Editor’s Note: The following is Michael O’Brien’s account of building the Oregon Short Line Railroad and the actions of the construction workers’ vigilante committees. O’Brien was born in Ireland in 1846. He retired from the Union Pacific Railroad as a locomotive engineer in 1914 and died in Pocatello in 1938. His story has been edited and adapted for use here by retired Idaho State University history professor Jo Ann Ruckman. This story first appeared in the Pocatello Tribune on Nov. 27, 1927.
I came West in 1881 and worked in the coal mines at Twin Creeks, Wyo.
The Short Line was building westward then, and a point five miles west of Granger, Wyo., was the end of steel. In 1882, I started to work on the railroad construction. My first job was watching the engine that hauled supplies to the most advanced points and in 1883, I was given a job firing this same engine. Later on I was promoted to locomotive engineer, which position I held for a good many years.
Stealing, whether petty or otherwise, was considered a very grave offense in the West at this time, and we construction workers had our vigilante organization. I recall one instance, I believe it was in the spring of 1882, after we had been paid off by Joslyn, paymaster from Omaha.
Our outfit was stationed on the siding at Fossil and a certain Polander, who was bunking with a fellow countryman in one of the cars, reported to the committee that someone had stole $20 from his vest, which he had left hanging in his bunk.
Upon being asked whom he suspected, he said that he thought his partner was the guilty individual.
So we started after his partner, who seemed to “get wise” right away and commenced to run, but Paddy Kyne, a member of the committee, caught him and placed a rope about his neck, and he was dragged to the nearest telephone pole.
A former sailor in the French navy was kind enough to climb the pole and place a hook high up, and the rope was run through this hook and the guilty party was lifted off the ground.
We had not tied his hands, so he was able to keep from being strangled by grasping the rope with his hands, but he tired in a short time and became hysterical when he saw the end was near.
As a member of the committee in good standing, I volunteered the suggestion that it was a bit out of the ordinary to hang a man on the flimsy proof that had been offered, and I never shall forget the efficient manner in which my objection was completely overruled.
Jerry Cocklin, one of the self-asserted leaders of the entertainment, glared at me, and pulling a big black gun from his pocket, stated that anyone too timid to act on the committee had better step out of line.
I don’t know whether he intended to make an example of the prisoner or whether he wished to threaten the party who stepped out of line with sudden death.
The Polander finally confessed to the theft, showed us where the money was hidden and was allowed to leave the outfit with a whole neck.
