the Woodard cabin, but Charles and Clarence were long gone. They trailed them almost 150 miles, crossing over Birdseye Pass north of Lost Cabin before catching them 70 miles north of Thermopolis in Shell Canyon near present-day Greybull.
Ricker took them back to Casper, and they were charged with larceny and given $300 bail, bail they couldn’t make, so they spent the next 30 days as guests of the county. Bertha was released.
Charles’s grandnephew, Clarence’s grandson, Lonnie Woodard, knew his grandfather, Clarence well and spoke often with him about his nefarious activities with the “Wild Bunch.”
“It was just stupid,” Lonnie said. “It wasn’t a big deal. They were most likely facing a fine and a few weeks in the Natrona County jail if convicted.”
No one in Casper suspected that Clarence and Charles were part of the “Wild Bunch.”
The Woodard brothers and three other prisoners were about to celebrate New Year 1902 in jail in Casper. On December 30, 1901, they had different ideas.
Originally, it was thought the prisoners used a knife given to them to cut bread in the cell to saw through the bars of their jail cell, but later in the following trial, Bertha was implicated in sneaking a saw to Charles.
They began cutting the bars.
Frank Foote and Jeff Franklin took turns with Clarence and Charles sawing at the bars. The other man in the cell, James Adams, wouldn’t take part since he was too big to fit through the opening.
They sawed away the bars, leaving a small hole, just 12 x 12 inches. The hole was so small that the men had to throw their clothes outside and then squeeze through the opening.
Once outside, Charles located a gun, a .38 revolver, hidden by Adam’s girlfriend, and they all headed for the Woodard ranch. They weren’t gone 10 minutes when Adams told Sheriff Ricker’s wife Emma about the escape. She fired six shots into the air, a sign of distress, and a posse was quickly assembled, but it didn’t leave Casper for a couple of days because of heavy snow from a winter storm.
On New Year’s Day 1902, Sheriff Ricker, with deputies James Milne and Clark Johnson, rode west toward the Woodard ranch. They arrived on January 2, but the escapees had apparently disappeared.
As they ate dinner, prepared by Mrs. Sherman, a woman hired by Harry, who was at the ranch, they heard a dog barking and saw a light in the barn about 65 feet from the house.
Suspecting it was probably the younger brother Harry in the barn, Ricker said to his deputies, “I will go and see what is the matter myself.” The deputies asked him not to go, but Ricker replied, ”Oh no, they will not shoot me, I’ve always treated them well.”
He should have taken Milne and Johnson’s advice.
As he approached the barn, a single shot from the .38 revolver split the silence, and he fell 10 feet from the door of the barn with a hole in his stomach. The deputies opened up on the barn but didn’t hit Charles.
“I would like to have a drink, I am dying,” Ricker said. “It will do no good to bring a doctor. Please don’t tell her, (his wife.)”
Woodard grabbed the dying Ricker, dragged him into the barn and pistol-whipped him, cutting his eye and cheek and bruising his chin. He stole Ricker’s, gold watch, his left-handed revolver, and $45 in cash. Ricker died a few minutes later.
Woodard escaped, scattering the extra horses and riding away on Ricker’s mount.
It had snowed heavily over the New Year’s holiday, with drifts four feet deep. Milne walked four miles through the snow to a neighbor to get a horse.
When word reached Casper, the people of Natrona County were furious. Ricker was 60 years old, and a beloved figure in the community. The hunt for Charles Woodard was on.
Woodard headed north, staying in abandoned cabins, moving at night, and avoiding people. He later said he lived on rabbits cooked over small, smokeless fires. Meanwhile, over 100 men rode in pursuit as members of various posse groups. He had a $1000 bounty on his head offered from Natrona County.
The Hole in the Wall was familiar territory, but he skirted it thinking he might be ambushed. He ended up in the tiny town of Arvada east of Sheridan and caught a Chicago Quincy and Burlington freight headed for Billings.
Woodard found his way to the rail town of Laurel a little west of Burlington and took up with Wilson Owens. Woodard used the alias Bill Gad, but Owens recognized him in a photo published in the Billings Gazette. Owens promised to protect Woodard, but he telegraphed Casper, discovered the $1000 reward, and with his hired man John Berkheimer, they subdued Woodard after a lengthy fight that had Owens hitting Woodard over the head with a pistol and the duo double-teaming him to get handcuffs on the fugitive. It was a cold night on January 27, 1902.
Warren Tubbs, the newly sworn Sheriff of Natrona County, made it to Billings to pick up Woodard. Tubbs arrived in Billings and brought Woodard back to Casper by train. He transferred trains at Orin Junction and picked up six deputies as extra protection since talk of lynching Woodard was rampant in Casper.
