The Famous Turkey War of 1859

By Lyn Horner



Have you heard of the “Famous Turkey War of 59?” Me neither until I read an article that was posted in western newspapers in 1924. The article is included in Christmas in the Old West, A Historical Scrapbook by Sam Travers.



Wild Turkeys, image purchased on dreamstime.com

 

The story goes that turkeys were scarce at Christmastime in 1859 around Denver and Auraria, neighboring towns located at the mouth of Cherry Creek. This was very early in the settlement of that area, only the second Christmas since the founding of Denver. Auraria was the larger of the two towns. They had a combined population of about 2,000 people, most of them men.

Denver 1859, image in the Public Domain



Evidently a lawless group of toughs who called themselves the Bummers had been causing trouble for the good citizens. Both sides wanted turkey dinners for Christmas and were not above using pistols to obtain them.

It seems a rancher brought a wagonload of wild turkeys into Auraria, thinking he’d make a tidy profit on the sale of them. He stopped on Ferry Street, which was lined with saloons and gambling halls. A crowd soon gathered around his wagon and he began dickering on the price of turkeys. Meanwhile, several Bummers snuck out of the saloons and somehow managed to grab every last turkey out of the wagon.

 

That theft of all the turkeys brought matters to a head between the respectable folks and the toughs. Indignant citizens held a meeting, listened to a number of witnesses and concluded that several Bummers were guilty of stealing the turkeys. The citizens armed themselves while the thieves and their friends boldly paraded through both towns, firing their guns in the air and terrifying people.

Late one evening Asa Middaugh, one of the most important witnesses, was shot at two different times and slightly wounded. This resulted in the “Jefferson Rangers,” a group charged with keeping the peace in the unofficial Jefferson Territory, being called in. Later reorganized as the Colorado Rangers, they were patterned after the Texas Rangers and served as Colorado's only statewide law enforcement agency thru the 1920s.

The Bummers left before the Rangers arrived, but because the toughs had threatened to burn the town, the peace keepers patrolled the streets. Meanwhile, one of the men who fired at Mr. Middaugh was killed by a man named Tom Pollock. Another of the turkey thieves went after Pollock with a gun but was met by a number of arms residents who sent him running.

At a later meeting, a resolution was passed that the remaining turkey thieves had five hours to leave town or be hanged. Most of the guilty ones departed. Peace returned although the Rangers and citizens kept a close watch for several days. And that is how the great Denver Turkey War ended.

Now don't you go fightin' over turkeys at the market. Just might get yuh hanged, partner!

 

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