This day in history: American scout, cowboy, soldier, range detective, and Pinkerton agent Tom Horn was executed by hanging on this day in 1903. “Killing is my specialty,” Horn reportedly once said. “I look at it as a business proposition, and I think I have a corner on the market.”
"He was an unusually skilled rifleman, an ability that may have later encouraged him to gravitate towards a career as a professional killer. That his father was a violent man, who severely beat his son, might also explain how Horn came to be such a remorseless killer." Source
Horn is most notorious for being hired by numerous cattle companies as a cowboy and hired gun to watch over their cattle and kill any suspected rustlers. Horn developed his own means to fight thieves: "I would simply take the calf and such things as that stopped the stealing. I had more faith in getting the calf than in courts". If he thought a man were guilty of stealing cattle and had been fairly warned, Horn said that he would shoot the thief and would not feel "one shred of remorse".
Horn often gave a warning first to those he suspected of rustling and was said to have been a "tremendous presence" whenever he was in the vicinity. Fergie Mitchell, a rancher on the North Laramie River, described Horn's reputation: "I saw him ride by. He didn't stop, but went straight on up the creek in plain sight of everyone. All he wanted was to be seen, as his reputation was so great that his presence in a community had the desired effect. Within a week, three settlers in the neighborhood sold their holdings and moved out. That was the end of cattle rustling on the North Laramie".
Horn’s reign of murder ended in 1903 when he was hanged for killing a 14-year-old boy.
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