First of all, who is Herman Hansen? Believe it or not, he was Julius' younger brother. Unfortunately I am not able to find much information about him except from what was in some newspaper articles. From what I can find, he came to the US in 1905. Julius probably sponsored him. I found some instances where the oldest son of a family would come to the US, get a job, save as much money as they could, and when they had enough the rest of the family would follow. In this case, Julius' parents never came to the US, but eventually his brother Herman did.
One day while fishing for articles about Julius and family on newspapers com, I was surprised to see an article about Julius receiving a telegram about his brother Herman. So I started doing my usual digging. Unfortunately, I was only able to find one document on ancestry com, with 99% certainty, that was a direct reference to Herman.
The articles are all between March and April of 1908. One of them states that Herman was "about 30 years old." That puts his birthday at around 1878 and making him 11 or 12 years younger than Julius. One article in the Clarion, to no surprise, stated that Herman "formerly resided in [Gibson] county." Given the age gap between Julius and Herman, I would not be surprised if there were other siblings.
I have found no census records of him, but timing is important with census'. It just means he didn't live here on a 0 year. However it happened, he moved to West Side, Iowa. West Side is basically equal distant from Sioux City, Des Moines, and Omaha and up the road from a town called Arcadia. Why Iowa? Two reasons I can think of. Herman was on his way to the west coast and this was along the way. It is also an area that Julius may have been familiar with since he lived just across the border in Nebraska at one time. Herman was, for lack of a better term, a migrant worker.
While living and working in West Side, Iowa, Herman made a friend named William Smith Duncker, 25, from Arcadia. Coincidentally, William's parents were also German immigrants from the same region as the Hansen's and I'm starting to wonder if the two families knew each other. This is another possible reason for moving to Iowa. Duncker decided to join Herman on his journey west, first stopping in Omaha. The two of them secured jobs in Ranchester, Wyoming at the McShane tie camp, later bought out by the Big Horn Timber Company.
That's the backstory, now onto the mystery. Unfortunately, newspapers com did not have many Wyoming newspaper articles from the time. Thankfully, the University of Wyoming and the Wyoming State Library had digitized, and made text searchable, the old newspapers where I managed to find these details. The following is a compilation of eye witness testimony of this incident during an inquest by the local sheriff.
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| Train depot in Ranchester, WY |
Herman Hansen and William Duncker arrive in Ranchester, Wyoming on the No.43 train from Sheridan. They are in town to work at the McShane Tie Camp (and by tie, that means railroad timber). They gather their baggage and head over to the Pepper Hotel and Saloon, owned by Bud Pepper. One newspaper called it the "Depot Hotel". It was a busy Friday night at the saloon. Herman and Duncker came in and ordered a whiskey and a glass of beer. At about 8:30PM, James Watson, the bartender, took Herman and Duncker, noted as both being sober, up to their room. About 9:30PM, Duncker came down and asked for some matches (probably to light their lamps).
March 14, 1908, around 1:00AM
Guests at the hotel are awoken by two loud gunshots and a sound of what was described as a person falling to the floor. Guests had gathered around the doorway of Herman and Duncker's room. James Watson entered the room and lit their lamp. Duncker was laying on the bed, barely alive. Herman was laying face down on the floor, already dead. Bud Pepper was called in. Duncker had a Harrington and Richardson long-barrel 32-calibre revolver near his head. Under Herman's body was a 38-calibre revolver. Both guns had one empty shell under the hammers. Within 10 to 15 minutes, Duncker was dead also. Bud Pepper sent everyone out of the room and left the scene as it was. He ran to the nearest telegraph office to wire the sheriff.
At 1:45am, Sheriff Benefiel and Coroner Marshall were notified with just enough time to board the No.41 train to Ranchester. After investigating the scene, the bodies of Herman and William were loaded onto the No.42 train to Sheridan where Undertaker Smythe performed an autopsy in the morning. Friends and family in Iowa were notified of the tragedy. An inquest was held with jurors to determine what happened. Without too much detail, Herman was killed instantly from his gunshot, noted as 38 caliber. Duncker on the other hand, the autopsy showed that his injury could have allowed him to live up to an hour after his gunshot, but didn't, noted as 32-calibre.
I have found that newspapers in those days had no problem printing gory details. Newspapers today tend to be a little more sensitive to the family of the victims.
Each had several dollars in silver and Herman had a COD for $370 from a West Side, Iowa bank. Curiously, one witness claims they heard someone say "I never did you folks any harm", several times before the shooting. This witness also said that when they came in the saloon, they were dressed "well", but when they were found dead, they had on their work clothes. Also curiously, Duncker's family say that neither Herman nor Duncker brought guns with them. Duncker's gun was still at his home in Arcadia.
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| Hotel in Ranchester near RR tracks (not verified to be the Pepper Hotel and Saloon, but likely) |
Or could they have unknowingly walked into the middle of a dispute between two rival businesses? A curious story appeared in The Omaha Evening
Bee on March 24, 1908. Apparently, counting Herman and Duncker, there
were four suicides within six days in the Sheridan area. Another man
named William Evans, who was also signed up to work at the same tie camp,
shot himself in the head similar to Herman and Duncker. The other man
was Gus Sanford, owner of another hotel and saloon who slashed his
wrists. It was noted that none of the men were under any financial
hardships.
It doesn't look like we'll ever know for sure. Duncker was returned to Arcadia, Iowa where he was buried. The local paper stated "It was one of the largest funerals ever held in this city."
It was implied that the bodies of the two men were taken to Sheridan, Wyoming for autopsies. I assumed that is where Herman was buried, but one article stated that he was buried in Ranchester. I have not been able to find a record of specifically where, but I would say it was in a pauper's grave and probably will never be found. One article even said he had been loaded on a train and sent to Princeton. An article in the Clarion stated that Julius had planned on traveling to Wyoming to exhume Herman and bring him back to Princeton for a proper burial. There is no evidence that he ever did this. I would say Julius may have had second thoughts considering how long Herman had already been buried. Remember, this was 1908. This really could not have happened at a worse time for Julius. In the April 11, 1908 edition of the Clarion there is a long article talking about how he was really ramping up production because of all the orders for programmable clocks he was getting. At the time, depending on how he traveled, a trip to Wyoming and back may have taken a week or more.
The one document that I found, mentioned earlier, was from Arcadia, Iowa and it was some legal documents on what to do with Herman's possessions and money. This again implies that Julius never traveled out to Iowa or Wyoming.
This incident may have shook up Bud Pepper and/or his wife because shortly after this incident, they moved to St Joseph, Missouri and started another saloon. How could I resist doing some research on a guy named "Bud Pepper"?
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| Tokens from the Pepper Hotel |
The Semi-Weekly Enterprise, Sheridan, WY Tuesday, March 17, 1908
The Sheridan Post, March 17, 1908
