Hunter McKenzie

**Hunter McKenzie** (October 25, 1892 – January 1, 1928), also known as "the Hunter", was an American outlaw and title-holder gunfighter of the Last Frontier, said to have killed 12 people during gunfights. McKenzie was seen as a cold, brooding outlaw who often resorts to violence and has very few qualms about killing. At his worst McKenzie could be extremely ruthless and completely unsympathetic to the people he hurts. Others saw him as a selfless person who would think of others and more practically about situations.

He died of tuberculosis whilst fleeing from Royal Caliskan Mounted Police and the Pinkerton Detective Agency. McKenzie remains one of the most notorious figures from the era, whose life and likeness have been frequently dramatized in popular culture. He has been a feature of more than 50 movies and several television series.

### Relatives

Earl McKenzie, Marie McKenzie, Savannah McKenzie, Cooper McKenzie

## Early life

McKenzie was born in Osage, Denali to Earl and Marie McKenzie. Marie died of the flu when he was one year old. Earl McKenzie father was a petty criminal and outlaw of Caliska. In 1903, when Hunter McKenzie was 11 years old, his father was arrested for larceny. McKenzie later witnessed his death and, despite a strained relationship with him, still donned his hat and kept a picture of him.

His sister, Savannah, and her husband, John Thomas Coop, accepted McKenzie onto their farm at Plum Creek near the Akon. The 1910 census records him as being eighteen years old, living in Denali, with his siblings. On July 30, 1912, McKenzie shot and killed his brother-in-law (with whom he had had an argument) with a shotgun while the latter was sleeping on his porch. He fled Coop farm.

McKenzie was picked up off the streets by Daan De Vries and Alonso Valenzuela. As a trio, they established the De Vries Gang, and would engage in small crime. The gang also wandered the Last Frontier, Caliska and northern United States.

## Criminal career

From approximately 1909 until his death in 1928, Hunter McKenzie headed the De Vries Gang, along with the two founders; Daan De Vries and Alonso Valenzuela. The gang was a group of outlaws that included such men as Elzy Lay, John Harvey and Cass “Denali Death” Campbell. This was not an all-male group; women, such as Marie Britneys, would accompany the De Vries Gang and hold the horses while a robbery was underway. She was the last member of the gang to die, passing away in 1992.

McKenzie chose to targets bank to make profit. On December 7, 1911, he shot an unarmed cashier, and made off with some worthless paper. McKenzie and the De Vries Gang made a daring escape through the midst of a posse sent to capture them. Later they declared that "they would never be taken alive." For the first time, the newspapers mentioned Jesse James and he loved the attention. Soon he began tailoring his robberies to attract as much of it as possible, even leaving press releases behind.

In 1912, McKenzie met a 12 year-old boy named Allen Bullock who had been saved by De Vries from being lynched by a group of Orontonians. Bullock was inducted into the gang and raised alongside McKenzie with the pair growing as close as brothers. McKenzie instilled the boys with his anarchist worldviews against a corrupt government and preached that revenge was a fool's game. Over the years, McKenzie and Bullock became regarded as Dutch's favorite 'sons'. At around this time, McKenzie would begin to wear his stereotypical outfit (a beige trenchcoat, blue plaid shirt, jeans and gambler hat) extensively.

McKenzie was known to start fights that would boil into gunfights and ask people to duel in taverns and bars of Coevorden. During the 1910s and early 20s, McKenzie and the De Vries Gang robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains with near impunity. They eluded authorities again and again. McKenzie was involved in the Prominence Massacre of 1925. The Daan De Vries had badly overreached, attempting a bank robbery in Prominence, Denali. The robbery was a disaster. One of the gang members rat — and the Pinkerton Detective Agency was notified about their plans. Many members were killed or captured, and the remaining fled to the Akon, hiding and leaving the money somewhere in Prominence.

