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Chase County Kansas Historical Sketches
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Karl Kuhl & George Rose The Day We Hung
Karl Kuhl (The one hung was George Rose)
by Roger Weaver
This story is based on an 1894 hanging in Chase county.
This letter was found in my father's things after he died in 1959. He had written it and then put it away, and it had been lost until now. It's about the three fathers of Tall, Red, and Hoot, that's me.
After countless sleepless nights, and near mental exhaustion and breakdown, I have to break the silence. I have to finally tell the truth. It must be known. But to do that, I have to take you back to early May, 1894.
Tall, Red, and me was hanging around the post office one day waiting for the new wanted posters to go up. We was never quite sure if our mugs would show up there.
We heard a squabble in the lobby between a couple of men. One of them was the postmaster, Karl Kuhl, and the other was some drunken guy. He kept spouting obscenities at the poor boy behind the counter, and telling him what a rapscall ion he was. We didn't know what was going on, so we butted out and moseyed over to Bill's for a few snorts. It was really too early to be drinking, but when things were slow, a few shots at Bill's fixed us right up.
We hadn't been there five minutes when this guy who had been bumboozlin' the post office man came staggering in. The bartender refused to serve him, so he left a grumblin'. We asked who he was, Bill said that he was George Rose, a local rummy who worked at the printing office. Rummy? We glanced at each other. We thought we was the only ones in town.
We didn't pay it no never mind, though, and just went off to target practice down at the park. Red always had a gunny sack full of whiskey bottles from his place, and we spent about an hour splinterin' them up. When there wasn't nothing to hunt, we just shot at bottles. Had to keep in practice, you understand.
Anyways, we heard the next day that Mr. Kuhl had been murdered, shot in the back at close range. A Mrs. Highnote had found the body, I guess. She said that he was on fire, and that she put the fire out.
Anyway, it appears that this George Rose hombre was suspicioned of killing Karl Kuhl. Word soon got around that Rose had wanted the same job that Kuhl had gotten, and he was so darn-tootin' upset that he begun to hang around the post office totin' a six shooter. He meant to kill Karl sure as the sun came up that morning.
After an exhaustive search for Rose, he sauntered into the sheriff's office one day and gave hisself up. The sheriff quickly slapped him into a cell.
This is where we come in.
There had been talk of lynching old Rose one evening. They wasn't gonna let him go to trial because a murder conviction was a rare bird in these parts. Talk was that high-falutin' lawyers always got their clients off the hook. In the single conviction for murder, the perpetrator got off with a slap on the wrist. We was't gonna let that happen this time.
After about three hours of getting' lickered up, we headed up to the jail at the courthouse. There was a group of others there by the time we showed up. They was all gassed up like us, and was ready for blood. We didn't really have nothing against old Rose, but seen ourselves just going along with the mob.
After one of the men wrassled the keys from the sheriff, we all headed up to the jail. Old Rose was asleep in his cell when we drug him out. He was going on something fierce. Kept asking what we intended to do with him.
When he saw we was heading for the railroad bridge, I think he begun to figger it out. That and the noose and long piece of rope one of the guys was a carryin'.
We trussed him up hands and feet and then stuck that noose around his neck. Then we tossed him over the side headfirst. When he got to the end of the rope, he straightened out real fast. We reeled him in and dropped him again just to make sure.
Then we all went home and slept it off.
It's been a long time since that horrible day, and there ain't been one day that I didn't agonize over what we did. We murdered that poor man. All of us. At the coroner's inquest, nobody would own up to it. Everyone of us who was called said we didn't have nary an idea who killed that poor man.
Since that day, my conscience has been gnawing away at me. I can't sleep, can't eat. Have lost a bunch of weight, don't even want to hang around with Tall and Red anymore. They are a reminder of what we did. I think they have both come under the spell as well. We don't talk much anymore. Have almost stopped doing anything together. We drink to forget, but do it privately. Drowning ourselves in likker ain't worked for me. I can't speak for the other boys.
So, whenever this is found, come and get me. I can't stand it no more.
Chase County Leader News, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, Nov 16 2006
by Lorna Marvin
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