There is an adage: “Write what you know,” and Diana Kouris is an expert on the history of the area and the outlaws in Browns Park, Colorado. One of her award-winning books is Nighthawk Rising: A biography of Accused Cattle Rustler Queen Ann Bassett of Brown’s Park.
Ann Bassett, often linked to the Sundance Kid and other members of the Wild Bunch, was a rancher’s daughter, heavily influenced by her strong mother. She grew up cowboying in the remote Brown’s Park area, learning to rope and ride as well as the men who frequented the region. She was friends with Elzy Lay, Isam Dart, and had a romantic interest in Mat Rash; the two planned to marry.
Ann Bassett’s world was torn asunder when Rash and Dart were both murdered. This event changed her life and fueled a hatred of cowman Ora Haley that would last throughout her life.
Bassett and Kouris’s grandmother were friends and Kouris herself grew up in Brown’s Park on a ranch adjoining the Bassett ranch. She rode the same trails Ann had followed decades earlier and she heard the stories passed down by Brown’s Park families.
Kouris avoided the trap of writing from recollection since she sought out and found primary documents that help depict Bassett as she was, not as legend has portrayed her.
Among the sources in her biography are first-hand accounts like Sam Bassett’s letter to J.M. Blansit about the murder of Mat Rash; Joe Davenport’s detailed depiction of Isam Dart; Jesse “Jess” Taylor’s interview that explains his relationship with and insight into the Bassett family, and Minnie Crouse Rasmussen’s account of the events surrounding the suspicious death of Ann’s sister Josie’s fourth husband.
Kouris also drew from a collection of Ann Bassett’s personal letters and unpublished writings that convey Bassett’s character.
Nighthawk Rising, won several awards including a Spur Award from Western Writers of American for Best Biography.
Kouris is also the author of The Romantic and Notorious History of Brown’s Park and Riding the Edge of an Era: Growing Up Cowboy on the Outlaw Trail.
Kouris has presented talks across Wyoming about the woman known as Queen Ann and said her inspiration in researching and writing about her came because she knew that so much of the writing about Ann was “not based in fact and didn’t resemble the Queen Ann who became my grandmother’s friend when both women were in their twenties.”
“The decades of parodies of Ann did not mesh with the complex and gracious cattlewoman my elderly uncle said he loved and admired from the time he first saw her when he was five-years-old,” Kouris said. One day she was reviewing historical photos of Brown’s Park and Kouris said she realized it was time for her to write about Ann Bassett. Kouris decided to “devote all I could muster into seeking her truth and writing it as a work of merit.
Among the outlaws Ann Bassett knew were a few of the young men who were destined be part of the gang that came to be known as the Wild Bunch.
When they were teenagers and before they were wanted by the law, the young men worked in Brown’s Park as ranch hands. Elzy Lay was hired on by Ann’s parents and lived at the Bassett Ranch for about a year. Butch Cassidy worked for the Brown’s Park Livestock Ranch, the ranch where Kouris grew up.
One of the archival pieces Kouris found in her research quest and included in her book is Ann Bassett’s never-before-published handwritten menu and full description of the 1893 “Wild Bunch Dinner” (also known as the “Outlaw Thanksgiving”). Among those believed to attend that dinner were Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, and Elzy Lay.
Wouldn’t it have been fun to attend such a dinner and listen to what they were thankful for?
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com
