While the Pike County Tourism folks are expending great efforts to make a hero out of a Ol’ Ran’l McCoy, and the Virginia and West Virginia Tourism folks are doing very little of anything, a vast opportunity awaits them. The effort to supersize the “feud” is a bust.
Many Western Towns, from Tombstone Arizona to Bannack, Montana are capitalizing on their bad men from the late nineteenth century. Almost all of Western tourism is built around men killing other men. It works, because people—especially Americans—are drawn to “Bad men.” Only in America would John Dillinger be more famous than Thomas Edison, but that’s the way it is.
There is no way that Ran’l McCoy can ever draw more tourists than he already draws, for one simple reason: Ran’l McCoy never killed anyone.
Therefore, I recommend that most of the money being spent on building up Ol’ Ran’l as a tourist draw be diverted to much more fertile ground. While I think it is a good thing to rebuild the McCoy home place which was burned on January 1, 1888, all other expenditures would bring far greater returns if they were used to publicize our really BAD men.
If one drew a circle with a radius of fifty miles centered on the small circle with the light bulb inside on the following map, within that circle would be the location of more fatal gunfights in the 1880’s and 1890’s than in any comparable circle drawn anywhere on the map of the United States.
(Click on map to enlarge)
Here is a list of the events associated with each number on the map. I will write about each of them in the future, as time permits.
The circle with the light bulb inside represents the point where the three states of Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia meet.
1. Skinner’s Saloon. This establishment was known as “Skinner’s Saloon,” but if one reads the transcript of the trial of Elias Hatfield for killing Doc Ellis, one would know that Elias Hatfield actually owned the saloon business. Although it is based on what a few very old men told me as a boy, and not on any actual record, I know that Elias Hatfield ran booze and gambling at Skinners, while Mrs. Skinner handled a stable of “girls of the night.”
This establishment should soon be much more famous than Skinner’s Saloon in Bannack, Montana, which was the headquarters of the crooked sheriff, Plummer, who robbed the wagons hauling gold from Bannack to Salt Lake City.
2. Gray, WV, where Elias Hatfield killed Doc Ellis, on July 3, 1899.
- Cap Hatfield lived here—in old Virginia, around the time of the Gray shootout.
- Bad Frank Phillips shot here in July, 1898.
- Cap Hatfield and his stepson killed three men in Matewan in 1896. As an added attraction, it should be noted that a nephew of Devil Anse, Tom Chafin, scored a “daily double” here in 1911, when he killed both the mayor and the chief of police of Matewan in a gun battle. Chafin served one year in Moundsville for each of his victims.
- Jim Vance and Deputy Bill Dempsey killed here in January 1888.
- Ellison Hatfield killed here in August, 1882.
- McCoy home burned here in January, 1888. Two McCoys killed.
- Three men killed here, at Perryville (now English), WV., in a shootout between Bad Lewis Hall and the Steele family, in 1891.
- The entire Ira Mullins family wiped out here by Doc. “The Red Fox” Taylor, 1892.
- Bad Talt Hall and Doc Taylor both hanged here in 1892.
- Bad Lewis Hall killed here, by a Pike County Constable named Johnson. Bad Lewis was resisting arrest on a liquor charge when he reached his belated expiration date at age 83, in 1912.
- Norton, VA. (I have TWO 13’s) Bad Talt Hall killed the chief of police here in 1892.
- Floyd County, Kentucky. Devil John Wright and Bad Talt Hall killed four men here in a gunfight in 1887.
- Letcher County, Kentucky. Home base of Devil John Wright, who killed between sixteen and twenty-eight men, and fathered between twenty-eight and thirty-three children, depending on which source you credit.This is also the home of Devil John’s uncle, Martin Van Buren “Baby” Bates. Baby Bates and his wife toured many years with the Circus, including a command appearance before Queen Victoria. They are still listed in Guinness as history’s tallest married couple. Although there is no proof that Baby ever killed anyone, noting his place in history would add a little spice to a tour.
- Number 16 is about fifty miles off the map to the northeast. Elias and Troy Hatfield, sons of Devil Anse, were killed in Boomer, WV, in 1911. The Italian bootlegger, who killed the two Hatfields in a fight over booze-selling territory, was killed by Troy Hatfield after Troy, himself had been fatally shot.
I recommend that the three states pool their resources in an effort to let the world know that if they wish to visit the haunts of some really bad men, Skinner’s Saloon is the epicenter. It would be far more profitable than trying to draw people to a man who never killed anyone in his life.
There is much, much more inside my “circle of death,” but these should be enough to get the three states started.
PS: I could move the center of my map to Pikeville, and it would bring all the men killed in Perry and Breathitt Counties during the period, while still including the Tug Valley and Virginia events. The tourism folks should do that.