City of
Stranglers
Perhaps the
most
impressive sight in Rapid City – admittedly a town without
many
impressive sights – is the group of seven WPA dinosaurs
atop
Skyline Drive just west of Downtown. These jolly green
concrete
creatures have been a fixture of the skyline since they
were
dedicated in 1936 as a joint project between the
Depression Era Works
Progress Administration and the Rapid City Parks
department. Today
the 20-acre Dinosaur Park is one of the most visited sites
in town.
If you are a kid of a certain age, these dinosaurs will grab your attention. But if you are a kid of a slightly older certain age, a dead pine tree a few hundred yards down the hill is much more appealing. That tree, now encased in a concrete base, is known locally as “the hanging tree.” Long before the area was known as either Skyline Drive or Dinosaur Park, the place was called Hangman's Hill.
The hill, a ridge really, that separates the east and west sides of Rapid City, got its name on June 21, 1887, when three alleged horse thieves were hung by vigilantes from a tree on the hill and their bodies were left to twist in the wind for all to see. One of the men, James "Kid" Hall, proclaimed his innocence by saying he had just met the other two outside of town. Hall's story was corroborated by the other two men, yet he was hung with them anyway.
Hall, A.J.
Allen and
Louis Curry had allegedly stole horses from the
Salisbury-Gilmer
Stage Company’s barn in Crook City. A sheriff's posse
caught the
trio allegedly napping on Cowboy Hill 
and they were brought before
Judge Robert Burleigh that very evening. Burleigh
conducted a hearing
and turned the evidence over to a grand jury, but no
written record
was kept of the proceedings. There was no verdict but
officials from
the Salisbury-Gilmer Stage Company identified the stolen
horses as
belonging to them, and subsequently ordered free drinks
for a
“Vigilante Committee” who then proceeded to have their
justice on the
hill.
Nooses were placed around the necks of the three men as they sat on horseback. The horses were then struck with spurs and bolted leaving the victims dangling. It was said that they died slowly of strangulation because the ropes were too long. The next morning when the bodies were cut down, Judge Burleigh said that the knots had been tied so poorly that the victims toes had been touching the ground as they hung. Instead of dying of broken necks as horse thieves were supposed to, the men died of asphyxiation. To this day, if you want to insult Rapid City, just call it the “City of Stranglers.”
Hall, who
claimed he
was unknowingly lent a stolen horse by Allen and Curry,
screamed his
innocence until his final breath. The truth will never be
known. The
actual tree from which the three were hung is also
unknown. It could
very well be the dead pine embedded in concrete. Or
perhaps some other tree. Nobody who was there at the
time can say.