It’s hard to believe, but we have just five days left of 2024’s Frontierado Holiday Season! It’s observed on the first Friday of August each year, so this Friday, August 2nd marks the event! Frontierado is about the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality.
“CRAZY MIKE” HOGAN – Also called Frank Hamilton, Tom Blake and Tom Moore, some sources claim this trigger-happy outlaw’s real name was Thomas Hamilton Blanck. However, researcher Mark Dugan maintained that the man was born Michael Hogan Jr. on October 28th, 1870 in Schenectady, New York.
The parents of the future Crazy Mike were supposedly Michael Hogan and Margaret Fox-Hogan, who had ten children, of whom Mike Jr. was the eighth. The unruly and rambunctious lad completed elementary school education and went on to work as a Gas Fitter, installing pipes necessary for gas lighting on streets, homes and businesses.
A clash with his employers led to the thug quitting and heading west in 1889. One account holds that Mike robbed some cash from those employers before fleeing. He next surfaced out west working as a railroad brakeman before setting out on his infamous True Crime saga.
Hogan and assorted temporary accomplices spent much of 1890 carrying out armed robberies of banks, stagecoaches, hotels, saloons and sometimes random lone targets. His first killing happened on March 6th, 1890 in Weiser, Idaho over an argument during a saloon poker game. Mike shot & killed James Sweeney and wounded Judge N.M. Hanthorn. Continue reading
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