Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1897-05-17
A JOKE ON DAVE LEAHY.
One Experience which BefeIl Him
which Mr.. Leahy Never
EXNrofe UD."

Topeka. Kas., May 16.-(Special.) There
is one Kansas episode which has never
been written up to my knowledge" said
Assistant Attorney General George SMELL
ing to-day. at was one of those thrilling
experiences in Southwestern Kansas during
the days of the cowboy and outlaw. An
thony, my old home, the scene of the affair,
was then a fourishing city of perhaps LOO
population. Everything was run wide open
and it was a common occurrence for cow
boys to ride in and shoot through the win
dows of the saloons and IL the bartender
didn't like il they would take a shot at
him, lust for fun. 1t was wild and woolly.
The people who lived in town were not any
too tame themselves. They would shoot
sometimes themselves.
IAN old man by the name OF James Blair
came to Anthony to reside. He was a great
prohibitionist and started out to try to re-
form the town. A short time afterward,
his house was burned to the ground. This
started a row. While but a very small per
cent of the people of the town were in SYM
pathy with Blairs movement to close up
the saloons, vet about half of the popula-
ton concluded that burning his house was
not the proper way to get even- They took
up the old mans cause and one morning
soon after. the body of Frank Noyes, a no.
torious gambler, was found dangling to a
tree on one of the public t~horoughfares.
NOyes was suspected of setting Blair's
house on fire. To the body there was
tackled a card reading: All house-bUrners
better leave town or you will meet the
same fate
'"The feeling between the two sides then
became intense. They were about evenly
matched. One side was known as house
burners and the other as hangers Final
ly 1t got so bad that people would not VEN
ture away from their homes at night.
Stores would close at %sundown and be left
in charge of officers until sunup, while the
proprietors watched their houses at night,
| have seen il for a week at a stretch when
there would be nobody on the streets after
anxious to be parading about. The excite
ment finally died out and things reached a
normal state. But it is the greatest won
der in the world that the town was not
burned up or half the people hung. 1t was
a narrow escape. That was about 1856.
vhi There was SoT one 1nGlGent l remember
and sheriff each had a big force of deputies
employed to patrol the town. The marshal
had on his staff Dave Leahy. now city edi-
tor of the Wichita Eagle. Leahy at that
time was running a store at Anthony. One
night Leahy got tired of walking the
streets looking for house-burners or hang
ers and he went into the barrOom of a hO-
tel, sat down in a big chair. cooked his
feet up on a table and went to sleep. He
had his legs crossed. He was wearing lace
shoes. with open eyelets, and in some way
the lace of one shoe got caught in the eve
started to untangle his feet. but found
them fastened. II flashed upon him in a
moment that he had been bound by one
gang or the other. and that his time had
come. He momentarily looked for a dele
cation to enter the front door to carry him
out and hang him. Dave was scared, The
idea of that sort of a death was awful for
him to contemplate. He Immediately set
up a yell that awoke everybody in the hotel
and half the people in town. There was a
grand rush to the barroom and the click of
the hammers of revolverS was heard plain
ly everywhere. One of the guests finally
discovered that the binding of Leahy was
a false alarm. The shoe string was loos-
ened and Dave spent a months wages dur
ing the next two days setting them up I
guess the reason he has never written up
the house-burner and hanger story of An
thony was on account of the good joke on
I.-a-HE ..