Publisher's Synopsis
On February 9, 1864, exactly 150 years before the release of this publication, John Daly, William Buckley, James "Massey" Masterson, and John "Three-fingered Jack" McDowell were hanged at Aurora, Nevada, by a large and well organized group of vigilantes known as the Citizens' Safety Committee. Their crime was the murder of William Johnson, a "peaceable, quiet, and respectable citizen," on one of Aurora's main streets just before the break of dawn. Newspapers from across the West to New York City carried the story, which has become part of our Western lore. This new book is a guide to when and where the major events surrounding the last days of the infamous Daly gang occurred at Aurora. The book is organized by date and includes a list of the more important locations relevant to the Daly gang and the vigilantes keyed to a map and photographs. Although all of Aurora's once magnificent brick and wood buildings are gone, if you know where to look you can still see some of the streets and building ruins relevant to this story. In addition, the book includes for the first time a complete transcription of the riveting first-hand testimony given at the coroner's inquest, which will give readers new insights into what it was like to live in a real-life Wild West Nevada mining town during the Civil War.
