$50 Reward!, Team Stolen From My Livery Stable, In Des Moines, Iowa...
"Team Stolen From My Livery Stable": Unrecorded 1888 Iowa "Wanted" Broadside [Broadside]. [Criminals]. [Iowa]. $50 Reward! Team Stolen From My Livery Stable, In Des Moines, Iowa, Tuesday, Sept. 4, 1888, Small Black Team and 2-Seat Carriage. De Moines Iowa, 1888. 11-1/2" x 8-3/4" (29.2 x 22.2 cm) broadside mounted on backing sheet, text below headline. Light browning, a few chips to top edge, bottom-left corner lacking with no loss to text. $350. * Signed in type by L.J Wells, the owner of the livery stable, and C.C. Loomis, sheriff. The poster describes, in detail, the horse, carriage and the names and appearance of the thieves. Offered is a "$25 REWARD will be paid upon return of the team and carriage, and $25 upon conviction of the thief." A rare, original late-19th-century criminal broadside issued in the wake of a bold horse theft in Des Moines. This poster offers a substantial $50 reward-split between the recovery of the property and the conviction of the culprits. The text provides a vivid snapshot of frontier-era law enforcement, offering minute details on the "Small Black Team" of horses, the two-seat carriage, and the specific physical characteristics of the thief, a "man giving name John Davis" had a "[f]ull sandy beard, rather bushy and slighly gray and was "slightly under medium size; about 35 to 40 years of age; dressed in dark clothes." This item appears to be unrecorded. No copies listed on OCLC or in standard bibliographies of Western Americana.
Price: $350.00
Book number 85890