If it weren’t for the ink of Silverton’s only newspaper, the tragic story of the small town’s marshal, who was gunned down by an infamous outlaw gang in 1881, would likely fall into the deep annals of history.
However, Mark Esper, the one-man show who runs the longest-running newspaper on the Western Slope, the Silverton Standard & The Miner, is trying to raise funds to honor the slain marshal with his own day and commemorative placard.
According to the La Plata Miner archives – republished in the Standard – on Aug. 23, 1881, the notorious Ike Stockton gang tore the roof off of the Durango jail to break out a fellow member, and fled to Silverton to hide out.
“All they knew was rustling cattle and robbing and stealing and raising hell,” Esper said of the Durango-based desperados. “They kept drifting westward to keep one step ahead of the law.”
On the gang’s trail was La Plata County Sheriff Luke Hunter, who arrived in Silverton around midnight.
“Sheriff Hunter had not been in town 10 minutes before they (the gang) knew of his presence,” the La Plata Miner reported.
“La Plata County Sheriff Luke Hunter is seen (by Silvertonians) as an incompetent dufus because of the incident,” joked Esper, recalling local attitudes in the archives.
Soon after his arrival, Hunter went to the Senate billiard hall to rustle up the town’s marshal, David Clayton Ogsbury, who was sleeping in a back room. When the two came out of the bar and headed toward the Diamond Saloon at 11th and Greene streets, gang members were waiting.
Almost immediately, a flurry of gunfire erupted. The La Plata Miner reported Ogsbury was killed instantaneously, the fatal bullet “passing entirely through his body.”
Two of the gang members were ultimately captured and hanged – the last hanging in Silverton history.
The effort to memorialize Ogsbury is an official San Juan Historical Society project, which seeks to raise enough funds for the preferred $2,800 placard. The plate would be placed at the site of his death at 11th and Greene, and the historical society has the property owner’s permission.
Esper would also like to see the Town Council adopt Aug. 24 as Marshal Clayton “Clate” Ogsbury Day in Silverton. The Town Council is expected to vote on the matter Monday.
jromeo@durangoherald.com