Harvey Logan, aka Kid Curry, was a mild-mannered but emotional volcano waiting to explode. At 5'7" tall,brown hair, a waterfall mustache...he look like your average Joe and not a killer. When Missouri farm life proved too dull for Harvey and his brothers, they "borrowed" some horses and made their way to Wyoming where they learned the finer points of cowboying and gun handling. And they ended up on the wrong side of the law.Curry was one of the "fastest draw on a six gun" in Wild West history as part of the Ketchum Gang and later the Wild Bunch Gang. Few got a second chance when Kid Curry pulled his gun. His legend of firing so fast it sounded like one shot is part of the legends of the West.
When Curry got into a fight he didn't care whether he, or anyone else lived or died and it is said that
only Butch Cassidy, his good friend, could calm him down and restore any kind of reason. Curry had a side of him that was faithful to his friends and they were loyal to him. Many records state the Harvey Logan was "a gentlemen through and through".
Regardless of his "good" side, most historians list him as the top five most dangerous men in the West. By the turn of the century, the collection of wanted rewards out on Kid Curry totaled over $40,000 dead or alive. Pinkerton's top detectives were heard to comment "Going after Curry was suicide. He never ran and hide, but waited and planned his ambush of you."
In 1904 in Rifle, Colorado, it is believed that Kid Curry died a romantic hero. After robbing a bank, the posse was closing in and Curry told a shot through the lungs. He stayed behind while letting the others escape and turned his Colt on himself. His luck had run out as the popular saying goes.
So yes, he was one of the deadliest outlaws, and the most wanted in Wild West history!
Next time...Wild Bill Hickok
____________________________________________
This Day in History: On March 4, 1868, Jesse Chisholm, who blazed one of the West's most famous trails, the Chisholm Trail, dies in Oklahoma of food poisoning.