"Deadly Day in Ladore " Topic

"On Tuesday, May 10, 1870, seven men, identified initially as either "Texans or straggling outlaws from the Indian Territory," rode into the town of Ladore, Kansas, looking to raise hell. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad had announced its intention to make Ladore, located about six miles north of present-day Parsons along the Neosho Division of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, a junction point of the M. K. & T.; and the place pulsed with rowdy activity in anticipation of the expected boon. L.A. Bowes, foreman for the contractor that was building the M. K. & T, recalled 30 years later that Ladore was "the toughest place I ever struck. Whisky was sold in nearly every house in the town. Vice and immorality flourished like a green bay tree." But even the citizens of a raucous town like Ladore drew a line, and when the seven rowdy strangers got liquored up and crossed it, only one of them rode out alive.
The seven "hard-looking characters" hit town about noon, according to Bowes, and "commenced to fill up on tangleleg. About dusk they began operations by knocking men down and robbing them. As they were heavily armed, they soon had full possession of the town and had everything their own way."
That evening about seven o'clock, the seven hombres went to a boarding house kept by James N. Roach about a quarter mile south of town near the railroad and asked to stay the night. They were refused because of their drunken condition, but they didn't take well to the rejection. Two of the desperadoes guarded a stairs leading to the second floor, where about 25 construction workers were boarding, while the other five took possession of the lower part of the building. One of them struck Roach with a revolver, knocking him to the floor unconscious and apparently lifeless…"
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