Grand Teton
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sketch of miner panning for gold


Jackson Hole, widely reputed to have been the favored retreat and rendezvous of cattle thieves, outlaws, and "bad men" in the early days, has long enjoyed the glamour which goes with a dark and sinful past, and this reputation has by no means been lost sight of by those who have been active in advertising the assets of this fascinating region. But when the dispassionate historian critically investigates the basis for this reputation he is surprised to find so little evidence wherewith to justify it, or to indicate that pioneer times in Jackson Hole were much different from those in other nearby frontier communities; and he is forced to conclude that the notoriety of Jackson Hole, like the rumor of Mark Twain's death, has been slightly exaggerated. Doubtless the geographic features of the valley have encouraged the popular belief, for from the standpoint of isolation and inaccessibility Jackson Hole might well have been a paradise for the fugitive and lawless.

But, in fairness to the old idea, which one is reluctant to abandon, it must be conceded that among the authentic narratives, that have come down to us from pioneer times, there are 1 or 2 which hold their own with the choicest that wild west fiction has dared to offer, and these bolster up to some extent the rather faltering case for Jackson Hole's former exceptional badness. Such a narrative is the story of Deadman's Bar.

There are few residents of the Jackson Hole country who have not heard of the Deadman's Bar affair, a triple killing which took place in the summer of 1886 along the Snake River and which gave this section of the river the name of Deadman's Bar. It is the most grim narrative and the most celebrated in the pioneer history of the valley, and its details are sufficiently bloody to satisfy the most sanguinary tourist, thirsty for western thrills.


When Colonel Ericsson, Mr. Owen, and the writer visited Emile Wolff on August 9, 1928, we found him stricken with the infirmities of old age and confined to what proved to be his deathbed. Nevertheless his senses were alert and his memory concerning the period in question keen and accurate. The account he gave checked in detail with one he had given Colonel Ericsson a year earlier, and his recollection of names and dates agreed in most cases with evidence obtained later from other sources. In his enfeebled condition, however, Wolff was so weakened by the telling of his story that the interview had perforce to be cut short and certain questions left unanswered. A few questions Wolff declined to answer with the statement that there were features of the affair he would like to forget if he could, and there were others he had never told anyone and never would. What he had told other men, he said, he would tell us.

Concerning himself Mr. Wolff stated that he was 76 years old and a German by blood and birth, having been born in 1854 in Luxembourg. He received an education along medical lines in the old country. When still a very young man, only 16, he emigrated to America, where he served for some years in the United States Army in the Far West, part of the time as a volunteer doctor. His first visit to the Jackson Hole region was in 1872 when he came to Teton Basin (Pierre's Hole) for a brief period. In 1878 while serving under Lieutenant Hall, he came into Jackson Hole, his detachment being sent to carry food to Lieutenant Doane's outfit, which had lost its supplies in the Snake River while engaged in a geological survey of the Jackson Hole area2.

In 1886, Wolff stated, he came to the region to stay, settling first in Teton Basin. It was in this year that the Deadman's Bar incident took place. The account of this affair which follows is pieced together from the facts given by Wolff; no information gained from other sources has been introduced, and there have been no changes made in the story other than the rearrangement of its details into historical order. The account as set forth has been verified by both Colonel Ericsson and Mr. Owen, who were present at its telling.

In the spring of 1886 four strangers came into Jackson Hole to take up placer mining along Snake River, whose gravels were reputed to be rich in gold. The new outfit had been organized in Montana, and originally had consisted of three partners, Henry Welter, (T. H.) Tiggerman, and (August) Kellenberger—"the Germans" as they came to be called. Henry Welter, who had previously been a brewer in Montana, proved to be an old friend and schoolmate of Emil Wolff's from Luxembourg. Tiggerman was a gigantic fellow who had served on the King's Guard in Germany, he seemed to be something of a leader in the project, claiming—apparently on insecure grounds—that he knew where placer gold was to be obtained. August Kellenberger, also a brewer by trade, was a small man who had two fingers missing from his right hand. The trio of prospective miners had added a fourth man to the outfit, one John Tonnar by name, also a German, under promise of grub and a split in the cleanup.

