The Death of Harry Hopkins

If a person had to die, this would be the place to do it. The young cowboy was probably admiring the view of South Peak, for he still had his field glasses around his neck. Perhaps he looked for deer and wild turkey below the towering ponderosa pine or amidst the scrub oak. But to be shot in the back . . .

The death of Harry Hopkins brings a sense of intrigue and mystery. Very little is known about his past, including his family or place of birth. As far as who pulled the trigger, that has never been solved either, although there are some pretty good theories.

Harry was a cook and ranch-hand for the L.C. Cattle Company in 1887. This was an interesting time on the wild frontier of what would become southeastern Utah. The Mormons, who a few years earlier had arrived in Bluff, now pushed northward to Verdure Creek, where they established a small community they called South Montezuma. The cowboys had their range spread across much of the eastern slopes of the Abajo Mountains, the Carlisles in the north and the L.C. Cattle Company in the south. As for the Utes, they had been here longer than anyone.

Cowboy story singer, Stan Bronson, put it accurately when he penned: “Cowboys and Indians and Mormons, most of those people were fine. But some of those people were up to no good, making trouble all the time.”

One such example occurred just a few years earlier when a Ute Indian fell into a quarrel with a cowboy over a horse. The cowboy shot the Indian through the mouth, but miraculously he survived. This didn't settle well with the other Utes and they started causing havoc with the cattleman, so much that they soon picked up camp and began to move out. That's when the Utes rode in with bullets whistling, stealing several of their horses, killing four mules and burning a wagon.

The L.C. Cattle Company arrived in San Juan during 1880. In 1881, the owner, Issac Lacy, was shot by one of his own employees, a former gunfighter from Tombstone. His wife took over the business and hired a foreman to handle operations. The company located their headquarters near Recapture Canyon and had a summer camp near Verdure. It was here that the young Harry Hopkins cooked for the cowboys while they were out on the range.

The cowboys camped a couple miles west of South Montezuma. Harry came from time to time for supplies. Mary Jones, a resident of the young settlement, recalled the events leading up to the murder:

“The L.C. Ranch had a summer camp on the Blue Mountain, not far from the Verdure [South Montezuma] settlement. A teenage boy by the name of Hawkins [Hopkins] took care of the camp and the horses while the men were out on the range. He came down to buy eggs, milk and butter from the Mormon women and would stay and visit until late afternoon. On one such trip the boy seemed reluctant to go back to camp. The women sensed his uneasiness and urged him to stay overnight. But he must feed the horses. The cowboys depended upon him.”

Harry returned to camp where he prepared the afternoon meal. While waiting for the riders to come back he climbed a hill and sat on a drift fence with his binoculars. No doubt he enjoyed the solitude and pungent smell of pine. Before him, beyond the forested gulf of Verdure Canyon, rose the ominous summit of South Peak.

Unknown to the young camp-hand, someone was creeping through the brush behind him. Without any apparent warning, Harry Hopkins was shot in the back, dropping him dead.

When the cowboys returned, they found dutch ovens full of food at the edge of the fire, but their cook was no where to be found. That night, a violent thunder storm rolled across the mountain.

The next day, Harry failed to make his usual appearance at South Montezuma. Mary Jones remembered: “Soon Old Wash, a Ute Indian, came by and said the boy was dead. Wash claimed that [Hopkins] had been standing on a log looking for horses through his field glasses and was struck by a bolt of lightning.”

A group of men hurried to the site, where Hickory Dennis and another cowboy, possibly Parley Butt, found the boy face-down in the mud with two bullet holes in his back. His body was too decomposed to move, so they dug a hole at the spot and rolled him in.

The incident elevated tension between the three groups. Everyone was wary of the Indians. For days on the Blue and LaSal Mountains, Indian signal fires burned, sending plumes of smoke in the air, a sure sign that they were on the warpath. The white man worried there was an Indian behind every tree.

Some of the cowboys also wished to drive away the settlers of South Montezuma. In a rage they declared: “You Mormons clear out of here in ten days or we will annihilate you!” This threat caused the Mormons to seek protection from U.S. Soldiers, who came from Fort Lewis near Durango.

As for a motive for the murder, only theories will suffice. Harry was a cook for stockman on the Disappointment Range near the Lone Cone in Colorado, where several Indians were killed by cowboys. Perhaps his killing was an act of retaliation. Another theory is that Harry was an outlaw and had been discovered by an old enemy. Or, as Albert R. Lyman theorized, the Utes were always looking for excitement and Harry was the victim of a potshot.

The cowboy cook is buried where he died, at the head of Devils Canyon. An old fence made of poles surrounds the burial plot. Inside is a head and foot stone, with the simple inscription of “H H Hopkins.”

The story of Harry Hopkins is intriguing. It is best told around the campfire, at night when the cicadas are serenading and a gentle breeze is subtly bending the tall grass. ♠

Sources 

Lacy, Steve, and Pearl Biddlecome Baker. Posey, the Last Indian War. Gibbs Smith, 2007.

Lyman, Albert R. Indians and Outlaws: Settling of the San Juan Frontier. K.R. Lyman, 1980.

Palmer, Cameron. “Eagle Project.” 2001.

Young, Norma Perkins. Anchored Lariats on the San Juan Frontier. Community Press, 1985.