Bill Doolin – Today In Southern History
15 January 1895
On this date in 1895…
Deputy U.S. Marshal Bill Tilghman captured outlaw Bill Doolin of the “Wild Bunch” while Doolin recuperated at a health resort at Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Tilghman entered a bath house, and spotted Bill Doolin seated in the lobby. After A breif struggle Tilghman returned Doolin to Oklahoma for trial. Doolin soon escaped from a Guthrie, Oklahoma jail and briefly continued his outlaw career before Marshall Heck Thomas’s posse ended it for good with a shotgun blast to the chest.
Other Years:
1704 – The Spanish Governor of Florida, Juan Ruiz Mexia, launched a disastrous expedition of Spanish soldiers and Apalachee Indians to re-capture Spanish Mission of Ayubale in northern Florida from South Carolina militia and a thousand Creek allies under Governor James Moore.
1821 – Confederate General and U.S. Vice-president John C. Breckinridge was born in Lexington, Kentucky.
1844 – Confederate guerrilla and bandit Thomas Coleman “Cole” Younger was born at the Younger family farm in Jackson County, Missouri.
1857 - Abolitionists held a ‘dis-union convention’ in Worchester, Massachusetts where they passed a resolution promoting dissolving the American union.
1861 – Florida officials seized the U.S. Coast Guard Survey Steamer Dana at St. Augustine.
1864 – Sixty starving Navajo surrendered to Kit Carson after the Battle of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona.
1927 – The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned John Scopes’ guilty verdict for teaching evolution on a technicality, but the law was allowed to remain in place.
1943 – The Pentagon was dedicated as the world’s largest office building in Arlington, Virginia covering 34 acres with 17 miles of corridors.
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