Newton celebrates 150 years of history with Hyde Park gunfight reenactment
Newton celebrates 150 years of history with Hyde Park gunfight reenactment
Newton's current reputation as a peaceful town hasn't always been the case.
NEWTON — The Harvey County Historical Museum & Archives committee decided to show people a largely unknown and mysterious piece of Newton’s history with a reenactment of a gunfight between four Texas cowboys, a corrupt lawman, and a mysterious teenager.
The performance was put on by the Harvey County Historical Museum on Aug. 20, exactly 150 years after the gunfight had taken place. The show was written, directed and narrated by Bethel alumni Nathaniel Schmucker, and featured several members from Bethel College’s theater department. Cowboy reenactors were brought in to give the show an authentic feel, even featuring a member of Newton’s police force, ensuring the prop guns used were approved.
The short reenactment covered a night deep in Newton’s history.
On Aug. 19, 1872, a man by the name of Mike McCluskie returned to Newton after a week on the run. McCluskie, a native Ohioan, was hired by Santa Fe Railroad (SFR) as a lawman in Newton when he got into a fight. His opponent, William “Bill” Bailey, was a Texan and fellow lawman under the SFR.
McCluskie shot and killed Bailey during the altercation and fled Newton on Aug. 12. He returned a week later after hearing the charges may be dropped (due to a “self defense” ruling). McKluskie then traveled to Tuttle’s Dance Hall, a saloon in downtown Newton. McKluskie stayed at Tuttle’s until about 2:00 a.m. on Aug. 20, when four Texan friends of Bailey's entered the saloon intent on getting revenge on McCluskie.
Three of the men spread out, as their leader, a man named Hugh Anderson, approached McCluskie, gun drawn. Anderson called McCluskie a coward before shooting him in the neck. McCluskie, mortally wounded, tried to return fire, but his pistol misfired and he fell to the ground.
At this point, Jim Riley opened fire into the saloon. His first shot accidentally hit Jim Martin, a well-liked cowboy who tried to stop the gunfight. Martin stumbled outside and died in the street. Riley shot six more men, killing three—two Texan cowboys and an innocent bystander— before exiting the saloon with his guns empty. He was never seen again.
This gunfight, despite being one of the deadliest single gunfights in the Old West (more so than other well-known fights such as the Shootout at the O.K. Corral or the Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight), with five confirmed deaths, is often an overlooked part of Newton’s history.
Additionally, many details remain unsolved mysteries to this day. Due to the amount of gunsmoke in the room, only one eyewitness account is credited to the shooting, making it hard to decipher which parts of the story are accurate.
More mystery surrounds the gunman himself, Jim Riley. Firstly, little is known about Riley before the gunfight, other than that he was a thin, sickly looking 18-year-old who had been staying with McCluskie. He was said to have been quiet, causing very little problems, and was thought to be deathly ill.
Very rarely in history has a Western gunslinger ever simply disappeared after a gunfight, but this is the case of Riley’s story. After leaving the saloon that fateful night, Riley disappeared from all historical accounts. Some said he died shortly after from tuberculosis. Others said he became an outlaw in Nebraska. Still others said he reformed himself and started a plantation east of the Mississippi River.
Almost a century and a half later, Jim Riley remains one of Newton’s biggest question marks in history and Newton’s longest unsolved case to this day.