The Lookout Lynching Murder in Modoc eBook Tom Cox
Download As PDF : The Lookout Lynching Murder in Modoc eBook Tom Cox 
Welcome to the newly revised Fall 2013 (September) Version of Murder in Modoc - The Lookout Lynching is a true story of the Last Family Hanging in the United States.
The Hall Family, headed by Father Calvin Hall, along with his three sons and another fella named Dan Yantis, were all hung from a bridge at 1am on May 31st, 1901.
This book details the events leading up to the Lookout Lynching including originals photos of the bridge, ropes used and much more.
We'll even disclose the secret location of their Unmarked Graves!
It's a quick and fascinating read - order it today!
The Lookout Lynching Murder in Modoc eBook Tom Cox
I had been posting on Facebook about a road trip that included heading upstate from San Diego. Someone asked if I knew about the Lookout Lynching (I think they were trying to spark my curiosity to read this book - of course I hadn't heard of it). I took the bait.I'm one of those who like history brought to life. I recently hung out in Old Town doing some work sitting on the porch of a 150 year old home. It would be no surprise that I enjoy having a bit of history filled in with real people and embellished. First, I had no idea lynchings were still taking place at the dawn of the 20th century in California! Yes, the people were arrested and served time - but there was an actual lynching of .... well, it's a short story and I don't want to give anything away.
This is part family-lore, and part documented history. It's the sort of story you might find in a museum, the mix of documentation and humanity, of an event long ago. Interesting read. If you like this sort of thing, you will really like this story. Yes, there really was a mass-lynching in California in the 20th century. Pretty amazing.
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The Lookout Lynching Murder in Modoc eBook Tom Cox Reviews
Some of the best reads are the tales that are handed down through one's family, then researched by an author to fully document the facts. That is what Tom Cox has done with "The Lookout Lynching - Murder in Modoc".
The first part of this short book is supportive documentation Photographs, copies of census, military and other records. The second part of the book deals with the tale itself, explaining what really happened to the five men who were "lynched for stealing forks", as the New York Times put it in their headline at the time. (A gross understatement that left out the crimes the men had already committed, including the fact that the gang had been terrorizing the town for years or that they had threatened to poison the town's water supply.)
The youtube.com video of the town as it is today is an especially nice touch.
I met Tom on a flight into Sacramento about a year ago. We struck up a conversation and learned that we have much in common, including both of us having lived in Fairfield at one time. I was excited to see that he had written a book.
Tom describes the events leading up to the hanging of a family of despicable men who had terrorized the small town of Lookout California. The townspeople tried to "do the right thing" but to no avail, eventually taking the law into their own hands. The resulting outcome makes a good, albeit quick read.
I've been through that area and was fascinated to learn of this small piece of California history. I enjoyed the book!
There is at least one benefit of the Internet that never gets enough recognition. It is the enhanced ability of ordinary folk to go out and share those accounts of their lives that they deem far too important to keep to themselves - or to be simply forgotten. Here, the author Tom Cox tells the little-known but highly dramatic incident that occurred long ago in an isolated corner of the Golden State of California.
Cox's own family was affected by this event. Years after what he calls the "last lynching in California," which happened in the northeastern California town of Lookout in May 1901, Cox settled down in the area as a young teenager. His father retired from his work as a Solano County Sheriff in 1975 and then promptly moved Cox and his older brother from the North Bay Area town of Fairfield, where they had grown up, to a city near Lookout, Bieber. The elder Cox had purchased a local bar and intended to begin a second career. What prompted Cox's father to make that long move was his own mother's one-time posting as a schoolteacher in Lookout in the early 1930s. There, she learned of that "last lynching" and then later related that story to her son, Tom Cox's dad, whose interest in the region was thus piqued.
Cox goes on to examine the hanging of the "Hall Gang" of one-time US Army cavalry trooper Calvin Hall (born in Ohio in 1829), his half-Pit River Native American son and step-sons, and a former drifter named Frank Yantis. Cox creates an effective narrative in which he connects his own family's history, and going back and forth both through time and the various generations in doing so, with that of the Lookout-Lassen/Modoc-Counties area in which the Hall Gang was executed, trial- and lawyer-free. The author supports his account with documents that track the history of Calvin Hall, the family he formed in the Lookout area with a local Native woman named Mary, and the troublesome group their progeny formed by the late 1890s. These include Calvin Hall's application for a US Army pension in 1892, 1898 voters' registration records, and the 1900 US census.
By May 1901, Cox writes, the local ranchers and townspeople were fed up with the antics of the Hall Gang. It had needlessly maimed and killed others' horses and cattle, stolen personal property, and even ransacked the Lookout school where Cox's paternal grandmother would one day teach. Isom Eades, a rancher, and J.W. Leventon, the Lookout blacksmith, pressed charges against the Halls and Yantis at the Modoc county seat in Alturas, and the accused were soon arrested for Burglary and Larceny. Faced with an inexperienced sherrif, a downgraded charge of the misdemeanor of Petty Larceny, and threats of revenge by the Hall Gang, the local citizenry took matters in their own hands. A lynch mob of forty people acquired new ropes, and then hung Calvin Hall, his three sons, and Yantis from two bridges in Lookout around 1 AM on May 31, 1901. Their bodies were left hanging until mid-morning.
Cox's intepretation of California's final example of frontier vigilante justice is highly recommended. His writing is smooth, seemingly effortless, and also quite personal. Cox's book is simultaneously a nod to his family's genealogy, a regional history of vast swathes of Northern California, and a travel guide. Moreover, he supports his many contentions not only with the relevant primary documents, but also provides photographs and links to videos that present to his readers the main characters, local sites of interest, and, ultimately, the graves of Hall, his children, and Yantis. Mob "justice" was never so fascinating!
I just purchased 'Murder in Modoc - The Lookout Lynching' by Tom Cox. What a fantastic read, everyone should read this book! Murder in Modoc - is a true story of the last family hanging in the United States. Tom is an excellent writer, I couldn't put the book down, what an amazing story! The Hall Family, headed by Father Calvin Hall, along with his three sons and another man were all hung from a bridge on May 31st, 1901. This book details all the events leading up to the Lookout Lynching. It even includes fascinating photos of the bridge, the ropes and equipment used and every detail about this amazing story. It's a great read - you need to get this book! from Dr. JoAnn Dahlkoetter, author of Sports Psychology Coaching for Your Performing Edge Mental Training for Performance in Sports, Business, and Life you can learn more at the website DrJoAnn dot com
I had been posting on Facebook about a road trip that included heading upstate from San Diego. Someone asked if I knew about the Lookout Lynching (I think they were trying to spark my curiosity to read this book - of course I hadn't heard of it). I took the bait.
I'm one of those who like history brought to life. I recently hung out in Old Town doing some work sitting on the porch of a 150 year old home. It would be no surprise that I enjoy having a bit of history filled in with real people and embellished. First, I had no idea lynchings were still taking place at the dawn of the 20th century in California! Yes, the people were arrested and served time - but there was an actual lynching of .... well, it's a short story and I don't want to give anything away.
This is part family-lore, and part documented history. It's the sort of story you might find in a museum, the mix of documentation and humanity, of an event long ago. Interesting read. If you like this sort of thing, you will really like this story. Yes, there really was a mass-lynching in California in the 20th century. Pretty amazing.
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