CAPTURE OF THE ALLISON GANG.
CHAPTER IV.
A BAND OF STAGE ROBBERS IN SOUTHERN COLORADO TERRORIZE THE WHOLE COUNTRY—THEY EVEN LOOT ENTIRE TOWNS—A BIG REWARD OFFERED—CAPTURED BY FRANK HYATT, ONE OF THE SHINING LIGHTS OF THE ASSOCIATION, WITHOUT A SHOT BEING FIRED.
Frank A. Hyatt, of Alamosa, Colo., assistant superintendent of the Rocky Mountain Detective Association for the district embracing Arizona, New Mexico and southern Colorado, has a greater string of captures of criminals and desperadoes to his credit than any other officer in that section. He served three years as city marshal of Alamosa, when that town was accounted one of the toughest places in the Southwest, and has been for twenty years deputy sheriff of Conejos county, Colorado. The people of that section have learned to appreciate his worth, and when desperate criminals are to be taken Frank Hyatt is the first man called upon. Plain, modest and unassuming, Mr. Hyatt does not pose as a man-killer, although he has more than once taken his life in his hands in desperate encounters with criminals, and has been compelled to take human life to save his own. His rule has been to capture his men by strategy, leaving the law to deal justice to them, rather than to kill them in trying to make arrests. He is still deputy sheriff of Conejos county, and his name is as much of a terror to evil-doers as of old, although he does not employ as much of his time in hunting bad men as he did in the early ’80’s. In fact, the bad men have learned to shun his section pretty carefully.
Mr. Hyatt is engaged in the manufacture and sale of a patent handcuff, the best thing of the kind made, of which he is also the inventor. It is known as the “Dead Cinch,” and once it is snapped on a prisoner he can not escape. Give him the key and he can not unlock it; still his hands have more freedom than with the old-style handcuff. One hand can be loosened to allow the prisoner to feed himself, while the other is held fast in its grip. It is almost indispensable to officers, who have charge of desperadoes, or even of the insane, as hundreds of sheriffs, policemen and other officers scattered over Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah can attest.
“DEAD CINCH” HAND CUFFS.
One of Mr. Hyatt’s greatest exploits was the capture of the Allison gang of stage robbers in 1881, shortly after he became a member of the association. This gang was composed of Charles Allison, Lewis Perkins and Henry Watts. Allison was a Nevada horse thief, who had escaped from Sheriff Mat. Kyle, of Virginia City, while that officer was conveying him to the state penitentiary at Carson City, after his conviction and sentence for ten years, in 1878, by jumping from the train. He made his escape and came to Colorado. In some way he ingratiated himself into the good opinion of Sheriff Joe Smith, of Conejos county, and was made a deputy sheriff. For a time he performed the duties of his position very satisfactorily, but he finally drifted into the holdup business, while still a deputy sheriff, with Perkins and Watts as his partners.
Alamosa, in the spring of 1881, was the terminus of the Denver and Rio Grande railroad, and stages ran from there in nearly every direction. This afforded a fruitful field for the robbers and in less than a month they had robbed five coaches, securing plunder worth several thousand dollars. Emboldened by their successes, they decided to operate on a larger scale, and riding into Chama, N. M., they terrorized the inhabitants by firing off their revolvers. When most of the inhabitants had sought places of safety, they went through the stores at their leisure, taking all the money they could find and what other stuff they wanted. A few days later they repeated the experiment at Pagosa Springs, Colo., and were again successful.