The El Paso Gunfight leaves four dead in five seconds - April 14th, 1881

On this day in 1881, a gunfight at a saloon in downtown El Paso, Texas, left four men dead in five seconds. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that shines a light on the ups and
downs of everyday history. I'm Gay Blusier, and today we're

(00:23):
examining one of the fastest and most pointless gunfights in
the history of the wild West. The day was April four,
eight eight one. A gunfight at a saloon in downtown

(00:44):
El Paso, Texas, left four men dead in five seconds.
Even in one of the most violent towns of a
decidedly violent era, the event stands out due to its
swift and brutal conclusion. It was also distinguished by the
involvement of a Texas law man named Dallas stouden Meyer.

(01:05):
He had served just three days as the Marshal of
El Paso when the shooting began, and he was the
one who did most of the shooting. Three of the
four casualties that day were the work of Marshall Stoudenmeyer,
including an innocent bystander. The ordeal began a day earlier
when two of the carros named Sanchez and Warrike, crossed

(01:28):
into Texas in search of some cattle that had been
stolen from their employer's ranch in Mexico. As they approached
El Paso, they spotted a herd being driven north to
the ranch of Johnny Hale, a well known cattle wrestler.
The Vicaros began trailing the herd to confirm that it
was theirs, but that evening they were discovered and killed

(01:48):
by two of Hale's men. The next day, on the
morning of April four, a group of about seventy five
armed Mexicans road into El Paso. They had been hired
by the Mexican rancher whose cattle had been stolen. They
were sent to find the missing Vocarros, and they hoped
for everyone's sake that someone in the town could point

(02:09):
them in the right direction, hoping to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
A town constable named Gus cremp Cow agreed to help
conduct a search, and he knew just the place to
look first too. Cremp Cow and the posse rode thirteen
miles northwest to Hale's ranch. When they arrived, the writers

(02:30):
found two bodies lying in the dirt, and sure enough,
it was the missing Vocarios. They took the bodies back
to El Paso, and that afternoon an inquest into the
deaths was held at the town court. Constable cremp Cow,
who was fluent in Spanish, served as an interpreter for
the Mexican posse. They alleged that Hale and the other

(02:51):
rustlers had stolen cattle from Mexico and then murdered the
two men who came looking for perhaps fearing that they
might otherwise return with more men. It also came to
light that two known associates of John Hale, Fredericks and Purvy,
had been overheard earlier that day bragging about two Mexican

(03:11):
cowboys they had killed the night before. Meanwhile, just outside
the court house, a large crowd had gathered, including John
Hale and the former town Marshal George Campbell. Hale, Campbell
and the others didn't like the fact that a large
group of armed Mexicans had come to seek justice in

(03:32):
their town. They also didn't like that one of their own,
Constable cramp Cow, had offered to help them in that pursuit.
Where exactly, they wondered, did his real allegiance lie. Luckily,
the restless crowd didn't have enough time to work itself
into a proper frenzy. The court quickly determined that Fredericks

(03:52):
and Pervy were the likely killers. They were charged and
arrested on the spot, and their trial was set for
a later date. With that, the court was adjourned, the
crowd outside dispersed, and the Mexicans rode back home to
give their comrades a proper burial. At first, it seemed
like the town had dodged a bullet and that there

(04:13):
wouldn't be any more killing that day, but unfortunately John
Hale and George Campbell had other ideas. When the court
adjourned early that evening, Constable cremp Cow went next door
to Keating Saloon to retrieve the weapons he'd stowed there earlier.
Outside the bar, cramp Cow was confronted by a drunken
Campbell and Hale, who accused him of harboring sympathies for Mexicans.

(04:37):
Campbell said something to the effect of any American that's
a friend of Mexicans ought to be hanged. Crem Cow
asked if that was a threat, at which point Campbell
reportedly backed down, telling the Constable that he meant nothing
by it and was just upset about the armed posse
that had come to town. Cremp Cow said bare enough,

(04:58):
and once again it seemed bloodshed would be avoided. That's
when John Hale, misunderstanding the situation, entirely, grabbed one of
Campbell's two pistols from its holster and shouted, George, I've
got you covered. He then shot cramp Cow at near
point blank range, sending the constable stumbling backward into a

(05:20):
saloon door, alive but badly injured. A second later, the
doors of the Globe restaurant across the street burst open.
Marshall Stoutenmeyer heard the gunshot while having dinner and immediately
rushed out into the street with two guns drawn and ready.
With zero grasp of what was going on, the Marshal
started firing wildly as he ran toward the saloon. His

(05:43):
first shot struck and killed a Mexican bystander named Ochoa.
The man had just bought a bag of peanuts and
was trying to get away from the violence when the
Marshal mistook him for a threat. John Hale ducked behind
an adobe pillar to avoid the same fate, but when
he picked out from it a moment later, the Marshal's
second bullet hit him right between the eyes, with Hale dead.

(06:06):
George Campbell stepped out from behind his cover with a
pistol drawn and yelled, gentlemen, this is not my fight,
and by all accounts he was right. It was Hale
who had shot Constable cram Cow, and he had been
subdued and then some. Unfortunately for Campbell, it had all
happened so fast that cramp Cow wasn't sure who had

(06:28):
shot him. As the wounded Constable lay slumped against the
wall of the saloon, he managed enough strength to draw
his revolver and fired two bullets at the man he
thought had shot him. Campbell was struck in his foot
and in his wrist, at which point he dropped his gun.
He instinctively reached down to pick it up, and when
he did, Marshal Stoudenmeyer shot him straight through the stomach.

(06:51):
Campbell fell on the dusty street, Furious that he had
been shot three times for no good reason. He glared
up at the Marshal and shouted, you big s o
b you murdered me. Marshall Stoutenmeyer made no reply. Once
the smoke cleared at Shoa, John Hale, George Campbell, and
Constable cramp Cow were all dead. The whole bloody affair

(07:15):
had lasted roughly five seconds, although some witnesses maintained it
was more like ten seconds. In either case, it was
a shocking and senseless loss of life that played out
in a matter of seconds. Marshall Stoutenmeyer was the only
person to walk away from the altercation, and over the
course of the next year, he would go on to

(07:36):
kill six more people in shootouts. The town's substantial crime
rate had actually taken a dive under his watch, but
the Marshal had made a lot of enemies thanks to
his actions at the Battle of Keating Saloon. In the
year and a half that followed, he thwarted several attempts
on his life by friends of Hale and Campbell. Eventually, though,

(07:58):
the past caught up with him, and Alice Staudenmeyer was
killed during a shootout on September two. Try as I might,
I couldn't find any information on the outcome of Fredericks
and Pervy's murder trial. Much like they're victims. The killer
story seems to have been overshadowed by the four dead

(08:19):
in five seconds gunfight, which was itself overshadowed by the
gunfight at the Ok Corral later that year. It was
an early example of what's become an all too common
problem in America, one instance of gun violence being followed
so quickly by another and another that the public eventually
loses track altogether. It's a grim cycle to be stuck in,

(08:42):
no question, but hope enders in El Paso and elsewhere
that one day we may break it. Yet. I'm Gay
Bluesier and hopefully you now know a little more about
history today than you did yesterday. You can learn even
more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and

(09:02):
Instagram at t d I HC Show, and if you
have any comments or suggestions, he can send them my
way at this Day at I heart media dot com.
Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks
to you for listening. I'll see you back here again
tomorrow for another day in History class