← Back to the front page

The Notorious Men of the Wild West

Khalid Elhassan December 4, 2019 32 min

26. The Fatal Horse Shoe

On August 15^th, 1878, following another stagecoach robbery, Brazelton’s horse threw a shoe as he fled the scene, leaving a distinct print that allowed pursuers to track it to a horse corral. The proprietor was arrested and offered to deliver the robber.

He disclosed that Brazelton planned to rob another stagecoach that night and that a meeting had been prearranged for the horse corral proprietor to deliver him supplies earlier in the evening, a few hours before the robbery. The posse left as if riding back home, then doubled back and snuck off to the meeting site to wait in ambush.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.