The miners located near the center of Jackson Hole on the north bank of the Snake River where that river flows west for a short distance. They erected no cabins, according to Wolff, but lived in tents pitched in a clearing among the trees on the bar, within a few hundred yards or so of the river. Occasional visits to the few ranchers then in this portion of the Territory brought them a few acquaintances. Once they ran out of grub and crossed Teton Pass to Wolff's place to get supplies. Wolff recalled that they paid for their purchases with a $20 gold piece. They wanted a saw, and Wolff directed them to a neighbor who had one; this they borrowed, leaving $10 as security.

Grand Tetons
Deadman's Bar, at lower left, marks the location of "the German's" camp, where they lived in tents pitched in a clearing among the trees. Photo by Leigh Ortenburger.

On the occasion of this visit they spoke of building a raft to use in crossing the Snake at their workings, and Wolff tried to dissuade them from the project, assuring them that they did not appreciate how dangerous the Snake could be when on the rise; but they laughed off his warnings with the statement that they had built and handled rafts before, and knew their business.

Wolff learned little, until later, concerning the mutual relations of the 4 men on the bar, nor concerning what success, if any, they had in finding gold.

Late that summer when haying time was at hand in Teton Basin, Wolff was surprised to see a man approaching his cabin on foot. "Seeing any man, and especially one afoot, was a rare sight in those days," commented Wolff. It proved to be the miner, Tonnar, and he asked to be given work. Curious as to what was up between Tonnar and his partners, Wolff quizzed him but received only the rather unsatisfactory statement that Tonnar had left the 3 miners while they were making plans to raft the Snake in order to fetch a supply of meat for the camp.

With hay ready for cutting, Wolff was glad to hire Tonnar for work in the fields. For a month the two men slept together, and during this time Wolff noticed that Tonnar invariably wore his gun or had it within reach, but while he suspected that all was not right he made no further investigation. Wolff retained a mental picture of Tonnar as being a small, dark-complexioned man of rather untrustworthy appearance and manner.

Once Tonnar instructed Wolff to investigate a certain hiding place in the cabin, and he would find some valuables which he asked him to take care of. Wolff did so and claims that he found a silver watch and a purse containing $28.

Then one day late in August a sheriff and posse came to the cabin and asked Wolff if he could furnish information concerning the whereabouts of the miner, Jack Tonnar (at the time Tonnar was absent, working in the fields.) Briefly the posse explained that Tonnar's 3 partners had been found dead, that Tonnar was believed guilty of their murder, and that the posse was commissioned to take him. Horrified to think that for a month he had sheltered and slept with such a desperate character, Wolff could only reply, "My God! Grab him while you can!" Tonnar was found on a haystack and captured before he could bring his gun into play.

From the posse Wolff learned that a party boating from Yellowstone Park down the Lewis and Snake Rivers, under the leadership of one Frye (Free), had stopped at the workings of the miners but had found them unoccupied. Just below the encampment, at the foot of a bluff where the Snake had cut into a gravel bank, they had come upon 3 bodies lying in the edge of the water, weighted down with stones. They had reported the gruesome find, and the arrest of Tonnar on Wolff's place resulted.

Wolff, Dr. W. A. Hocker (a surgeon from Evanston), and a couple of Wolff's neighbors from Teton Basin hurried to the scene of the killings, a place which has ever since been known as Deadman's Bar. They readily identified the bodies, Tiggerman by his size, and Kellenberger from the absence of two fingers on his right hand. They found that Kellenberger had been shot twice in the back, that Welter had an axe cut in the head, and that Tiggerman's head was crushed, presumably also with an axe. Wolff gave it as their conclusion that the 3 men must have been killed while asleep; and that their bodies had been hauled up onto the "rim" and rolled down the gravel bluff into the river, where they had lodged in shallow water and subsequently been covered with rocks. Probably the water had fallen, more fully exposing the bodies so that they had been discovered by Frye's men.

