When Cortez Police Officer Dale Claxton was gunned down and two sheriff officers were shot and injured by their assailants on May 29,1998, it was one of the worst crimes committed in Montezuma County.
But it was far from the only brutal crime that has occurred here.
In September 1894, a feud between two families got out of hand. Jess Hallar, fresh out of jail, headed into McElmo Canyon to waylay the Carpenter family. They were on their way to Cortez to attend Hallar's trial for killing a Carpenter boy during a melee between the two clans. Hallar, enraged by what he felt was his unjust jailing, fired upon the group, hitting a woman in the ear, a man in the shoulder and two horses which died.
One young Carpenter boy managed to shoot Hallar in the leg. Wounded Hallar rode away and managed to escape to the reservation, but failed to realize Sheriff Sterl Thomas was chasing him. Thomas caught up with Hallar and re-jailed him. Hallar lost his leg from the knee down.
In December 1894, Hallar shot and killed a man named Jackson Day. Hallar was acquitted of the crime.
McGeoch was arrested for cattle rustling. Byron did all could do to resist arrest including firing shots at the deputy sheriff who had come to arrest him. He was eventually overpowered and taken to jail. Ironically, he was acquitted of the rustling charge but was bound over for trial for resisting arrest. Byron blamed Caviness for the whole affair and began making life threatening statements about Cavines. One evening, Byron was sitting in Ed' brother's saloon when Ed came into the saloon. He paused to chat with the bartender before heading back out of the saloon. He was nearly out when he turned and fired five shots into Byron.
Ed was convicted of murder and sentenced for 15 years. He escaped from the penitentiary after serving four years but was recaptured in Roswell, N.M., in 1908. During the melee to recapture Ed, he was shot but survived to serve out his sentence for the remaining years and added time for his escape and shooting it out with the arresting officers.
Ed's brother, James, owned a saloon and ranch in Thompson Park. He passed away in 1916, the year Ed was shot and killed during a prison uprising.
Darrel Ellis is a longtime historian of the Mancos Valley. Email him at dnrls@q.com.