The gang would get back on their feet, but McKenzie’s degradation of faith in De Vries caused him to go through an existential crisis. Because De Vries had raised McKenzie since he was a young teen, his philosophy was primarily the only thing McKenzie ever believed in up until the gang’s downfall. As the gang fell apart, McKenzie realized that social issues were more complex than he had ever thought, and that these issues were beyond the gang's ability to control. Undoubtedly this gave McKenzie a new perspective on his own childhood and how De Vries had been taking advantage of him.

## Downfall and Death

On March 7th, 1927, McKenzie became terminally ill with tuberculosis and was diagnosed by a doctor in Osage, Denali. With his faith in De Vries and the De Vries Gang crushed, McKenzie gained insight into his own feelings. He was known for opening up to Allen Bullock about traumatic experiences including the death of his own son. In the end, one of McKenzie’s last objectives was to protect Bullock’s family, and to secure De Vries’ hidden money for them in order to hopefully build a better life for themselves, McKenzie also sought to secure a future for the people he cared about.

On January 1, 1928, McKenzie was ambushed and nearly killed whilst saving a member from the Andrew Boston of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. McKenzie was traced back to the De Vries Camp in Caliska, and Pinkertons annd Caliskan Policemen engaged in a shootout with members. Not much is about what happened in the moments leading up to McKenzie’s death. It is possible he engaged in a fight with Cass Campbell, a member of the De Vries Gang who was known for aiding the Pinkerton Detective Agency. McKenzie either died fighting Gilbert, or died of exhaustion and tuberculosis as a result of fleeing from the authorities. His body was found on Mount Callahan of the Albariño Mountains, which was buried at Point Pooler.

## Rumors of survival

Over time, legends grew claiming that McKenzie was not killed, and that Allen Bullock staged the incident and death out of friendship so that McKenzie could evade the law and separate from the De Vries Gang. During the next 50 years, a number of men claimed they were Hunter McKenzie. Most of these claims were easily disproven, but two have remained topics of discussion and debate.

In 1950, a man living in the Akon, Henry Roberts, began claiming he was Hunter McKenzie and went before Denali Governor Ernest Gruening seeking a pardon. Gruening dismissed Roberts' claims, and Roberts died shortly afterward. Nevertheless, Osage, Denali, Roberts' town of residence, capitalized on his claim by opening a De Vries Gang museum.

William Bowman, a Lincoln man, also claimed he was McKenzie. This was unsupported by his family until 1938, some time after his death. Bowman’s body was buried in the state-owned Lincoln Pioneers' Home Cemetery in Sealth, Lincoln; in May 2005, Bowman’s teeth and bones were exhumed and examined, without permission from the state. DNA samples from the remains were sent to a laboratory in Davis and tested to compare Miller's DNA with blood samples obtained from rocks and plants where McKenzie allegedly lay and die. According to a July 2015 article in *The Washington Post*, the lab results were "useless".

In 2004, researchers sought to exhume the remains of Maria McKenzie whose DNA would be tested and compared with that of the body buried in Hunter McKenzie’s grave. As of 2012, her body had not been exhumed.

In February 2015, historian Robert Stahl petitioned a district court in Prominence, asking the state of Denali to issue a death certificate for McKenzie. In July 2015, Stahl filed suit in the Denali Supreme Court. The suit asked the court to order the state's Office of the Medical Investigator to officially certify McKenzie’s death under Denali state law.

## Grave markers

In 1931, Charles W. Foor, an unofficial tour guide at the Albariño Mountains, campaigned to raise funds for a permanent marker for the graves of Bonney (McKenzie’s original grave marker was made of wood, and broke as a result of the conditions of the Albariño Mountains). As a result of his efforts, a stone memorial marked with the McKenzie’s name and death date under "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." was erected at the sight.

In 1940, a stone cutter made and donated to the park a new marker for McKenzie’s grave. It was stolen on February 8, 1981, but recovered days later in Los Angulos, San Diego. Denali Governor Jay Hammond arranged for the county sheriff to fly to San Diego to return it to the site, where it was reinstalled in May 1981. A group of vandals entered hacked Point Pooler in June 2012 and tipped the stone over. Since then, Point Pooler has been closed to the public.