The Original Cowboy Detective, Charles A. Siringo

In honor of National Day of the Cowboy on July 26, we are highlighting one of our cowboy artifacts this month. This is an early edition of a popular book from the nineteenth century written by the original cowboy detective, Charles A. Siringo. Western literature, particularly dime store novels, were popular throughout the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While perhaps exaggerated in places, Sirinigo’s book is a true story full of adventure and intrigue that’s better than fiction!

Charles A. Siringo was born in Dutch Settlement on the Matagorda Peninsula in Texas in 1855 to Italian and Irish immigrant parents. His father, Antonio Siringo, died when Charles was only one year old leaving his mother, Bridgit White Siringo to care solely for him and his sister until she remarried when Charles was about 13. The following years were difficult for the family and during his teenage years, Charles drifted between St. Louis and New Orleans before returning to Texas.

In 1870, Charles Siringo began work as a cowboy on cattle ranches on the Gulf Coast plains. He continued this work until 1876 when he made his first trip as a trail driver up the Chisholm Trail. Following his second cattle drive in 1877, Siringo hired on as a hand at the LX Ranch in the Texas Panhandle. It was while working at the LX Ranch that Siringo met a man named Henry McCarty, better known as the outlaw Billy the Kid. At one point, Siringo lead a posse into New Mexico to capture Billy the Kid for rustling cattle but was not present when Billy was shot and killed by gunman and New Mexico lawman, Pat Garrett.

In 1884, Charles married his first wife, Mamie Lloyd, and the two settled in Caldwell, Kansas where they had a daughter. Charles began work on his autobiography A Texas Cowboy; or, Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony, which was published to great acclaim in 1885. But that was just the beginning of the story!

In 1886, Siringo moved to Chicago where, using Pat Garrett’s name as a reference, he became a detective for the famous Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency. Siringo became possibly one of the first undercover detectives in American history working on cases from Alaska to Mexico.

Siringo’s cases included the Haymarket anarchist trial, the Coeur d'Alene miners strikes, and the trial of "Big Bill" Haywood, Secretary of the Western Federation of Miners who was charged with the murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenburg. His most famous case came in the 1890s, when posing as “Charles L. Carter” he infiltrated the Wild Bunch led by Butch Cassidy. Following the 1899 Wilcox Train Robbery in Wyoming, Siringo was ordered to capture the Wild Bunch leading to the arrests of several members. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid escaped making their way to Bolivia.

After 22 years with Pinkerton’s, Siringo retired first to his ranch in Santa Fe and then to California. He wrote more books, some of which had to be heavily fictionalized after challenges of confidentiality by Pinkerton’s, and got involved with the movie industry where he worked as a film consultant and acted in a few small parts in Westerns. Legendary cowboy detective Charles Siringo died in Altadena, California, on October 18th, 1928, but his story lives on.

See this 1890 edition of Siringo’s first book, A Texas Cowboy; or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony in The Bryan Museum’s Statehood and Beyond gallery or see if you can spot one of the three other editions of the book that the Museum owns in the Library. You can also take home your own copy from our Museum Shop and read the story for yourself!