Photo: Durango’s Only Legal Hanging – June 23, 1882

No photographic history of Durango would be complete without this riveting picture. On May 23, 1882, George Woods, angry from an argument he had had with M.C. Buchanan, got up from a card table in the Pacific Club Saloon, walked up to Buchanan, who was standing at the bar, and shot him point blank three times, killing him. After the unarmed Buchanan fell, Woods shot him one more time. Woods was immediately arrested. He was indicted, tried and executed within a month. Woods was considered a man of “bad disposition” and had been in trouble before as evidenced by an earlier arrest for “threatening, traducing and quarreling with Mrs. A.E. Stockton, at her home” on May 3. The site of the hanging, pictured here, was directly across Main Avenue from where the Strater Hotel was built five years later. It was estimated that about 300 men, women and children attended.<br><br>Ed Horvat for Animas Museum, edhorvat@animasmuseum.org