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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 22, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – Baldwin-Felts Gunthug Belcher Shot and Killed
Headline from the Trinidad Chronicle News of November 21, 1913:
Friday November 21, 1913-Trinidad, Colorado
-Baldwin-Felts Gunthug George W. Belcher Shot and Killed
At about 7:30 last evening the notorious Baldwin-Felts gunthug, George W. Belcher, 26, of West Virginia, was shot and killed as he left the Hausman Drugstore across from the Columbian Hotel in Trinidad. Belcher died at the scene. A striking miner, Louis Zancanelli, was arrested shortly after the shooting by city policemen. Belcher was well known throughout the strike zone for his role in the killing of Brother Gerald Lippiatt in Trinidad in August. He was deputized by Huerfano Sheriff Jefferson Farr in June. He played a part in the attack on the Ludlow Tent Colony in October in which Brother Mack Powell was shot off his horse and killed. Later in October, he was found in the Death Special, lurking about Forbes, by John Lawson and Louie Tikas the morning after the attack on the Forbes Tent Colony which left Brother Luca Varhernick dead. At that time, Belcher was found in the Death Special along with his fellow gunthug Walter Beck and Judge Northcutt [publisher of the Trinidad Chronicle News], attorney for the mine operators.
Along with Belcher, Belk was also sworn in as a Huerfano County deputy which gave them both a license to kill striking miners. Northcutt signed on as defense attorney for Belcher and Belk soon after the murder of Brother Lippiatt. Northcutt is also the attorney for the mine operators, and works with District Attorney Hendrick in the prosecution of striking miners.
Any chance of a fair trial for Louis Zancanelli seems slim.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Coming Colorado Strike Song, Dnv ULB p1, Sept 27, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91052295/1913-09-27/ed-1/seq-1/
The Chronicle News
(Trinidad, Colorado)
-Nov 21, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051521/1913-11-21/ed-1/seq-1/
Buried Unsung
Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre
-by Zeese Papanikolas
U of Nebraska Press, 1991
https://archive.org/details/buriedunsungloui0000papa/mode/1up?view=theater
Search: “belcher”-pages 74, 87, 90, 93, 121-2
https://archive.org/details/buriedunsungloui0000papa/page/94/mode/1up?view=theater&q=belcher
Search: “forbes”-pages 90-93, 95
https://archive.org/details/buriedunsungloui0000papa/page/74/mode/1up?view=theater&q=forbes
See also:
Tag: Louis Zancanelli
https://weneverforget.org/tag/louis-zancanelli/
Tag: Gerald Lippiatt
https://weneverforget.org/tag/gerald-lippiatt/
Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/
More on the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency
-from The Roanoker of July 1979 (as originally pub’d)
https://theroanoker.com/interests/history/coalmining-war#ixzz2lIuMfuZw
…Around 1900 [William G.] Baldwin formed a partnership with Thomas L. Felts, a Carroll County native, who had received his training as a law officer along the lawless border districts of Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia when the railroads were forging their way into the wild and undeveloped mountain regions. The partnership was the beginning of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. It would have offices in both Roanoke and Bluefield, W.Va….
Baldwin-Felts had had men in Colorado since July 1910 when the Northern Coal and Coke Co. of Colorado engaged their services as mine guards and strikebreakers. The delegation in Colorado included the elite of the agency as well as gunmen it hired for $3 a day. Immediately upon arrival to the western mining camps, they were sworn in as county sheriffs deputies
A new wrinkle in the Baldwin-Felts operations in Colorado was a monstrous thing called the “Death Special,” an armored car designed by Albert Felts and mounted with two machine guns.
Of the mine guards, George S. McGovern and Leonard F. Guttridge… wrote: “…Certainly, more than half a century later in 1971, the mere mention of Baldwin-Felts thugs to some of the forgotten band of veterans of the West Virginia and Colorado coalfield wars was all that it required to make gnarled flesh crawl and wasted limbs tremble in a fit of consuming rage.”
[Emphasis added.]
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