They arrived after 11 pm and an estimated 300 people filled the area around the train station. People who knew him didn’t recognize him. His head was badly cut in several places, both of his eyes were black, almost swollen shut and his nose was swollen as well. He’d taken a beating in Laurel.
A little boy in the crowd yelled, “Hang him,” as he was escorted towards the jail.
“This is a big reception ain’t it,” Woodard said.
The trial opened quickly, on February 17, in Judge Walter Bramel’s court. Attorney Alex T. Butler prosecuted the case with John Hench serving as court-appointed counsel for Woodard. The case was open and shut with the testimony of the two deputies and the admission Woodard made to Owens and Berkheimer, the evidence was overwhelming.
The jury convened on February 23, and after only an hour of deliberation found Woodard guilty. It was after 11 pm so the jury delivered its verdict the following morning. Bramel sentenced Woodard to death by hanging to be done on March 28 between 9 am and 3 pm.
Bertha Woodard left for Thermopolis on February 25, never to see her husband again.
On March 25, the Wyoming Supreme Court granted an indefinite stay of execution for Woodard.
The gallows had already been constructed. People were arriving in Casper in anticipation of witnessing the hanging, and the citizens of Casper were incensed.
The original execution date was March 28, Good Friday that year. A group of 24 masked men rode toward the jail just after midnight, intent on completing Woodard’s sentence. They knocked on the door, claiming they were marshals and overpowered Tubbs.
Coalville Times, Coalville, Utah, 4 Apr 1902
“The stay of execution seems to have been received with bad grace by a number of Casper’s citizens, and the lynching resulted.
Woodard was awakened from a sound sleep by the mob’s entrance to the jail. He was not given time to dress himself but was taken out in two Inches of snow with nothing on his person but a short shirt. He made no outcry or resistance when he saw the masked men, who had handkerchiefs tied over their faces, but went quietly with them.
He was taken to the gallows, when he said: “Boys, let me kneel down and pray for you; I want to pray for all of you. These are the last words to my blessed little wife. Tell my dear little wife that I loved her dearly, won’t you? Tell her that, boys, I pray that you have the papers print it God forgive me for my sins. I pray for myself and I pray for you, and I pray for Charley Ricker. I never had any grudge against him in God’s world.”
It was at the point of execution that the story takes a couple of turns. Gallows were complex affairs in the early 20th century, designed to work without one single person pulling the lever. The execution of Tom Horn a few years later in Cheyenne involved counterweights and sand filling bags to open the death hatch. The gallows at Casper weren’t as complex, but they weren’t easy to operate either. The lynch mob couldn’t figure out how to release the hatch.
One story has the vigilantes throwing Woodard over the side of the gallows while another, printed here from the Utah story has Woodard jumping over the side. Either way, his neck was not broken. He’d pleaded earlier for a longer rope knowing that the momentum would snap his neck and kill him instantly. Instead, he died a slow, horrible choking death twisting in the frigid Natrona County air.
Coalville Times, Coalville, Utah, 4 Apr 1902
“After declaring that he never meant to kill Sheriff Ricker, and pleading that he be not choked, the naked and trembling man, with the rope tightly drawn about his neck, was shoved off the trap, but he gave a spring off from it before the lever could be pulled.
The body commenced to go through terrible contortions, and a couple of masked men caught hold of his feet and gave them several hard jerks. The man was simply choked to death.
A card was pinned to Woodard’s shirt which reads: “Process of the law is a little slow; so is the road you’ll have to go. Murders and thieves beware. Peoples Verdict.”
Frontier justice was delivered.
His accomplices in the original break-in at the Hanes ranch got off much easier. Bertha was acquitted and remarried the following year in Thermopolis.
Clarence and Jeff Franklin made it to the barn where the killing took place on January 6, after walking the 55 miles from Casper through the heavy snow. They were immediately arrested by three Natrona County deputies who were waiting for them.
Clarence Woodard was innocent of the murder, but he received his second visit to the state penitentiary, this time to the newly opened Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins.
His trial in front of Judge Bramel was completed quickly, and he was sentenced on January 25, 1902, to a three-year sentence, once again for grand larceny. The valued goods at the Hanes ranch were set at $400, enough to make the burglary a felony.
Clarence Woodard was once again released early, on August 27, 1904, credited with 150 days for good behavior.
This was the first and last lynching in Natrona County organized by a vigilante mob. No one was ever charged for the lynching of Charles Woodard.
His body lies in an unmarked grave at Casper’s Highland Cemetery.