6 Unsolved Wild West Mysteries
The New Frontier was full of discovery and wonder for an unexplored piece of the world; however, records were quite hit or miss. The Old West was filled with both highs and lows, from finding plentiful gold mines to horrifying murders. While some larger towns kept track of these events, others pored over the mysteries that occurred in those far-flung towns. Learn more about these six unsolved Wild West mysteries below, and dive into another part of America’s history.
6. Pearl Hart’s Disappearance
Starting our list of Wild West mysteries is Pearl Hart’s disappearance. Hart was a Canadian woman who went to finishing school as a teen but was led astray by a bad crowd. She associated with several bad men, including Joe Boot, with whom Pearl went on a year-long robbery spree across Arizona. One of their most notable heists was committing one of the last roadside stagecoach robberies in the American West.
When caught, the world was shocked by Hart’s masculine appearance, but that’s not the peculiar part. After just a handful of years in jail, Hart disappeared. While some think she died in the 1950s or 1960s, no one is quite sure what happened to Pearl Hart.
RELATED: 6 Myths About the Wild West That Hollywood Got Wrong
5. The Servant Girl Annilhilator
Fifth on our list of Wild West mysteries is the Servant Girl Annihilator. While there was a lot of crime in the Wild West, some crimes were just downright horrifying. Between 1885 and 1886, the city of Austin, Texas, was hit with a brutal spree where eight different girls and young women were brutally killed. Most were servant girls working for rich families, giving the killer the Servant Girl Annihilator moniker.
The murders started as violent attacks but quickly turned deadly. In February of 1886, Austin cops killed a man named Nathan Elgin after he was found beating a barmaid to death. While Elgin was never definitely linked to the murders, there were no further attacks.
4. Tom Ketchum’s Loot
Next on our list of Wild West mysteries is Tom “Black Jack” Ketchum’s loot. Ketchum was deeply intertwined in the world of robbery and murder and was later found guilty and hanged for his crimes in 1901. However, his deadly actions aren’t the mystery, it’s the lost loot.
A few years before he died, Ketchum was rumored to have buried a large treasure in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona, worth several thousand dollars during his time. While the treasure has never been found, avid fortune seekers continue to prowl the mountains searching for a piece of the past.
CHECK OUT: 6 Secret Societies from History That Still Spark Curiosity
3. The Crater Lake Cabin
Rounding out the top three Wild West mysteries is the Crater Lake Cabin. In 1853, a pair of brothers, James and Henry Wilson, joined a prospecting group in the gold rush town of Jacksonville, Oregon. After a Native American attack, the two trudged high into the mountains and built a cabin to protect themselves. While up there, they found lots of gold, hiding it underneath the floor of the cabin for safekeeping.
On their way back to civilization, Henry was killed. James escaped and told his cousin Ted Harper about the gold, and Harper bided his time in fear of hostile tribes. Finally, Harper and his friend Sam Simpson went up the mountain, but instead found more tragedy when an accident killed Harper, and Simpson was too distraught to search for the gold.
A few months later, another search party went up into the mountains, and instead of gold, they found Crater Lake, the deepest lake in America.
ALSO READ: What’s the World’s Deepest Lake?
2. May & Fred Prescott’s Deaths
Second on our list of Wild West mysteries is the deaths of May and Fred Prescott. Residents in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1916 called the police after smelling a foul odor, which ended up being the bodies of May and Fred Prescott. The pair was brutally murdered, and a note was left in the room claiming murder–suicide.
However, the couple’s injuries did not match the claim, but police had little to go on in terms of evidence. They pored over evidence for over a month before finally delivering the verdict that the two were killed “by the hands of an unknown party or parties,” and it has never been solved.
1. Al Schlesinger’s Death
Last but not least on our Wild West mysteries list is the puzzling death of Al Schlesinger. In September of 1876, a well-known doctor named S.E. Sally started receiving strange letters from a man called Alfred Schlesinger. Claiming to be the office secretary of the mega-rich William Jackson Palmer, the letters called for Dr. Sally to find Schlesinger’s body if he didn’t return to town.
When Schlesinger didn’t return, Dr. Sally and a couple of others went out to investigate and found the young man lying face down in a pool of blood, appearing to have died in a duel. Since no one knew who he was dueling, Al’s killer was never found, and the case remains unsolved.
CHECK OUT: 6 Forgotten Military Forts You Can Still Visit Today
More About:History