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NECK TIE PARTY

(SANTA FE FIGHTS THE LAW)

For generations Santa Fe was known as “The Royal City.” Sadly that moniker is now passé. Santa Feans now call their town, “The City Different.” Why the change?

Starting in 1970, New Mexico’s capital became a haven for actors, artists, blue bloods, and writers. In many ways Santa Fe became a Shangri-La for those seeking a new start in life, be it business or spirituality. Furthering this idea of Utopia, in 1999 Santa Fe was declared by its Mayor and City Council to be a “Sanctuary City” for illegal immigrants. Federal laws were to be nodded and winked at when it concerned citizenship.

Due to these events many non-generational Santa Feans and outside observers view the state capital as a warm fuzzy town of no hard feelings and no consequences. However, contemporary Santa Fe is just the opposite of what the mile high city was during Wild West days. Warm and fuzzy was out and six-gun justice was in.

Mayhem in Santa Fe was matchless when compared to other frontier towns such as Tombstone or Dodge City. Research indicates that the Santa Fe Trail’s capital city is the only town in the United States that can claim the dubious distinction of having its populace rise up and lynch its own Sheriff!

On July 15, 1880, Sheriff Big Jim Dunnigan, who was six-foot six-inches tall and built like an NFL linebacker was lynched by an enraged mob of Santa Feans.

Missourian Dunnigan had worked all over the West as a lawman and enforcer. The big man was a bully and a killer, who used his badge as a shield to mask his nefarious activities.

Countless times while working as a henchman, Dunnigan was lashed or shot, but none of his wounds proved mortal. How tough was this gun for hire?

While in a bar in Prescott Arizona, a pistolero shot Dunnigan in the face and chest. The big man was left to die, but like Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” Dunnigan could not be killed. The gunman recovered from his near mortal wounds and continued to ply his trade – muscle for hire.

“The Santa Fe Ring” was a group of corrupt businessmen and politicians who ran the Territory of New Mexico as their kingdom. These powerful people thought their thugs were not bold enough when it came to carrying out there wishes.

History and lore decree, The Ring brought Dunnigan to the capital city to work as their whip hand. Once installed as the town’s top lawman, Dunnigan would be above any civic codes and be free to spill blood when ordered.

It was thought that town tamer Dunnigan would soon have the locals moving in lockstep to the Ring’s dictates. Surly and cocky, Dunnigan was put to work wearing the Sheriff’s badge. Big Jim was seen by the town’s populace for what he was – a hammer for hire.

Ruffian tactics that worked in other frontier town proved fruitless in Santa Fe. The new-to-town constable did not understand the unique psychology of Wild West Santa Feans.

The lawman’s attempts at intimidating the locals by saying to anybody in earshot, “I’ll die with my boots on,” or “My cousins are Jesse and Frank James,” did not elicit fear.

In many ways Santa Feans of Wild West days had the same attitudes or beliefs that New Englanders of the era carried within them as in, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

The Sheriff failed to realize that Santa Feans under Mexican or American rule had witnessed or been involved in revolutions, beheadings, Civil War battles, Indian campaigns, gunfights, and hangings. Citizens of yore were a tough bunch; they accepted life and death with a brave indifference.

Capital city inhabitants did not have a limitless reservoir of goodwill for a stranger who disrespected or menaced fellow townsmen. Animosity for the badge carrying bully, quickly turned to hatred.

On the night of his lynching, Dunnigan was in jail facing murder charges. Previous to the big man’s demise, honest-twenty-five year old Santa Fe Deputy, Jose Antonio Griego, had quarreled with the Sheriff outside of Gold’s Trading Post on West San Francisco Street.

Argument over, the Deputy was ambushed at night by Dunnigan, on what is now Galisteo Street, near the Water Street intersection. This event led to Big Jim being arrested.

Mythology ordains that the married constable was assassinated, because Griego was going to blow the whistle on Dunnigan and the Santa Fe Ring’s illegal goings on.

Another version of Griego’s murder has a drunken or sober Dunigan being chastised by his Deputy for his illegal actions and uncouth behavior in front of numerous witnesses on West San Francisco Street. After the argument, the Sheriff shot down the taken by surprise upstanding Deputy.

With or without lore, the whip hand’s evil handiwork led to his lynching. Santa Feans, then and now, do take care of their own when it comes to insiders being pushed by outsiders in the worlds of “City Employment, Politics or Justice.”

