Baxter Stingley was one of Colorado’s most memorable law enforcement officers.

His legacy includes heroic shootouts bloodier and most exciting than any Hollywood movie. And the way he helped transform a dusty frontier camp to one of the most modern cities in the west can’t be denied. The man planted trees in a sage desert, stood toe-to-toe with some of the toughest men in the west, and he made Salida a place that hardcore criminals avoided. By any definition, the man was a hero.

But Baxter Stingley’s story also has a dark side, one that includes friendships with criminals, a failed political career, and participation in a vigilante gang that murdered settlers in the Arkansas Valley.

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