Wyoming History: The 1919 Casper Whiskey Raid Gone Bad

The blackness of the early morning hours of Nov. 2, 1919, was not enough to hide the fact that the Natrona County sheriff and a half-dozen men were about to raid a stash of some 200 whiskey cases in central Casper.

Wyoming had joined Prohibition on July 1. Now four months into the dry era, the booze had become a more precious commodity. As the law enforcement team arrived, a suspicious taxi was circling the block. Inside the nearby house, a phone rang to tip the stash’s keeper that the “Greeks” were back and headed for the hooch. 

Just after 4 a.m. Sheriff Pat Royce with a deputy slipped into a garage and shop off Washington Street north of Second Street. Shortly afterward figures emerged from the house. Deputies and a railroad special agent along with at least one deputized Greek informant stood watch and confronted the homeowner and an accomplice in the darkness.

Words were spoken. Shots fired.

A deputy lay dead, the house owner with three bullets in his body ran to neighbors’ doors banging for help and the accomplice fled to the house he had just left. A deputy and the railroad agent followed. There the suspect was beaten, arrested, and taken to the jail to be charged with murder. 

The property owner who fled to the hospital across the street was arrested. Others also were rounded up by the law and taken to jail on murder-related charges. Despite outcries in Casper about the shooting death, outlaws, and bootlegging, a trial the next April would see everyone involved set free. 

A front-page story in the Casper Daily Tribune on April 20, 1920, revealed the result: “Defense Scores On Main Points, Indictment of Local Officers Stands Out in Verdict.” 

Beside it was a rare page-one editorial with a bold-centered headline aimed at the sheriff and deputies that read, “They Should Resign.” 

Whether the sheriff and his deputies should have or not is a matter of argument, when looking at the law and police practice in 1919 according to Daniel Fetsco, former prosecutor, public defender, and a current lecturer in the University of Wyoming’s Criminal Justice Program.

Police And Prohibition

“I would suspect that the jury was sympathetic to the defense in this case as the national public appears to have pushed back on Prohibition enforcement, and the verdict was a reflection of that,” he said. “Policing was a relatively new profession in 1919, and the enactment of Prohibition would only make the corruption and crime worse for years to come, until it was repealed.”

For Royce, carrying a badge and a gun was not new. He had come to office in 1919 but had served as Casper night patrolman and chief of police until replaced by a new administration. He had left the city and served as a civilian helping with pack trains for Gen. John “Blackjack” Pershing’s pursuit into Mexico hunting Pancho Villa in 1916 - 1917. Royce’s candidacy for sheriff, chronicled in the Casper Daily Tribune on Oct. 23, 1918, promised results.

“If Pat Royce is elected to the office of sheriff, the people are assured an efficient and faithful public official, and a man whose long experience in police affairs will be a valuable asset in the administration of the affairs to which he aspires,” the article stated. 

On Nov. 2, the 41-year-old lawman had been contacted after midnight by Deputy William E. Kilgore who was working liquor cases with a recently deputized Greek named George Poulos. Poulos learned from the owner of whiskey, Charles Moore, a taxi driver, that his whisky stolen from another man and stored in the garage of Roy Martin, a plumber, was going to moved. Moore had sold 50 of the stolen cases to Martin and his friend Hugh Armstrong.

Royce and Kilgore decided to act and rounded up a team to go get the booze and according to news reports make arrests that morning. 

With them were deputy sheriffs Tom Majors, George McKenzie, Charles Easton and Special Agent Roberts of the Burlington railroad as well as Poulos and in some accounts another Greek deputy. 

Their target was the shop and garage lean-to on Martin’s property, off an alley in the 100 block of Washington Street just north of Second Street.

The Raid

Easton was stationed on the west rear of the home that sat on Washington Street, as the sheriff and Kilgore entered the garage and shop door. Majors, McKenzie, and Roberts took up positions around the building and alley, according to the Casper Daily Tribune on Nov. 3, 1919.

With the pair inside, Martin and Armstrong, 32, who worked in the oil fields and did plumbing walked up armed with shotguns, according to the newspaper.

“‘Put your hands up,’ Majors allegedly said according to the Casper paper. ‘Go to hell. Put up your own,’ Armstrong is alleged to have said, and without further parley pulled the trigger of a pump gun.”

