Postcards The Wild, Wild West

I wonder how many fascinating tales sleep silently in dusty photo albums or newspaper clippings piled in a shoebox? Once in a while, a curious descendant of a hero—or a rogue—hears part of a story and tracks down the rest of it. Such was the case with Douglas A. Lewis, who had become “enthralled” with the story of his great uncle, Leo Lewis Sepulveda, and tracked down the details of a life both roguish and heroic but leaning toward the former.

Sepulveda was born in 1895 in White Pine County, Nevada, and spent his childhood in Deeth, Elko County, Nevada. Deeth was wide-open ranching territory, and young Leo learned early on to handle horses, ride expertly, and shoot straight. He also developed a flair for performance, and after his parents both died, he began traveling the rodeo circuit and working in “Wild West” shows. Why he ended up in Fallon, Nevada, is anyone’s guess, but he made the pages of the Churchill County Standard on April 4, 1917, after he was arrested by local sheriff Mark Wildes for cattle theft. He had two partners in crime, and the three must have been more than mere drifters, as the paper stated, “The arrest of the young men, all of whom are quite well known, has caused a sensation in Fallon.” 

The evidence against Sepulveda and friends was convincing, and, once on the witness stand, Sepulveda supplied the details of the theft. They had stolen six head of cattle belonging to the Williams Estate in Fallon and sold them to the Fallon Slaughtering and Supply Company for $396.25. “Sepulveda told his story in minute detail, explaining in one instance how they had spent a couple of dollars for drinks.”

Sepulveda was sentenced to one to 14 years in the Nevada State Prison. According to Leo Lewis, the great-nephew who dug up the story, the “verdicts and relatively light sentences imposed … brought loathing from the local newspaper editor and populace alike” (In Focus, Volume 20). Churchill County’s economy relied heavily on the cattle feeding industry, and any leniency toward cattle rustlers could ruin the town’s reputation for being tough on livestock marauders.

Now comes the heroic piece of the story. Sepulveda arrived at the Nevada State Prison on June 28, 1917. A month earlier, President Wilson had signed the Draft Law, requiring “all men. Including convicts… born between 1886 and 1896 to register for the draft on June 5, 1917.” Sheriff Mark Wildes had registered Sepulveda for the draft while he was in jail in Fallon. His number came up.

Not a lot is known about his role in the war, but he did see battle and plenty of it. 

When he returned stateside, his natural inclination for showmanship landed him jobs as an expert rider in rodeos and as an extra in Hollywood cowboy movies—sometimes wearing a white hat, sometimes a black one. 

Ironically, as if he were playing a familiar role in a movie of his own making, Sepulveda died from a gunshot wound in the Commercial Hotel in Elko, Nevada, following an evening out in the “restricted part of town” (Elko Free Press, May 7, 1930). He was thirty-five years old.

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