Clayton, New Mexico
New Mexico
When the outlaw Black Jack Ketchum was hanged in Clayton in 1901, the rope took his head off.
The outlaw Black Jack Ketchum was hanged in Clayton on the twenty sixth of April, nineteen oh one. The drop decapitated him. The town was not quite fifteen years old at the time. It had been laid out by a range manager for a nearby rancher, and named for the young son of a senator from Arkansas. What Clayton had in place of age was a saloon, built in eighteen ninety two on the spot that later became the Hotel Eklund. By eighteen ninety four that saloon ran a front bar and a back bar, pool and carom tables, a crap table, a poker table, and tables for the card game monte. Six years after that, the building grew a hotel on top of it. Four years after the hanging, President Theodore Roosevelt came through town. The main street was still dirt. It would not be paved until nineteen twenty eight.
This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
On April 26, 1901, outlaw Black Jack Ketchum has hanged in Clayton. He was decapitated by the hanging.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Nearby, on the same roads
- Rabbit Ear Mountain 8.7 mi The twin peaks north of Clayton were the only reliable promise of water for thirty miles of the Santa Fe Trail.
- Dalhart Army Air Base 43.8 mi The only squadron that ever flew an atomic bombing mission trained on the flat land outside Dalhart, Texas.
- Capulin Volcano National Monument 51.8 mi When Capulin erupted, the lava didn't come out the top — it leaked out a weak spot at the base called the boca.