Why a former deputy cut off an outlaw’s leg, and the ‘controversy’ surrounding a notorious gunfight
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the sixteenth in a series about former lawmen in eastern Idaho.
IDAHO FALLS – Bullets were flying as Sam Swanner and his posse fired their guns at the men in the cabin on Badger Creek.
It was the summer of 1887 and the 35-year-old Rexburg man was a deputy for Bingham County Sheriff Sam Taylor. Rexburg was part of Bingham County at that time.
Earlier that day, Lum Nickerson and Ed Harrington — a notorious outlaw from Driggs who was known years later as the Yellowstone Bandit — were awaiting trial for horse stealing and had escaped from jail in Blackfoot.
Nickerson and Harrington walked down the east steps of the courthouse and set out on horseback to meet up with Jim Robinson at the Badger Creek cabin.
As Swanner and his posse arrived, Harrington took off in a different direction and managed to avoid capture. A gun fight ensued as Nickerson and Robinson stood their ground in the cabin.
“Jim Robinson was shot through the hip and leg,” Tom Neiwirth, Swanner’s 69-year-old grandson from Twin Falls, says in a written history. “He and Nickerson were taken to Rexburg.”
The doctor was out of town at the time, so Swanner and another deputy did what they could to help Robinson.
“They got a carpenter’s saw and sawed Robinson’s leg off. He subsequently died,” Neiwirth tells EastIdahoNews.com.
Harrington was later found and arrested. He and Nickerson were taken back to Blackfoot to stand trial.
On July 2, Nickerson’s wife came to visit her husband in jail. She had a revolver hidden and somehow handed it to Harrington without the jailer noticing. Once again, Nickerson and Harrington escaped but were recaptured early the next morning on the south fork of the Snake River about 25 miles from what was then Eagle Rock (Idaho Falls). Harrington was wounded in the foot.
Swanner went on to serve as a deputy U.S. Marshal for the southern Idaho area under Fred Dubois, for whom the town of Dubois is named. It isn’t clear what years Swanner served, but Neiwirth says he served in this role for eight years.
The incident at Cunningham Cabin
In 1892, amid the Johnson County War in eastern Wyoming — a range conflict between cattle ranchers and homesteaders — Swanner was involved in a shootout at Cunningham Cabin on the western side of the state about 25 miles north of Jackson. Today, the cabin is inside Grand Teton National Park and is a well-known historic site. Neiwirth calls the shootout “the incident at Cunningham Cabin.”
John and Margaret Cunningham settled the area in the 1880s. They built a log cabin in 1888 as part of the Bar Flying U Ranch, according to the National Park Service. The couple lived in the cabin until 1895.
Three years earlier, two Montana wranglers are reported to have come to the ranch looking to buy hay. Though the men — identified by Neiwirth as George Spencer and Mike Burnett — were rumored to be horse thieves, John allowed them to stay there for the winter.
“Next spring, a man claiming to be a U.S. Marshal, with three deputies, rode into Jackson from Idaho,” the park service’s page about the cabin says.
It wasn’t until recently that Neiwirth learned one of the alleged deputies was Swanner. He provides more context about what was going on.
At the time, horse theft was a common occurrence in the Big Horn Basin area and in southern Montana. Neiwirth says the men at Cunningham’s cabin had stolen a herd of horses, changed the brands and were preparing to sell them.
A group of vigilante ranchers set out to kill suspected horse thieves throughout Montana and Wyoming. Along the way, they met up with renowned outlaw Butch Cassidy and his partner, Al Hainer, who had also stolen some horses.
“Neither Hainer or Cassidy were shot, but Butch was clubbed over the head with a pistol,” Neiwirth writes.
A Uinta County deputy in Star Valley, Wyoming took the men to Lander for trial.
Meanwhile, the posse involved in Cassidy’s arrest got word to Swanner, who lived in Tetonia at that point, about the herd of stolen horses at the Cunningham ranch.
In April 1893, Swanner and the posse crossed the Teton Pass on snow shoes. They picked up a few more men in Jackson before arriving at the Cunningham cabin before daylight.
“They surrounded the cabin. There was a dog inside who sensed that something was going on. George Spencer put on his gunbelt and went outside to investigate,” says Neiwirth.
The posse told Spencer to put his hands up, but instead he drew his gun and started shooting. He managed to fire five or six shots before he was killed.
Burnett came out moments later with rifle in hand. He returned fire, but was killed as well.
The posse buried both men on site, Neiwirth explains.
To this day, Neiwirth says there are a lot of questions surrounding the shooting. It’s not clear whether any of the men, including Swanner, had any law enforcement authority.
Neiwirth isn’t sure if Swanner was still serving as a deputy marshal at the time. But if he was, his jurisdiction was in the state of Idaho, which means he would’ve had no authority in Wyoming.
“He (Swanner) admitted to killing one person and wounding another during his career,” Neiwirth says, noting he never mentioned a specific case.
No one associated with the shooting was ever criminally charged, and details about whether or not it was legal remain a mystery.
“Many of the people who were there refused to talk about it. When an article was written about the incident, only some of the posse members were named, presumably to protect those still living in the area,” Neiwirth writes.
Swanner’s ‘interesting’ legacy
Swanner and his wife lived in Tetonia for the rest of their lives. He later worked as the postmaster for Hayden and would bring the mail from Rexburg to St. Anthony on skis during the winter.
He also worked as a road supervisor, justice of the peace, school board trustee and was appointed probate judge when Teton County was created in 1915.
Swanner was 88 when he died in 1941.
Neiwirth — who was adopted at a young age — recalls an account from historian Michael Bell reporting that after the shooting at Cunningham Cabin, Swanner removed “a fine nickel-plated revolver with ivory grips” from Spencer’s body.
“About 30 years ago, my sisters gave me a gun that my grandpa had given to (his son) my biological father. It’s a nickel-plated colt with ivory grips,” Neiwirth says.
Neiwirth is 95% confident this is the same gun Spencer owned.
Though Swanner died before Neiwirth was born, he admires his grandfather’s sense of community service and adventure.
“He was there when a lot of interesting things were happening. I use the term ‘interesting’ loosely because some of them may not have been legit,” he says.
Neiwirth is thrilled to have an heirloom he can share with his family for generations.
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