11. Sharing a Jail Cell With the Deadliest Outlaw of the Old West
In the 1870s a young Johnny Ringo moved to Mason County, Texas, where trouble erupted between newly arrived German settlers and natural-born English-speaking Americans. It began in 1875 when a predominately German mob dragged a pair of American cattle rustlers from a local jail, and lynched them. That triggered a cycle of violence in which Ringo joined the American side in a campaign of terror against the newcomers. Lowlights in the ensuing Mason County War included the murder and scalping of a German sheriff’s deputy before his body was thrown down a well.
Ringo was front and center in the violence and participated in multiple murders. The Texas Rangers were eventually called in to reassert law and order. By late 1876, after about a dozen men had been killed, the violence petered out and came to an end. Ringo was arrested, but broke out of jail and went on the lam. He was arrested once again, and for a while shared a cell with notorious Old West killer John Wesley Hardin. The historic record is spotty about what happened next, but while Ringo’s accomplices were convicted, he appears to have been acquitted.