HUGH ANDERSON: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER

This year the Frontierado Holiday falls on Friday, August 7th. Frontierado always celebrates the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality.

HUGH ANDERSON – Born in 1851, Hugh was the son of a successful Texas rancher. Anderson learned every aspect of the business from his father but had a tendency to fall in with rowdy crowds and sometimes engaged in hell-raising with mad dog gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.

In the summer of 1871 Hugh and his father were running a cattle drive from their Texas ranch to the new railhead at Newton, Kansas. Enroute to Newton, the Andersons and their cowboys were overtaken by John Wesley Hardin, who was on the trail of gunman for hire Juan Bideno for killing his friend Billy Cohron in a gunfight.

Hugh agreed to ride with Hardin on his revenge quest. How Anderson’s father felt about his promising but volatile son running off on this side quest in the middle of a cattle drive is anybody’s guess.

Anderson and Hardin outdid the posses hunting for Juan Bideno and tracked him down to Bluff City, KS. John blew away Bideno in a gunfight, following which Hugh returned to help his father’s cattle drive, which by now (August) was approaching Newton, KS.

Bill Bailey, Hugh’s old friend from Texas, was currently residing in Newton. Bailey was an up-and-coming gunslinger who had killed at least two men in three separate gunfights by this point. August 11th was Election Day in Newton and Bill Bailey was among the extra lawmen temporarily hired by the town to maintain order. 

Bailey got into a fierce argument with a fellow temporary lawman in Newton – gambler-gunslinger Mike McCluskie. The argument broke out in the Red Front Saloon and eventually escalated to a fistfight, which soon spilled onto the street. McCluskie, later claiming he acted in “self-defense” out of fear over Bill Bailey’s reputation, drew his gun and mortally wounded the man even though he never drew his own gun. 

Bailey perished from his wounds the next day and McCluskie hid out for a few days. Word reached Mike that the fix was in and the corrupt law in Newton would let him off on his self-defense plea when the case eventually went to trial, so he resumed hanging out in town, gambling and drinking.

On August 19th, 1871 the Anderson cattle drive hit Newton and Hugh decided to join up with his friend Bill Bailey to party like hell. When he learned Bailey had been shot to death days earlier, Hugh and other Anderson Ranch cowboys sought out his killer.

They found McCluskie gambling in Tuttle’s Saloon, which was located in the Hide Park section of Newton. Mike McCluskie felt extra safe in Tuttle’s Saloon because his gun-fighting protege Jim Riley was working as a bartender there that night.

NOTE: Jim Riley was an 18-year-old man dying from tuberculosis. Mike McCluskie reportedly rescued Jim from the gutter and trained him in the art of gunfighting. Jim became so skilled that he was one of the few Old West gunslingers who really did wear a two-gun holster and was accurate with both hands. 

      Riley became his benefactor McCluskie’s bodyguard and was often referred to as “McCluskie’s Shadow” or “Shadow Jim”.

Back to Hugh Anderson. He, Billy Garrett, Henry Kearnes and Jim Wilkerson were the Bill Bailey friends confronting Mike McCluskie in Tuttle’s Saloon. McCluskie was at a table with his friend Jim Martin and, of course, his protege Jim Riley was on hand tending bar.

Tempers flared, guns were drawn and what resulted has been called the Hide Park Gunfight and the Newton Massacre. Hugh Anderson mortally wounded Mike McCluskie, four or five others – some of them innocent bystanders – were also mortally wounded, and five men were killed immediately as the bullets flew.

Tradition holds that Jim Riley killed seven to nine men by himself, among them Billy Garrett and Henry Kearnes. McCluskie’s friend Jim Martin was killed by the pro-Bailey gunmen.

Obviously, the body count in this Tuttle’s Saloon shootout was higher than several big-name gunfights like the O.K. Corral, but the absence of any famous gunslingers led to this clash being overlooked.

The wounded Hugh Anderson was being sought for killing Mike McCluskie but his father and friends helped him hide out in Newton until they could sneak him onto a train headed back to Texas. McCluskie’s brother Arthur was out for revenge on Anderson but he laid low for about two years.

In 1873, Hugh felt safe enough from the law that he started living out in the open again. That summer he turned up in Medicine Lodge, KS, working as a bartender at Harding’s Trading Post.

On July 4th of that year, Arthur McCluskie showed up outside Harding’s and challenged Hugh to come out and face him. Anderson did so and the two emptied their pistols into each other. Both men were seriously wounded but drew their knives and continued fighting until they dropped from their injuries.

Arthur McCluskie died and to this day there are still some sources which mistakenly claim that Hugh Anderson also perished. In reality, he survived and resumed ranching. He was struck by lightning on June 9th, 1914 and passed away.

Anderson was and is buried in Tinnie, NM, which is located in famed Lincoln County. And Shadow Jim Riley? He walked out of Tuttle’s Saloon on the day of the Hide Park Gunfight and vanished from history.