According to the newspaper account, Majors was struck in the hand and then in the jaw with the shotgun blast coming out the back of his skull. The newspaper account says Martin also shot and hit Deputy McKenzie in the shoulder and then Special Agent Roberts fired and put a bullet through Martin’s thumb severing it, and three more into his chest.

Martin turned and fled, running toward neighbors and banging on doors. He ended up at an apartment house that had a phone on the porch and called Casper Police to tell them he had been shot, and his family was in danger. He then ran across the street to the hospital. 

Armstrong ran back into Martin’s house where he had been sleeping on a couch. He ran though the entry door and off to a side room where he opened a door and fell — there was no floor. Martin’s wife emerged from her bedroom. Armstrong came back through the door as Kilgore and Roberts busted through the outside entry. A shot was fired by one of them, and then Kilgore hit Armstrong on the head with his pistol and proceeded to beat him with part of a wooden stool. Some accounts state the beating continued after the sheriff arrived.

Armstrong was arrested, Moore was tracked down and arrested as was H. J. Evans, a taxi driver who had been circling the block.

Sheriff And Deputy Arrested

The Natrona County Board of Commissioners convened and appointed special counsel for the case bypassing the county prosecutor. But the prosecutor, W. E. Patten, on Nov. 7 issued warrants for the arrest of Sheriff Royce and Kilgore for “assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill Hugh Armstrong.”

Both the sheriff and his deputy were arrested by Casper police and bond was set at $5,000. The county attorney also issued warrants for Poulos and another defendant Alex Moon.

The next day it was announced that Patten would resign from office “on account of public sentiment and the attitude of other county officials.”

Bond was supplied for the sheriff and deputy by men in the community. Their charges were dropped.

Meanwhile, Armstrong who initially was denied the opportunity to call an attorney, obtained counsel and eventually a change of venue was approved and the trial moved to Converse County. It was held the week of April 12, 1920. At trial, Armstrong was represented by three attorneys, and the defense team included Patten who served as counsel for Moore. The defense tactics focused on the lack of a search warrant and lack of identification by the officers that they were lawmen. 

Evidence was given about how dark the morning was at 4 a.m. 

While Poulos, who was part of the raid, testified that Majors had said to those who approached: “Who are you? Stick ‘em up, you are under arrest.” Other members of the party said Majors just said “Stick ‘em up.”

McKenzie, the deputy who was shot in the raid, testified that he recalled the words “Put ‘em up” by both sides and then the shooting began.

Defense attorneys also questioned Poulos about the time it took for him to contact Kilgore, then the sheriff, and the time of the raid - trying to prove that there was sufficient time for a proper search warrant to be obtained.

Forgetful Sheriff

On the stand, Sheriff Royce made headlines by stating that he had “no remembrance of ever having attended the coroner’s inquest into the shooting on Monday, Nov. 3, 1919 nor of having given testimony which was read to him as the record of that inquest. “It sounds all right,’” he told attorney D. C. Murane, “but I have no recollection of being there.”

Under cross examination, Royce testified that he possessed a search warrant on the night of the raid. When asked which justice made out the warrant and whether it had been returned to the justice after being used, Royce explained that former prosecutor Patten had told him in September 1919 when a liquor cache was to be raided at Salt Creek, that he could have a number of blank search warrants made out and fill in the names and locations when they were used.  

One of those warrants was used when the raid was made, Royce declared, and he still had a half dozen in his office. Both defense and the prosecution asked that the specific warrant used be brought to court and introduced as evidence. 

It never was.

Patten testified for the defense that he had given the sheriff forms, but never told him that he could use a blank search warrant and not go through the process of contacting a judge.

However, looking back on the case, Fetsco said prior to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in “Mapp vs. Ohio” in 1961, it was possible to conduct raids with warrants that were not signed by a judge or without a warrant at all. In the Mapp case, police used a piece of paper to force their way into the home and the homeowner never saw the paper nor was it ever produced in court.

“That was the case where the Supreme Court held that the Exclusionary Rule applied to both state and federal courts,” he said. “(The rule) provides that courts may exclude evidence that was obtained in violation of  a person’s Fourth Amendment rights, particularly when law enforcement engages in unconstitutional conduct.” 

What About The Booze?

While on the stand, Royce also was asked about how he accounted for all the whiskey seized in the raid.

