Category:McCastle Gang

The McCastle Gang is a lesser-known 19th-century gang of American outlaws that revolves around five sons (by various women) of Wayne "Papa" McCastle.

The gang was originally based in the state of Kentucky, near Bowling Green, the home of most of the members. The McCastle Gang had its origins in a group of Confederate bushwhackers that participated in the bitter partisan fighting that wracked Kentucky during the American Civil War, in support of the Confederate Government of Kentucky. After the war, the men continued to plunder and murder, though the motive shifted to personal profit rather than in the name of the Confederacy. They eventually fled westward into the Four Corners region to escape justice.

Membership fluctuated from robbery to robbery, as the outlaws' raids were usually separated by many months. In the early years, the group was led by Papa McCastle, who began to take a less active role in their depredations as old age and injuries, sustained both in and after the war, took their inevitable toll. The group had begun to settle down in southwestern Colorado when, in late-1876, Papa McCastle was shot while resisting arrest by the sheriff of La Plata county, Collin Hunt, quickly convicted for his many locally-committed crimes, and publicly hanged. His sons all swore bloody revenge on the marshal and his town. Rumored to now be commanded by an as-yet unidentified patron, the gang has embarked on a "terror campaign" lasting many months.

In July 1877, a local native girl, Chipeta, who bore witness against Papa McCastle during his trial, was kidnapped in the night out of the town of Babylon, believed to be the work of the McCastle gang, who had previously threatened her. The next morning, a posse was quickly assembled to rescue her, and finally bring in the McCastle boys, dead or alive…