At 2:00 a.m. on Thursday morning July 15, 1880 a large group of men estimated to be fifty strong stormed the Santa Fe jail. Once inside the Bastille, the turnkeys were overpowered but not harmed. The vigilantes then killed Sheriff Dunnigan.

TALL TALES, FACTS, OR A LITTLE OF BOTH?

Dunnigan’s lynching is filled with conspiracy chatter. After Griegos’s murder, folklore has it, that the sly Sheriff played his “Squeeler” card on the Santa Fe Ring. Dunnigan would keep quiet about the Ring’s illegal business deals and how they had green lighted Griego’s assassination, if he was given a safe passage out of the territory and a bonus from the Ring’s honchos. The Ring’s overlords did not like being poached by one of its subordinates.

There maybe a lot of truth to the idea that the Santa Fe Ring, was behind Griego’s murder. Archival reports have Griego being killed by Dunnigan and a second gunman who hid in the shadows.

Conspiracy lore has the Santa Fe Ring masterminding Dunnigan’s lynching. In order to silence the Sheriff, an agent provocateur stirred up a midnight crowd of Santa Feans into bloodthirsty mob, in front of what is now the (141 East Palace Avenue) Coronado building. The vigilantes then marched on the jail and lynched the Sheriff.

Another yarn that slightly contradicts this story has the lynch mob meeting at the same location, but the assembled did not need a pep talk. The mob’s only interest was seeing that Dunnigan would not leave Santa Fe alive.

The Sheriff was scheduled to travel to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where a tribunal would investigate his actions, concerning the death of Deputy Griego.

In 1880, New Mexico had little sway in court jurisdiction being that it was still a Territory. Statehood did not happen till 1912.

Angry Santa Feans reasoned that the Kansas tribunal, by way of bribes, would do the Santa Fe Ring’s biding. The bully Sheriff would be found innocent by the judicature. Dunnigan would return to his home state of Missouri and there would be no comeuppance for having killed Griego.

The lawman’s liquidation has two endings: The Sheriff was killed inside the jail and his body was dragged through the streets of Santa Fe and then hung on a pole near the intersection of Water Street and Galisteo Street. Or?

The lawman was hauled out of the jail, dragged around the Plaza and then hung from a pole that stood near the intersection of what is now Burro Alley and Grant Avenue.

As Big Jim Dunnigan struggled against the noose, the sign pole broke. Unable to hang the fighting Sheriff from the broken stub of the beam, the vigilantes drew their pistols and shot Dunnigan sixteen times. The hated Sheriff’s corpse was then dragged back through Santa Fe and hung upside down from his ankles from a timber sign post, that was located near the intersection of Water Street and Galisteo Street.

Before his death, Dunnigan had repeatedly said, “I will die with my boots on.” According to lore the Sheriff’s boots were found in the old jail. The Sheriff was lynched in his sox.

Dunnigan was buried at Sister’s Cemetery. Only those people required to perform the labor of interment attended the burial. Even after his brutal death, Santa Feans still nursed their hatred for lawman Dunnigan.

Days before the lynching, former President U.S. Grant visited his Civil War comrades at Santa Fe’s Fort Marcy. The night of the murder, the Ex-President was out of town with friends visiting Cerrillos.

Even if Ex-President Grant had been in Santa Fe during the fray and had tried to stop the lynching, it is likely that he would have been pushed roughly into the darkness and the murder would have gone on as planned. Such was the anger Santa Feans (La Plebe) harbored towards Dunnigan and his employer, “The Santa Fe Ring.”

A legal hearing was held days later in Santa Fe to indict those who took part in the mayhem. Jail and street witnesses claimed that all the vigilantes wore masks and could not be identified.

A likely story, if you know what I mean – and I think you do. No Santa Fean was going to implicate his neighbor. Officially nobody was ever linked to Dunnigan’s murder.

Until more information is found out by way of old family journals or lost city documents, the Dunnigan lynching will be filled with some major unknowns.

Necktie parties, vendettas and feuds were all part of Santa Fe’s Wild West history. In today’s politically correct capital city, the facts and legends of old Santa Fe have been conveniently forgotten or have been white-washed. Nothing bad ever happened in old Santa Fe. Uh huh! (3)