Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1893 — DANGERORS DENVER DOINGS. [ARTICLE]

DANGERORS DENVER DOINGS.

A Cold Blooded MorderQalckly Followed %iy a Lynching. - "=sa B. C. Lightfoot, a Grand Army man, at Denver, Colorado, Tuesday night, went into a saloon kept by an Italian named Arata, and asked for a glass of beer and paid for it. Arata asked him to 'have another drink, which he did, and started to leave but was stopped by Arata whodemanded payment for the last drink, which Arata supposed was a “treat.” Lightfoot did not have the money, and the Italian thereupon brutally assaulted tho old man, beating him nearly to death, apd then to finish his fiendish work shot him through the heart. Arata was arrested and placed in jail. All day, Wednesday, threats of lynching were heard, and at 8 o’clock 5,000 people who had assembled on Market street, headed by an old, gray haired G. A. EL veteran, started for the jail. By the time the jail was reached 10,(00 excited peopleware in the mob. An assault on the jail was begun at once, but the sheriff and police resisted by turning & hose upon the attacking party, and finally by shooting Two of the assailants were badly wounded, but , the mob soon overpowered the guards and made them prisoners. Arata’s cell was soon found and the cowardly murderer was dragged forth and hustled across the street to a eottonwood tree and strung up. Arata plead for his life and claimed that he killed Lightfoot in self-defense. As soon as Arata was dead the corpse was dragged by the neck with a rope In the hands of the crazy mob through the mud into the heart of the city, and finally was strung up to a telegraph pole -forthe edification of all who had failed to witness the first hanging. No arrests were made and probably none will be, as the lynching was sanctioned by public opinion.