In Denver City Justice, I have incorporated and fictionalized several historical stories and events described in reputable historical reference books. Below are five stories, can you tell which event is purely fiction?
- Jack Hill did run a bar in Golden City and his brother Miles was accidently killed by Detective Cook, but did he really blow his trumpet when his bar was slow and offer free drinks to any man who arrived within three minutes?
- There really was a Cheyenne medicine man named Lawyer, but did he save a man’s life by stringing sand burs on sinew, wrapping the burs around a stick, covering the burrs in marrow grease, and pushing the contraption down a man’s throat?
- Ada LaMont was Denver City’s first working girl, but did she really head West married to a youthful minister husband intending to carry the gospel into the wilderness?
- There was a storekeeper in Idaho Springs with the nickname of Old Shakespeare and he did hang signs in his shop quoting the Bard, reminding his customers to pay their debts, but did he come West because his Shakespearean floating theater troupe was attacked on the Mississippi by a group of fundamental Inspirationalists migrating to their settlement, Amana?
- Ned Wynkoop was appointed the first Sheriff of Arapaho County and in 1864 he became the commander in charge of Fort Lyon, but is it true he once stole a stub-tail milk cow?