Wolff and Hocker removed the heads of Welter and Tiggerman and cleaned the skulls, preserving them as evidence. Wolff denied that they buried the bodies, but claimed that they threw them back in the edge of the water and covered them again with rocks.

Tonnar pleaded not guilty and was taken to Evanston, the county seat of Unita County (which then embraced the westernmost strip of Wyoming Territory), and here he was tried the following spring before Judge Samuel Corn. Wolff was called to testify at the trial, mentioning, among other things, the incident of the watch and the purse, both of which he was positive Tonnar had stolen from his murdered partners.

To the general surprise of Wolff, Judge Corn, and others present at the trial, Tonnar was acquited by the jury, despite the certainty of his guilt. What subsequently became of him is not clear. Wolff was questioned on this point, and at first declined to speak, later, however, expressing the belief that Tonnar probably went back to the old country for fear that friends of Welter, Tiggerman and Kellenberger might take the law into their own hands since the jury had failed to convict him.

Concerning the question of motive for the killing, Wolff stated that he knew Tonnar and the 3 men quarreled. The original partners planned to turn Tonnar loose when his services were no longer needed in sluice digging, etc., minus his share in the cleanup. To discourage his persisting with their outfit they had beaten him up badly a few days prior to the murders; but instead of leaving Tonnar had stayed at camp, nursing his bruises and plans for revenge, finally carrying out the latter to the consumation already described. Wolff did not believe that robbery was a factor of much importance in instigating the crime.

* * * * * * *

From parties who heard the trial it appears that there were no eye witnesses to the tragedy, save the defendant. Therefore the prosecution was compelled to rely solely on circumstantial evidence. The theory of the attorneys for the defendant was that the 3 deceased persons were prospectors, without funds, and that they represented to the defendant that they had discovered a valuable mining claim and induced him to put up considerable money to grubstake and furnish necessary funds to work the claim; that soon after these men were on their way to the Jackson Hole Country they began to pick quarrels with the defendant; that on the day of the shooting one of the prospectors remained in camp with the defendant, and the other 2 went away to do some prospecting; that the one who remained in camp picked a quarrel with the defendant and the defendant was compelled to kill him in self-defense. It was recalled that after the verdict was rendered the defendant got out of town in a hurry, taking the first freight train; that Attorney Blake was the principal trial attorney for the defendant, and that he afterwards stated he never got a cent for saving the neck of the defendant, who had promised to send him some money as soon as he could earn it, and that he had never heard from him.


Dr. Fryxell and Colonel Ericsson, immediately following their interview with Mr. Wolff on August 9, 1928, investigated the site of "Deadman's Bar." They found unmistakable traces of the diggings, the camp, and the road constructed 42 years before by the 4 prospectors.

Dr. Fryxell's study of the site cleared up any uncertainty as to the exact location of this historic spot, which was placed on the north side of the Snake In the SW1/4 of Sec. 23, T44N, R115W.

The sluice ditch of the miners, though overgrown with brush and partially filled with gravel, was easily located. It tapped a beaver dam located just above the bar, and followed along the base of the terrace, discharging into the Snake about a half-mile from its source.

Numerous prospect pits were found on the bar. Some of them appeared more recent than those dug by Tonnar and the other "Germans," thus were probably the work of later prospectors.

Dr. Fryxell states: "All of the workings (1928) now observable speak graphically of the expenditure of much hard labor from which returns were never forthcoming."

This statement is significant, and is borne out by an old sign, crudely lettered, which was reportedly found later in the vicinity:

Payin gold will never be found here
No matter how many men tries
There's some enough to begile one
Like Tanglefoot paper does flies

1 Reprinted from Annals of Wyoming. Volume 5, Number 4, June 1929, with permission from the author and Miss Lola M. Homsher, Director of Archives and Historical Department, state of Wyoming.

2 There is a discrepancy here, since Doane's report of his expedition indicates that Lieutenant Hall and Doane met some distance down the Snake River from Jackson Hole in 1877.


Campfire Tales of Jackson Hole
©1960, Grant Teton Natural History Association

campfire_tales/chap4.htm — 27-Mar-2004