"There is a lot of family information on the family of Joe LeFors in the book "Facts As I Remember Them" The Autobiography of Rufe LeFors, edited by John Allen Peterson. Rufe was an older brother of Joe (Joseph Shelby LeFors). Rufe and Joe were children of James J. LeFors and Mahala West. James and Mahala had five children born in Dade County Missouri; Alzada, Dollie, Perry, William, and Newton. They had eight children born in Arkansas near Jenny Lind; Sam, Katie, Ike, Rufe, born 08/25/1859, Joe,Jeff, Ida, and Bob. The oldest son, Perry, was one of the first settlers in the Texas panhandle after the plains Indians were forced out of the area. The town of LeFors, Texas in Gray county was named after Perry. The airport in Pampa, TX, is also named after Perry. In 1874 the father James, Newton, Sam, Rufe, Joe, Jeff, Bob, Ida, Katie and husband John Steele, and their children Arthur and Albert, relocated their livestock and their selves to the panhandle of Texas with Perry.

Books about Joe LeFors

Joe LeFors by Chip Carlson

Here is an author who has written a couple of well researched books. This book is based on a manuscript by Joe LeFors, but Carlson provides new insight into the person who obtained the "confession" from Tom Horn. Documents showing Tom Horn was probably innocent round out this fine book.

Wyoming Peace Officer by Joe LeFors

This is a hard book to find and commands a high price when you do. It is based on the manuscript written by Joe LeFors.

Joseph Shelby LeFors (1865-1940)

Born Feb. 20,1865, in Paris, Texas, son of James L. LeFors and Mahala West (m. 1845). When he was only a few months old his family moved into the Choctaw Nation in the Indian Territory, a few miles west of Fort Smith, Ark., where he attended school with the Choctaw Indian children. After his mother died in 1875, his father took his family to the Cherokee Nation near Vinita.

In 1878 his father decided to start a ranch in the panhandle of Texas. He loaded up his possessions in three wagons and with six of his younger sons drove southwest to Fort Sill and then northwest to Mobeetie, Texas, having an adventurous trip.

His father bought a ranch a day's journey west, and within a few months his range was dotted with cattle bearing the LE4 brand.

Being next to the youngest son, Joe had to stay on the ranch and help care for the animals The older brothers went on cattle drives to the north and on other long trips. An older brother, Sam, had been killed by raiding Indians near Dodge City about the time they arrived in the Panhandle.

Due to the extremely dry season the first year, they were troubled by buffalo stampeding across their range seeking water at the few holes still left in the stream beds. Joe had more than one narrow escape when he was out on the range.

The next year he drove the calf wagon for his brother Perry who was taking a herd of cattle up to the Kansas Une. Later he drove ten yoke of oxen pulling a freight wagon to a train hauling supplies to Ft.Elliott and Mobeetie, mainly from Dodge City. Then for a few months he had an adventurous time riding a relay on the pony mail line to lit. Sill He had to ride a middle relay because he was under permissable age and must not be seen by the army officers.

In 1880 his father took him and Ins youngest brother, Bob, to Caddo Grove Texas so that they might attend school there. Joe's brother Bill had a ranch nearby and his sister, Mrs. Reuben Cope, lived on a farm The sister had eleven children, six of them married and living nearby. Joe's youngest sister, Ida, came on a visit from her boarding school in Waco for a visit. His father died a few months later and is buried in the Caddo Grove Cemetery.

In the spring his brother Bill took Bob with him on a cattle drive to Montana leaving Joe with Bill's wife on the ranch Joe was very lonesome that summer with his father dead and his brothers away. He consoled himself by training a mustang which he named Yellowhammer, bought from a neighbor who was capturing wild horses.

When his brothers returned, Joe decided that he wanted to go back to the Panhandle, and set out on his mustang alone to make the trip. He was only 16 years old. After he crossed the Red River, he was in Indian country and had to travel by night and lay up by day. Twice Yellowhammer saved him from riding into an Indian camp at night in the dark. When he arrived at his destination he found that Perry was driving a herd of J. A cattle north and Rufe and Jeff were away working. Only Newt was on hand.

