Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men

Leavenworth Daily Commercial, Thursday, 15 July 1875.

In the summer of 1875, George Elmes, a German-born resident of Hays City, Kansas, ‘an honest, hard working fellow,’  loaded up a wagon with goods purchased from a sutler’s store and started on a trek from Hays City to Trinidad, New Mexico, where he planned to sell his stock.

John Gores, described as an acquaintance, joined Elmes on his trip. The two reached Trinidad, where Elmes sold his goods, and left the New Mexico town ‘with something over $1,000 in his pocket.’

The first night out on their return journey from Trinidad, John Gores took part in a game of cards with some men; the sources are silent on who these men were, whether they were accompanying Elmes and Gores or if they were travelling independently of the two Hays City men. 

Elmes took no part in the card game, but when Gores approached him to borrow a revolver and $72, he willingly agreed. Later, when Gores reported that he had lost the money and the firearm at cards, Elmes apparently accepted the loss with equanimity; perhaps Gores promised to repay him upon their return to Hays.   

The pair continued back towards home; it was somewhere between Grenada and Dodge City when they were joined by a third man, John Moores. Moores seems to have been a stranger to both Elmes and Gores.

At that night’s rest stop, Gores revealed to Moores details of George Elmes’ profitable business dealings in New Mexico, ‘and the plethoric condition of his purse.’ The two men then launched a furious assault on George Elmes, punching and kicking him until they had subdued the German.

They bound and gagged Elmes before robbing him and throwing him in the back of his wagon. The two assailants concealed their victim in the wagon and drove the conveyance into Dodge City. The attack occurred on a Thursday night, and it wasn’t until Sunday, three days later, that they reached the nascent cow town.

When they reached Dodge, John Gores left Moores in charge of the prisoner, still hog-tied in the back of the wagon, telling his confederate that he had to mail a letter to his wife, but he would soon return.     

Instead of returning after completing his errand, Gores caught the train at Dodge and was reported to have returned to Trinidad. Governor Thomas A. Osborn of Kansas issued a requisition for the arrest and return of Gores to Kansas for trial.

Moores panicked when the realisation that John Gores had fled, leaving him with the prisoner, hit home. Still tied up and suffering greatly from his injuries and thirst, Elmes begged Moores to end his suffering. But Moores ‘had neither the hardihood to murder nor the humanity to release his wretched victim.’ Instead, Moores took one of Elmes’ mules and rode to Fort Larned, where it was believed he caught the train to Great Bend, on the Arkansas River. It was subsequently discovered that oores had alighted from the train at Pawnee Station. 

George Elmes was found not long after Moores left on muleback for Fort Larned. Contemporary newspapers were not confident that Elmes would recover from his ordeal. Adding that if captured, Gores and Moores would likely ‘meet with summary punishment’.  

© Mark Young 2026

Source

https://www.newspapers.com/article/leavenworth-daily-commercial-a-border-at/190438587/