McCoy's Place
Once when I was about 11 years old, I hiked with a friend of mine out near the river near home. We came upon the burnt out remains of a once spectacular house. Built of dressed stone and heavy timber, at some point it must have been something to see. Given its condition, it had been burnt out for decades. When I asked my dad about it, he said that it was "the old McCoy Place". I asked him what happened, and he wouldn't say other than something Very Bad had happened and what followed wasn't right.
Today I stumbled across the info that the McCoy in question was Tim McCoy, an actor from the early days of black and white Western movies. He supposedly sold his place sometime in the 30s and never returned to the state afterwards, even though he had been adopted by the Arapaho tribe there and had held some fairly important political positions. At first I thought maybe it had to do with his Nazi second wife, but he married her after he left. So far I haven't been able to casually bring up any hint of scandal or crime associated with him. From my dad's story, whatever it was was definitely handled by posse justice, so perhaps no whisper or record of it exists outside of the memories of the people who were there. They are most likely all deceased at this point too, more's the pity.
There is the chance that whatever happened there happened after Tim McCoy sold out in the 30s and had nothing to do with him. But that's not my dad's story. His story was of frontier justice gone awry, wrongly accused dude getting tossed (in a sack!) into the river for something he didn't do and barely escaping with his life. I always thought he meant the McCoy of "McCoy's place", but perhaps not. He was shy about the details, and his final pronouncement was "a bad business". Grim indeed considering my dad loved to tell stories and had no problem repeating fun gossip. One way or another, McCoy got divorced, ceded part of his ranch to his ex-wife, held on to the rest for a while but never returned, even given his strong ties to the area and its people. My curiosity is up and likely to remain frustrated!
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Today I stumbled across the info that the McCoy in question was Tim McCoy, an actor from the early days of black and white Western movies. He supposedly sold his place sometime in the 30s and never returned to the state afterwards, even though he had been adopted by the Arapaho tribe there and had held some fairly important political positions. At first I thought maybe it had to do with his Nazi second wife, but he married her after he left. So far I haven't been able to casually bring up any hint of scandal or crime associated with him. From my dad's story, whatever it was was definitely handled by posse justice, so perhaps no whisper or record of it exists outside of the memories of the people who were there. They are most likely all deceased at this point too, more's the pity.
There is the chance that whatever happened there happened after Tim McCoy sold out in the 30s and had nothing to do with him. But that's not my dad's story. His story was of frontier justice gone awry, wrongly accused dude getting tossed (in a sack!) into the river for something he didn't do and barely escaping with his life. I always thought he meant the McCoy of "McCoy's place", but perhaps not. He was shy about the details, and his final pronouncement was "a bad business". Grim indeed considering my dad loved to tell stories and had no problem repeating fun gossip. One way or another, McCoy got divorced, ceded part of his ranch to his ex-wife, held on to the rest for a while but never returned, even given his strong ties to the area and its people. My curiosity is up and likely to remain frustrated!
This entry was originally posted at http://spaceoperadiva.dreamwidth.org/41041.html. Please comment there using OpenID.