Halloween Events & More

If we could go back in time to April of 1881 in Sinful Sidney, Nebraska, we would find the town living up to its nickname. From 1876 to 1881, Sidney had over 1,000 criminal cases, with 56 of those cases being for murder. During that time, up to 2,000 people wandered the streets of Sidney. What else was located on the streets of Sidney? As many as 80 saloons, dance halls and brothels filled Sidney’s Front Street.

The town was also recovering from the largest gold robbery in the history of the United States up to that date. Today, it would be valued at roughly five million dollars. The extreme roughness of the town compelled the Union Pacific Railroad to issue Sidney an ultimatum: clean up the town or the trains would no longer stop there. Obviously if the trains no longer stopped in Sidney, the town would no longer thrive. The cash registers would no longer be ringing.

To clean up the town, a roundup of fifteen of the ‘Baddest of the Bad’ took place. The intent was to hang all fifteen. But fate stepped in on Saturday, April 2nd when a jailer acting as a lawman helped an armed vigilante group remove three notorious new occupants of the town jail. The first one led out to the courthouse square was Red McDonald. McDonald pleaded for his life, wearing only his underwear and his boots. The citizens tied his hands and feet while a rope was tossed over a tree. They were gracious enough to put a handkerchief under the noose so not to chafe his neck during his hanging.

Instead of dropping him to his death, the vigilantes pulled him up off the ground. The onlookers watched Red strangle for 15 minutes before the life left his body. His struggle made them rethink hanging the other two occupants that night who were awaiting their fate. Red’s body was not cut down until the next morning. He was the last unlawful lynching to happen in Sidney.

Later that day, a group of businessmen wrote a document that warned that ‘All murderers, thieves, pimps, and slick-fingered gentlemen…must go!’ The notice was signed by 64 of Sidney’s leading business owners. All violators who chose not to follow the law would meet a swift punishment. Red McDonald’s lynching was used as an example of the swift punishment. It was said that the “CITIZENS OF SIDNEY DETERMINED TO CLEAN OUT THE CUTTHROATS AND DESPERADOES IF IT TAKES ALL THE ROPE IN THE STATE!”

The remaining fourteen “Baddest of the Bad” were taken to the edge of town and were beaten instead of being hung. They were told to never to return to Sidney. Oddly enough, not one of them did. The population of Sidney had miraculously gone down by 200 by April 28th of 1881, which just happened to be the deadline the business owners gave in their proclamation. The night became known as the ‘Night of Fright, Fight and Flight,’ and was reported in newspapers around the region.