page_title: Albert Horsley
section_title: Steunenberg assassination
hierarchical_section_title: Albert Horsley / Biography / Steunenberg assassination
context_page_description: Albert Edward Horsley, best known by the pseudonym Harry Orchard, was a miner convicted of the 1905 political assassination of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. The case was one of the most sensational and widely reported of the first decade of the 20th century, involving three prominent leaders of the radical Western Federation of Miners as co-defendants in an alleged conspiracy to commit murder.
context_section_description: On December 30, 1905, Frank Steunenberg, former Governor of Idaho, was killed by a bomb rigged to the gate of his house in Caldwell. After midnight on the evening of Steunenberg's murder, Harry Orchard (as Tom Hogan) walked with Clinton Wood, the desk clerk at the hotel in Caldwell, to the site of the assassination at 1602 Dearborn Street (43.6576°N 116.6823°W), now hours past. Although he didn't seem to know the way to the murder scene, Orchard expressed the belief that the governor had been given a "big wad" of money by Idaho mine owners after he had left office. Such a view was common among miners, as reflected in a 1908 union pamphlet on the 1899 Coeur d'Alene mine strike.
  Within an hour of the explosion, the sheriff had deputized 100 townspeople, and stationed them at all roads and paths leading out of town. Orchard made no effort to escape, and slept in his hotel room that night in Caldwell. The next day, Sunday, December 31, he was suspected and placed under parole, and was arrested for the assassination on New Year's Day. He raised suspicion when a detective for the Mine Owners' Association recognized him as Orchard; he responded that his name was Hogan; and, it was discovered that he was registered at the Saratoga Hotel. When his room #19 was searched, evidence related to the murder was discovered. Aside from using aliases, Orchard made little attempt to conceal his activities. Historian Melvyn Dubofsky has theorized that Orchard may have suffered from a "psychotic personality disorder" that caused him not only to engage in a life of violence, but also, perhaps subconsciously, to set up the circumstances of his own arrest.
  Orchard testified that he had made numerous attempts on Steunenberg's life. In the week between Christmas and New Year's, Steunenberg had spent several days in Boise on business and returned to Caldwell on Friday the 29th, and had renewed an insurance policy on Saturday afternoon and stopped off at the Saratoga Hotel to talk with friends before returning home. Minutes before his death, Steunenberg had been sitting in the hotel, so Orchard retrieved the bomb from his room and rushed out to the residence to set it, about a dozen blocks away. On his way back to the hotel, Orchard met the governor two blocks from the house, and the explosion occurred shortly after as Orchard was running to the hotel. The fatal bomb was detonated by rigging the gate so that as it was opened, a bottle of sulfuric acid was spilled onto giant blasting caps. A blasting cap exploded in Orchard's pocket when he was back in his room. He stayed at the hotel until his Monday arrest. Errant first reports had surmised the device was wire-tripped by the assassin and used nitroglycerin.
caption: Idaho's ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, victim of a bomb blast at his home in 1905
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