The hand drawn map pictured below was published in the Yellowstone Journal on June 13, 1903, depicting the site of Dick Standifer's death, near Powderville. The original caption read: "The cut was prepared by the Journal to give readers a general idea of the ground where the Standifer tragedy occurred. Some positions are exaggerated and other diminished for purposes of illustration, but the relative position of the important points can be gathered to a certain extent. The parallel lines running from Powderville is the road and the center line shows the course of the buggy in which Standifer and wife were riding. Where the buggy leaves the road is the spot where the fatal shot was fired, about a mile below the WL and 100 feet from the point marked X, near the fence, which is where Standifer fell from the buggy. The body fell 25 feet from the fence. The buggy tracks showed the short turn drawn, which was only nine feet across. Standifer's ranch from which he and his wife drove to Brown's in the morning, was on the same side of the river as Browns, 10 miles below." (Ed: below meaning downstream, to the right of the picture, or generally in a northerly direction.)
By Shane Dunning
http://www.redshalereflections.com
The term "Boot Hill" was commonly used for the cemeteries utilized when the deceased were violent criminals who "died with their boots on." The most common Boot Hill is located at Tombstone, Arizona, where Billy Clanton and the McClaury's were buried after the gunfight at the OK Corral. Another Boot Hill Cemetery is located at Powderville. Among those reputed to have been buried there is a man named "Deadwood Dick."
This particular nickname has been used by several people over the years, perhaps most notably by actor Richard Clarke in the late 1920s. The name was made famous as the fictional protagonist of a series of dime novels written by Edward Wheeler, published between 1877 and 1897. The identity of the man buried in Powderville's Boot Hill is a matter of some conjecture since only one grave has a marker (that marker is for John Church). The Powder River County Genealogy book Echoing Footsteps identifies the "Deadwood Dick" buried in Powderville as Dick Stannifer, killed by his ex-wife, Leo Brown.
His real name was Eldridge M. Standifer, but he was also called Richard and, most often, "Dick." Harry McKenzie, in the book Powderville: A Personal History (by Mary Jensen Hill), described Standifer like so:
I'll admit one thing, that he was crazy, he was unbalanced, not insane, just crazy. He would do the darndest things. He was one of the best riders that ever lived, but m'gosh he'd get throwed every day by some fool antic he would pull off.
On June 8, 1903, Leo Brown shot and killed Standifer near the old WL Ranch outside Powderville. The circumstances of that death created a sensation, not the least because of the salacious family dynamics that furthered colored the story. Leo Brown was not only Dick Standifer's ex-wife. His grieving widow Carol Standifer was the killer Leo Brown's own sister.
After shooting her ex-husband in the back as he drove a horse-drawn buggy, Leo Brown then rode to Miles City with her then current husband (Joe H. Brown) and turned herself in to Custer County Sheriff William Savage. She claimed self-defense, an assertion later disputed in some detail by her sister.
According to the accused, the incident started when her sister Carol and Dick were over at Leo's ranch. While in the barn, Standifer asked Leo why she never came over and visited them. When Leo told him she didn't want to, he hit her in the face and hit her again when she got up. She escaped and started towards her house to get her gun but was blocked by Standifer. Leo then got on a horse and left. Later that day, Standifer and Carol met Leo on the road. Dick asked Leo where she was going.
She said: "To town to have you arrested."
According to Leo, Dick reportedly said: "If you do, I'll kill you. I guess I'd better kill you right now."
Standifer reached towards his bootleg, where Leo knew he usually kept a gun. Taking no chances, she admitted to shooting him in the back as he stooped over. Dick fell out of the buggy and died of his wound very quickly. The horses took off at the shot and were stopped minutes later by some hands from the nearby WL Ranch.
As stated before, the grieving widow painted a much more deliberate tale to the coroner's jury. According to Carol, an argument in the barn began with negotiating a horse deal between the two. The discussion escalated when Standifer complained about Leo's past remarks concerning his marriage to Carol. Specifically, he alleged Leo had written his mother.
Dick said he thought this was the dirtiest thing that was ever done, to write to his poor old mother this way. Dick told Leo she had written to his mother that himself and her sister (the present Mrs. Standifer) had slept together time and again before they were married in her house that's why she left him.
Again, according to Carol's statement, Leo did not respond well to Dick's accusation.
"I won't take nothing off of you nor any other son of a b____, if you want to fight, I'll fight this out right now." The two exchanged blows until Carol intervened and stopped the fight. Leo then got on a horse and went to her mother's house.
Later that day, Leo met Dick and Carol on the road, and they again discussed a proposed livestock trade. Leo stated she wanted to see some cattle further down the road and followed the Standifer's buggy as they rode along. "We were riding that way, and she shot. I heard the shot. Standifer was driving with the lines in his right hand, I believe, leaning forward slightly. When the shot was fired, I noticed the blood on Dick's back and saw Leo behind with a weapon of some kind." Significantly, Carol also claimed that after Dick fell from the moving buggy, Leo fired a second shot at Dick while he was on the ground.
The coroner's jury discovered later that Standifer did not have a gun on his person and was not wearing boots at the time of his death (he was wearing shoes). He had been shot only once. They also discovered marks around Leo's neck consistent with her story about the assault in the barn.
Dick Standifer had a bad reputation, and the matter was quickly resolved in Leo's favor. Richard Standifer was buried on Powderville's Boot Hill, even though he didn't precisely die "with his boots on." I could find no contemporary account of Standifer's life, or death that includes any reference to the moniker "Deadwood Dick." Also lacking is any known connection between Standifer and Deadwood (other than Powderville's location along the trail between Fort Keogh and the Dakota gold town).
Both Leo and Carol married again before passing away. Leo Rodman (as she was then known) passed away in 1952.
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