Joe soon had his old job of driving ten yoke of oxen back again. In a short time the wagon train boss left the plains and Joe quit the job. He worked with Perry who was running the Diamond F Ranch. One of then-jobs was to round up 200 wild horses which had been caught inside the fence built around the ranch which was 20 by 30 miles in size. , , r ,., . n

In 1885 he helped drive a herd of cattle to Montana and stayed on in the area first working for large cattle owners and later as a brand inspector and Deputy U.S. Marshall His many adventures as an officer are recounted in his autobiography Wyoming Peace Officer.

Once he thought he was tired of law enforcement and bought a meat market in Newcastle, Wyo., but he soon tired of the confinement and was glad when a friend wanted to buy his business and he could become an officer once more.

The novelist Frank H. Spearman observed him in action as a peace officer m Wyoming and is supposed to have patterned his detective in "Whispering Smith" after Joe. The book was published in 1906.

In 1895 he married Bessie Hannum (b. Oct 7 1879). The children were: Reba Bessie 1897, Ruth Josephine 1898, Earl Glen 1899, Clarisse Mahala 1901, Frances Andrath 1905. They lived in Cheyenne for many years; one child died as an infant there. In 1918-9 two of his daughters were carried off by the flu epidemic, one being married at the time. A son and daughter are living in California.

In 1921 he left Wyoming and spent several years in California. When he returned to Wyoming he married Mrs. Bessie Waegle and lived in Buffalo where he wrote his autobiography. After his death on Oct. 1, 1940 she worked at getting it published, and finally succeeded in 1953.

NOTE: he has 2 memorials at find a grave...one famous & one not. I don't think you're supposed to do this? I know I can't get control over the famous one. But I have asked that if the person currently in control of the non-famous one isn't family that she turn it over to me. If this person can't reply to my question (is she family or not) I will go to find a grave. We're supposed to get control over family...not have to bug somebody every time we want to do something.

Joseph Shelby "Joe" LeFors (1865-1940) - Born in Paris, Texas in 1865, LeFors grew up to be a cowboy and after driving a herd to Wyoming in 1885, stayed there. Later he would become an inspector-detective responsible for tracking stolen cattle in Wyoming and Montana. In the process he was involved in a number of gunfights. In 1899, he rode with a posse sent to capture those responsible for the Willcox Train Robbery and was appointed as a U.S. Deputy Marshal the same year. In this capacity, he pursued a number of train robbers and other outlaws in the northwest.

In 1901, he became famous for arresting and documenting a confession from the former lawman turned hired killer, Tom Horn. Horn was later tried, sentenced to die and hanged.

In 1902, Lefors was working for the Iron Mountain Ranch Company in Helena, Montana, allegedly with the intention of infiltrating a gang of cattle rustlers. However, he was unsuccessful in aiding with the gang and was fired in 1904. Afterwards, little is known about his life, other than he died on October 1, 1940 and is buried in the Willow Grove Cemetery in Buffalo, Wyoming.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lefors

Joe Lefors (February 20, 1865-October 1, 1940) was a lawman in the closing years of the Old West. He is best known for the arrest of gunman Tom Horn in 1903 for the alleged murder of 14 year old sheepherder Willie Nickell, which has since come into question, and it has long been believed that Lefors falsified evidence helping to convict the wrong man for the murder.

Early life

LeFors was born in Paris, Texas, and first arrived in Wyoming in 1885 after working on a cattle drive that ended there. LeFors played a minor role in the 1887 recovery of a large herd of cattle rustled by the "Hole in the Wall Gang". He later worked as a Contract Livestock Inspector for Wyoming, where his job was to recover stolen livestock and apprehend cattle thieves. Lefors married his first wife, 16 year old Bessie M. Hannum, in Newcastle, Wyoming on August 5, 1896.

