Editor's Note: This story originally appeared in the July 15, 2012 issue of This Land.
"The Masons came down [the staircase] in pairs, erect and orderly,” wrote Welborn Hope, “until at the foot their Worshipful Master detached himself and stood in leadership of the group with a hand raised above his head. In his other hand he held a coil of baling wire.”
The Master stood by while across town a couple of his brethren cut the jail’s telephone lines and powered off the city streetlights. It was 2 a.m. when the progression of a few dozen hooded men silently slipped into the courthouse now under the cover of total darkness. Four of them carried ropes with nooses coiled at the end.
Once inside the jail, they overpowered four guards, knocking one unconscious, as they demanded the cell keys. Then they woke up Jim Miller, Jesse West, Joe Allen, and B.B. Burrell and ordered them to get dressed. West, the only one who put up a fight, was pistol whipped for his trouble. Miller removed a diamond stickpin from his coat and asked that it go to his wife. Then their hands were bound with baling wire and the four were marched about 30 feet north to the livery stable.
According to author Glenn Shirley, “The first man to swing from the rafters was Jesse West. Next in quick succession came Allen and Burrell.” Miller, who refused to confess, asked to wear his long coat and hat. When someone jammed it onto his head, Miller exclaimed, “Let ’er rip.”
A teenager doing morning chores discovered the macabre scene. Before cutting down the bodies, the town’s photographer A.B. Stahl set up his equipment to take the infamous photo. Welborn Hope was 8 years old at the time and he claims to have overheard a phone call to his father saying, “The Masons will act tonight.” He sneaked out of his house at dawn looking for his Uncle John who had not come home all night and may have been one of the vigilantes.
The young Hope was staring at “those four contorted faces with their bulging eyes” when Stahl snapped his camera.
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