South Pass City felt sleepy and somber with the sun setting on another summer. Long shadows grew out from its buildings like ghosts emerging, while the wind stirred whispers from the few tufts of brown dried grasses.
By ones and by twos we gathered in that place, footsteps crunching on gravel. A sound that felt uncomfortably loud. Most of us were dressed wisely for the occasion. But a few, including this reporter, had flimsy summer attire still.
South Pass City, known for its brutal winters, didn’t approve. It handed out cold, drizzling rain to make its point. Alongside the wind, it raised goosebumps everywhere.
It was cold, but strangely OK. It set just the right mood for the occasion — a murder mystery investigation.
Our journey started in South Pass City’s 1870s jail. South Pass City’s Superintendent Joe Ellis was waiting for us, portraying historical figure, Sweetwater County Sheriff John McGlinchey.
McGlinchey had gathered us at the jail for a somber occasion. A member of our party had just been found guilty of some very serious crimes.
“You’ve been tried by a jury of your peers and as justice of the peace and sheriff in these here parts, I find you guilty of horse theft and ungenteel behavior,” McGlinchey said. “By the authority invested in me by the laws of this territory, I commit thee to serve 90 days in the Sweetwater County Jail. Let it be known that justice, though somber, today is fulfilled. May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
With that, our friend was thrown into jail.
We could, however, win his freedom. He would be pardoned if we would all agree to help solve the 1875 murder of George McOmie.
It was our task to figure out not just who had killed McOmie, but also where and how he had died.
We earned our clues all along the way by playing little historical games, such as the “Price is Right” in the Smith Sherlock Store, where we arranged a series of five goods in order of most to least expensive. We also completed historical tasks, like singing our names in the Sherlock Hotel’s guest registry with a real quill and ink pen.
The annual event concludes with a fireside wake, complete with cocktails that have fun names like Corpse Reviver, Dupree and Falling Orange, plus a cup jammed full of hors d’oeuvres.
It’s about fun, more than anything else, Ellis told Cowboy State Daily.
But there is, after all, an interesting mystery behind this historical murder, one that has never actually been solved.
Charlene Padio and Troy Greene dressed the part for a South Pass City's sleuthing party that dug into the 1875 murder of George McOmie. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Dana Higby, center, holds a clue sheet for George McOmie's murder while members of her team look on during a sleuthing party that dug into the 1875 murder of George McOmie. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
One of the historical tasks that earned clues to George McOmie's murder involved a kind of "Price is Right" game, lining up products from most to least expensive. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Dana Higby and a fellow team member check their clues against a tip sheet during a sleuthing party that looked more closely at the 1875 murder of George McOmie. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Signing names into the guest register was one of the historical tasks sleuthing teams could do to earn clues into the 1875 murder of George McOmie at South Pass (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
George Hester, center, holds the tip sheet to confer with Dana Higby, right, while another member of the team looks on during a sleuthing party that looked more closely at the 1875 murder of George McOmie. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
McOmie Origin
No one is certain when McOmie arrived in South Pass City to find his fortune, or what kinds of jobs he actually did while there. He was a young man, in his 20s, and had come in from Nevada.
Ellis believes it’s likely that he came at the invitation of his sister, Janet Sherlock Smith, who he described as the matriarch of South Pass City.
“I can’t remember where in Scotland she was born, but she immigrated to the United States by herself, and came into Salt Lake City,” Ellis said. “She was a Mormon convert, so the church helped pay to get her over there.”
In Salt Lake City, Smith met her first husband, Richard Sherlock, and the two were among the first wave of gold seekers who swept into South Pass City not long after gold was discovered there in 1868.
The couple established a bath house to start with, and Sherlock worked mining claims in the surrounding hills. But happiness for the newlyweds would prove just as elusive as gold. Sherlock died in 1873, leaving Smith a widow in rough territory, with five children to look after, and no way to make a living.
Smith took over a local hotel lease and stagecoach operations to get by. It was grueling work that kept her busy morning, noon and night. The stagecoach came in twice a day at noon and at 2 a.m., and the travelers would be hungry and expecting a meal as soon as they got off the stagecoach in South Pass.
There was lots of laundry to do, as well as scrubbing and cleaning. It was an all hands-on deck situation, and that included all five of her children.
Janet needed help, Ellis said, and McOmie, who he described as a “ne’er do well” likely needed an escape hatch.
It seemed like an ideal setup for them both. But unbeknownst to either, it was setting the table for a tragic tale.
A wake was held in one of South Pass City's saloons after a sleuthing party that looked more closely at the 1875 murder of George McOmie. Cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and music were served. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
A bartender awaits drink orders during a wake for George McOmie after a sleuthing party investigated his 1875 murder. A good time was had by all. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Sleuthing teams gathered around fires outside a South Pass City saloon after investigating the murder of George McOmie, shot during a card game in 1875. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Grinding coffee in the old-fashioned coffee grinder in the Smith-Sherlock store was one of the historical tasks that earned clues to George McOmie's murder during a sleuthing party that looked more closely at the 1875 murder of George McOmie. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
The scene of George McOmie's 1875 murder was this tiny card shark room, built off the side of the Exchange Saloon. Gambling was legal then, but controversial. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
One of the tables devoted to card games inside a gaming parlor built off the side of the Exchange Saloon. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
A wood stove kept the Smith-Sherlock store warm during a sleuthing party that looked more closely at the 1875 murder of George McOmie. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Guess which of these products was the least expensive? It was the peach, but only because it was as single item. A bag of peaches would have been the most expensive of the bunch. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Hold Outs
By 1875, most of the air had gone out of South Pass City. There were just a few hundred stalwarts left, McOmie and his sister among them.
The town might be dying, but that didn’t stop Smith. She just kept building and adding onto her holdings. McOmie, meanwhile, had found a great hiding place, if nothing else. There was also no doubt as much work as he could want in his sister’s many endeavors.
“Smith was entrepreneurial enough that she wanted to make a living and keep going,” Ellis said. “She started out by renting one of the local hotels. She ended up buying it. She bought the saloon next door, tore it down, and built a restaurant. Then she went into the mercantile business.”
Eventually, Smith married the owner of a competing mercantile, James Smith, in 1875. The same year of her brother’s death.
McOmie was killed while playing a game of cards in a tiny room off the Exchange Saloon that featured both cards and a roulette table, shot by a mystery man named E. S. Tompkins.
“James Smith was one of the characters in that game,” Ellis said.
And here is where the real mystery begins.
While the shooting was cast by Tompkins as something of a drunken brawl, the family has long held that the deed was far more deliberate than that.
Family member James Sherlock talks about that briefly in his book, “South Pass And Its Tales.”
“Evidently (George) had some unpleasant altercation in Nevada,” he wrote in his book. “It was my father’s firm conviction that a stranger, unbeknownst to George, had been hired by Nevada enemies to commit the crime. he enticed George into a card game, contrived accusations and dispute, and, drawing his gun, he shot George.”
Town sentiment was running so high against Tompkins, there were fears the man might be lynched before he could be tried.
“Hearing of the plot, grandmother in her devout Christian and characteristically kind and sensible manner, interceded,” James Sherlock wrote. “She said her loss was already great enough without having this man’s blood on her hands, and she knew that in living with his own conscience and Divine judgment the man would receive his just punishment.”
So it was that Tompkins was allowed to leave the locality, disappearing into the veil of history, taking all his secrets with him, as well clues to his motive in shooting McOmie.
Local lore holds that McOmie still haunts the shadowy corners of the saloon where he was shot, waiting for those secrets to be revealed, and for justice to finally be served.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