Royce said that he had placed Deputy Easton in charge of loading the whiskey from the Martin home cache, but that Easton had lost track of the count because he was trying to keep the 2,000 people away who gathered at the shooting site from stealing it. Royce said cases had been brought to the courthouse and he appointed a prisoner to check it, but that prisoner became so drunk that no accurate record “resulted.”

“This brought a laugh from the jury and the audience roared,” the Casper Herald reported on April 15, 1920. “Mr. Royce stated that he could account for only 151 cases of whiskey, while other witnesses testified there were 200 or more cases taken from the bootleg cache. Only 148 were returned.”

Royce said he was unable to explain the discrepancy.

When Armstrong took the stand, his testimony came across as honest and credible according to newspaper accounts. He told the court that he and Martin had traded a Cole 8, seven-passenger 1919 car for 50 cases of liquor from Moore and arranged with Moore to store the balance of the booze in Martin’s garage. Armstrong said they were unaware that Moore had stolen it from someone else.

The night of the shooting, Armstrong said Moore had earlier talked with Poulos and had called Armstrong to tell him “the Greeks” were snooping around. Armstrong had talked with Martin on the phone, had gone to Martin’s house after midnight, and had laid on the couch when the phone rang early in the morning, Martin answered, and then told Armstrong that the “Greeks” were on the way.

Armstrong was given a shotgun by Martin, and they both went out armed to try and protect the liquor cache. Armstrong testified he and Martin walked to the corner of the shop and “a couple of shots” were fired and he saw a “streak of fire going east” close to the corner of the building.

“Somebody said “Stick them up.’ I said, ‘stick them up yourself.’ I was walking right into the gun. Oh, it was within three or four feet of me,” Armstrong is quoted in The Casper Daily Tribune on April 17, 1920. “I lifted my own gun and raised the other one and as I did so that gun was discharged. I think it went by my head, and then I shot a couple of times. I think in the direction from which the shot came from. There were a whole lot of shots. Then I ran back, I think the same way I came out.”

Ignorant Of Officers

Armstrong also testified about his flight into the house, the beating from Deputy Kilgore, and the interrogation at the jail where attorneys would not let him call a lawyer. He said did not know he was dealing with officers until Kilgore followed him into the house and beat him.

Fetsco said standards are different today with the need for officers to have “probable cause” that a crime has been committed or is about to be committed to get a search warrant, and when serving the warrant need to “knock and announce” themselves. But in 1919, “”knock and announce” was not required and that national “outrage” over police seizing contraband alcohol often led to violence. 

Jurors in the Armstrong case took one ballot to find him “not guilty.”

The Casper Herald reported in its April 18, 1920, special edition that a juror said the consensus was that the jurors “did not believe that the officers had gone to the Martin home with lawful intentions, nor in a lawful manner.”

Armstrong cried at the verdict according to the newspaper account.

“No one knows better than I do whether their verdict is a just one and I know I was not guilty of the crime of murder,” he said. “The story I told on the witness stand was the true one of the affair.”

Once cleared of the charges, Armstrong was rearrested for possessing the cases of whiskey. Those charges were also dropped a few days later and none of the other defendants ever faced trial for Majors’ death.

Rest Of Their Stories

Armstrong, who was married with a son, returned to his hometown of Maryville, Missouri and became a respectable leader in the community. He took over ownership of the Armstrong Foundry, founded by his great-grandfather and helped design and create a “bluegrass stripper” machine that collected bluegrass seed heads for the sale of the popular grass.

He divorced his first wife and remarried in 1928. Armstrong’s second wife died in 1953, and he married again in 1955. He served terms on the Maryville City Council belonged to First Christian Church. Armstrong died on March 19, 1974, at age 86. 

Royce served out his sheriff’s term but did not seek to run again for office. He did capture a murderer wanted out of Knoxville, Tennessee at the Poodle Dog Cafe in Casper on Dec. 18, 1920, as his term was about to expire. 

After his sheriff role, he bought a service station in 1923 in Casper and expanded to Evansville and Lander with stations before retiring years later. He died on Dec. 18, 1957. 

Kilgore, a veteran of the Spanish American War, left the sheriff’s department and in 1921 was special agent for the Burlington railroad. In his 60s, he moved to Silverton, Oregon where he died on Dec. 13, 1968. He was married and had three children at the time of the Casper shooting and would go on to have seven more. 

Majors at his death in the 1919 raid left a wife, a daughter, 12, and a son, 5.

Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.