(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Before Colorado Springs was a mecca for leaf-peeping or home to military installations, General William Jackson Palmer envisioned the town under Pikes Peak as a health resort for the dry climate and crisp mountain air. But, as westward expansion gave way to industrialism and gold rushes, what was originally referred to as Colorado City acted somewhat as a gateway to the new West and mining camps of the central Rocky Mountains. This meant that Colorado Springs saw an ever-increasing number of people passing through, bandits and outlaws included. Namely, the Lewis-Jones Gang made a notably tumultuous visit through the Springs over 100 years ago.
According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, September 1918 was particularly brisk in Colorado, with an average temperature of 54.8 degrees in the Springs. The temperatures would’ve been dropping for the day as afternoon passed under the mountain’s watchful eyes while a Marmon automobile carrying bandits rolled through Colorado Springs.
The crew, headed by outlaws notorious at the time, Frank Lewis and Dale Jones, were on the run from a train robbery they pulled in Kansas the previous July. Reports from the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Herald Democrat confirm that police had sent information about the Lewis-Jones gang to gas stations across the state in hopes of catching the criminals. The Gazette reported that around noon on Sept. 12, the Denver Police Department (DPD) told the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) that a suspicious Marmon car was spotted on the road to Colorado Springs, prompting CSPD to prepare for a run-in with the outlaws.
Dale Jones and his crew drove what was described as a Marmon car. With three people in the car, it would’ve been a model like the one pictured here. Image courtesy of Getty Images.
The next day, Sept. 13, the car, with the trio of gang leader Dale Jones, his 17-year-old wife Margie Dean, and Roscoe Lancaster inside, stopped to refuel at the Pikes Peak Filling Station on the corner of Colorado Avenue and Nevada Avenue just hours after the station received CSPD’s alert of the criminals possibly being in the area. While filling up the Marmon, Frank Henderson, an employee at the filling station, alerted CSPD after he recognized the car and the gang within.
Mugshot of Dale Jones taken before the 1918 shootout. Image courtesy of the Pikes Peak Library District Digital Collections Archive.
Henderson’s call sprang CSPD into action, with Chief of Detectives John W. Rowan leading a small group of officers, Detective F.A. Miller of Denver’s Pinkerton Bureau, and even a local pharmacist to bring in these dangerous thugs. Detective Rowan’s posse reportedly sped down an alley between Nevada Ave. and South Weber Street to catch the bandits from behind. At the same time, CSPD Chief of Police Hugh D. Harper took a police car down Nevada Ave. with Officer Tom Shockley to head Lewis and his cohorts off.
Chief of Detectives John H. Rowan. Image courtesy of the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Chief Detective Rowan and his team were the first to arrive, but when they ordered those inside the Marmon car to hold up their hands, they were met with the raucous bellow of revolver fire. Officer John Riley, another of the small posse with Detective Rowan, quickly stepped behind a pillar at the gas station and fired his revolver into the cargo area in the back of the car. At the same time, Detective Rowan fired a shot into Lancaster, who was sitting in the back seat of the car, before moving up near the car’s passenger’s side.
But, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Margie Dean came out of the filling station and rushed to the scene, screaming, “Don’t shoot my husband! Don’t shoot my husband!”
Jones, the husband in question, alarmed by Rowan’s proximity to his wife’s cries, proceeded to fire point-blank into Rowan’s shoulder, who got one more shot out of his gun before falling to the ground.
With Rowan down, Jones and his crew turned their attention to Officer Riley, still in protection behind the pillar. Officer Riley emptied his shotgun, then tried to draw his service revolver when a bullet blew off a finger, causing his gun to drop to the ground. The next shot hit Riley in his left eye, which caused him to collapse.
Photo taken of Frank Lewis before the gang’s 1910s crime spree. Image courtesy of the Pikes Peak Library District Digital Collections Archive.
All the while, a woman, who the Gazette reported simply as Mrs. Harmon, was trying to fill her own car when Jones and his two compatriots showed up at the Pikes Peak Filling Station. In the midst of the shootout, Mrs. Harmon was fruitlessly trying to get the car started, but couldn’t as bullets whizzed by and shattered the glass windows of the gas station. Henderson, saving Mrs. Harmon but dooming the capture of the bandits, reportedly rushed out from his post inside the gas station to help start the stalled car. But, with Harmon’s car clear, nothing was keeping Jones from pulling away, north on Nevada Ave.
By the time Jones and company swung the Marmon onto Nevada Ave., Chief Harper’s team arrived to open fire on the bandits as they passed them by. Only one of the shots, fired by Chief Harper, hit its mark, striking Margie Jones as she was seen rising, then falling back into her seat.
Even the Fire Chief, former boxer Patsy McCartin, got involved in the chase despite being unarmed, with neither a hat nor a coat, speeding after the Jones crew in his Stutz roadster by the time they reached Pikes Peak Avenue. He followed the three members of the Lewis-Jones gang as they made their way from East Cache la Poudre up to Cascade Avenue, but engine trouble forced him to give up his pursuit near Monument.
Fire Chief McCartin drove a Stutz roadster, which would’ve been very similar to the 1918 Stutz Bearcat shown here. Image courtesy of Getty Images.
According to the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Denver Post, behind Fire Chief McCartin was Mayor Thomas, along with an armed posse of at least 200 men, ranging from simple citizens to soldiers posted at Colorado College, put on special duty to watch all roads out of Colorado Springs.
But, as those men tried to chase the gang down, Chief Detective Rowan was taken to Glockner sanatorium for his gunshot wound, but died on the drive over. A later examination showed he died from a single bullet that tore through his right collarbone. The coroner also told the Gazette that his watch was stopped by another bullet at 3:10 p.m.
Officer Riley shared a similar fate to the Chief Detective. His fatal wound was the shot to his left eye, but Riley also suffered from the shot to the right hand that disarmed him during the shootout, and another that struck him in the left foot. Surgeons at Beth-El Hospital tried to save his life, but whether Riley succumbed to his injuries is unknown, as the Gazette, Denver Post, and other nearby newspapers all credit Jones and his band as only wounding him.
It would appear that the escape north to Denver is where the titular Lewis and Jones made their split. Lancaster, who by all accounts was injured in the shooting, was killed 11 days later, on Sept. 25, in a confrontation with the Denver Police Department. Denver seems to be where much of the rest of the members of the gang made their last stands, killing or wounding multiple Denver officers during another string of robberies before eventually being caught either in Denver or, like gang leader Frank Lewis, trying to drift back down toward Palmer Lake and Colorado Springs in the following weeks.
Dale Jones and his desperado wife Margie made it all the way to Arcadia, California, until Nov. 20. It was on that day when they made a stop at their regular gas station, but were met by a police ambush. Here, over 15 years before Bonnie and Clyde made their legendary last stand, the married duo drew their revolvers only to be blown away by the posse of officers.
