Joe Hazen had been sheriff of Converse County for nearly a decade when the telegram arrived. It was June 1899, and the Wild Bunch had just robbed a Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Wyoming. The outlaws had escaped into the rugged country north of Casper, and the law meant to bring them in. Hazen, a man who had spent his life reading tracks and following trails, mounted up with his posse and rode out.

The pursuit was not the first test of Hazen’s courage. Born in Illinois, he had come to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1872 at seventeen. For six years he worked as a cowhand before taking a foreman’s position managing Sam Boyd’s herd of 2,400 cattle on open range twenty miles west of Fort Federman, Wyoming. That work shaped him.

Twelve years on the range gave him an expert’s eye for the signs of cattle theft, a skill that caught the attention of Converse County Sheriff John T. Williams, who appointed him deputy sheriff in 1890. That November, Hazen married Nancy Berlingham. Just fourteen days after the wedding, four prisoners overpowered him at the jailhouse and tried to escape.

Sheriff Williams heard the disturbance and put the incident down, but the humiliation stayed with the young deputy. He made a personal commitment that he would not fail that way again. Hazen resigned from law enforcement the following year and bought the Elorn Stables in Douglas, running a livery business. Public service would not let him go.

In 1892, Wyoming voters elected him to the state legislature. There he championed the arid land bill, a contentious proposal to transfer federal rangeland to state control. His aim was to protect homesteaders and small ranchers while keeping most acreage as open range. The bill failed to pass, but Hazen had established himself as a man willing to take on difficult fights.

He returned to law enforcement as sheriff of Converse County. The work demanded more than ordinary nerve. When rancher James C. Shaw needed help recovering stolen calves, Hazen spent two full days tracking through a blizzard without proper winter clothing.

The local paper, Bill Barlo’s Budget, noted that like every experienced cow puncher, he handled the emergency without complaint. His tracking led him to roughly thirty calves hidden in an isolated mountain ravine. He arrested R. W.

Reed and John Olsen and transported both rustlers to the Cheyenne jail. By the time the Wild Bunch struck the Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Hazen had built a reputation as a determined and capable lawman. The outlaws were not ordinary thieves. The Wild Bunch, a gang of experienced train robbers, had made a habit of hitting railroads and disappearing into the vast Wyoming country.

The June 1899 holdup put the entire region on alert, and Hazen was among those who answered. On June 6, 1899, north of Casper, the train robbers ambushed the sheriff and his posse. A bullet struck Hazen in the stomach, tore through his liver, and exited near his spine. He died at the scene, killed while performing the duties he had sworn to uphold.

Wyoming newspapers throughout the territory honored the fallen lawman. Bill Barlo’s Budget published his obituary with particular reverence. The paper said that the conventional phrase claiming universal regret over someone’s passing was absolute truth in this instance. Joe Hazen possessed a cheerful temperament, the obituary read, one that caused him to embrace life’s positive aspects.

His friendly words and genuine laughter had cleared away worries and grief from countless minds during his years among the community. He perished, the paper concluded, as a martyr to his dedication as an officer, fulfilling his sworn responsibilities to the end. The posse continued the pursuit after Hazen’s death, but the Wild Bunch slipped away. The gang would rob again, but the sheriff who had given his life chasing them was buried in Wyoming soil.

His story became part of the larger history of frontier law enforcement, a reminder that the men who hunted outlaws on the open range often paid the highest price for their commitment. Hazen had spent his life reading the land, following cattle thieves through blizzards and hidden ravines, and when the call came to pursue the most notorious gang of the era, he answered without hesitation. He died with his boots on, doing the job he had chosen, and the community that knew him remembered him not only for his skill as a tracker but for the warmth he brought to every encounter. The man who had once been humiliated by a jail break never let it define him.

Instead, he rebuilt his reputation through years of steady, often dangerous work. His death in the ambush north of Casper closed a career marked by persistence and duty. The Wild Bunch moved on to other crimes, but Joe Hazen’s place in the record of frontier lawmen was secure. He had given his life in the pursuit of justice, and the newspapers that eulogized him understood what that meant.

The cheerful man with the friendly words was gone, but the example he set endured in the towns and counties he had served.