In 1899, LeFors took part in a posse to capture those responsible for what would become known as the "Wilcox Train Robbery", committed by the "Hole in the Wall Gang" led by outlaw Butch Cassidy. The robbers eventually escaped into the Big Horn Mountains. Famed lawman and Pinkerton Agent Charlie Siringo worked heavily on that case, and would years later come into contact with LeFors in the process of working other cases, and would later indicate that Lefors was incompetent, at best, as a lawman. However, US Marshal Frank Hadsell appointed Lefors to a Deputy US Marshal's position in October, 1899. Lefors always claimed that Hadsell approached him to take that job based on his hard work on the Wilcox Robbery case. However, Lefors contributed to that case very little, if anything, and is not mentioned as a contributor at all in the official records of that investigation. It is more likely that Lefors asked Hadsell to give him the appointment, and eventually he asked often enough to get it.

Train robbers again robbed another Union Pacific train on August 29, 1900, near Tipton, Wyoming about fifty miles west of Rawlins, and this time Lefors led the posse. However, they again had no success, and the robbers escaped. That same year, former lawman, scout, tracker and longtime killer for hire Tom Horn began his investigation on the Wilcox robbery case, working on contract with the Pinkerton Detective Agency to solve the case, and with whom he had been employed many years before. He generated productive information which was later passed to Charlie Siringo via the agency, obtained from explosives expert Bill Speck. Through that information the investigators were able to identify who had killed Sheriff Josiah Hazen, who had been killed during a chase of the train robbery suspects. Horn and Siringo identified Hazen's killers as being Wild Bunch gang members George Curry and Kid Curry. Horn also killed rustlers Matt Rash and Islam (Isom) Dart that same month, in his other job as a killer for hire to fight cattle rustling for large cattle companies.

Later life

Little is known about Lefors' life after Horn's hanging. He had, throughout his career, a habit of bragging about his exploits, and his prowess as a lawman. However, short of his arrest of Horn, who did not resist whatsoever, Lefors was not what could be referred to as an effective law enforcement official. If anything, he was ineffective. He often led posses in pursuit of outlaws, robbers or thieves. However, more times than not, they would return home empty handed, capturing no one.

In a January 1, 1902, letter to W.D. Smith in Helena, Montana, of the "Iron Mountain Ranch Company", Lefors spoke with Smith about working in a position to infiltrate a gang, but not as a law enforcement officer but rather as an employee of the cattle company. Smith asked Lefors to recommend someone for the job, which paid a salary of $125 per month. Lefors quickly recommended himself, stating that it didn't matter how tough the gang members were, he could handle them. He states also in the letter that the gang couldn't be any worse than the "Brown's Hole Gang", and that he (Lefors) had stopped their cattle stealing in only one summer. That was, in fact, a lie. Lefors had nothing to do with stopping the "Brown's Hole Gang", although he did spend weeks looking for them.

There has since been some speculation that Lefors needed to close the Nickell murder case as soon as possible, so that he would not miss the opportunity at the high paying job offered in Helena. Already under pressure to do so, this only added to his incentive. However, that is mostly speculation, and cannot be verified as only Lefors knows what he was thinking. Following the hanging of Horn, Lefors did take the job offered in Helena, where he worked for many months. He not only did not infiltrate the gang in question, he had no effect whatsoever. Eventually, the cattle company fired him in 1904, and little is known about his whereabouts after that.

Joe LeFors died on October 1, 1940. He is buried in the Willow Grove Cemetery in Buffalo, Wyoming.

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The facts are Joe was one of around 21 some-odd kids (holy cow!). Even if they’d been wealthy & all those kids survived to adulthood & had to pay for their own burials…21 kids would’ve put a strain on things. But no…21 kids did not see adulthood. I believe at least one that did see adulthood was then killed by Indians.

Then on top of this they tended to move around a bit. Back in the day when you moved you went on a several weeks or months long camping trip. Plus evidently along the way I think dad dropped some kids off to be educated…then had to go back & get ‘em. Little chunks of education here & there is not much of an education.

He was a farmer/ranch hand turned lawman. And he lived & worked in places that weren’t exactly populated & civilized. To volunteer was to beg to be shot & killed. In fact his brother Thomas “Newton” LeFors, another lawman, was shot & killed.