Queho: An Indian Outcast

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These latest killings set off a manhunt that was to last for almost two months, despite freezing rain and snow. The intense search was conducted both on horseback and on foot along the rugged canyon areas, with Nelson used as headquarters. The posse found the skeletons of two miners who had disappeared several years before, and, though there was no proof, Queho was blamed for two more murders. As the search proceeded, the posse found still-warm campfires and caves that Queho may have used as food caches. But then the bad weather made tracking impossible, and Wait’s posse returned to the comforts of civilization.

In March 1919, the state of Nevada posted a $2,000 reward for the capture of Queho. Arizona officials, believing that some of the unsolved murders on their side of the river were due to Queho, offered $500. Clark County, Nev., added $300, and private individuals were encouraged to contribute to the fund, which soon reached a total of more than $3,000. Undersheriff Wait would periodically leave Las Vegas with a posse to search the area from Searchlight on the south to as far north as the area where Boulder Dam would later be built. But when no further murders were committed, interest in the elusive Indian faded.

Twenty years later, in February 1940, Queho again became a news item. Two prospectors, Arthur Schroeder and Charles Kenyon, discovered the mummified remains of an Indian in a cave located high above the Colorado River on the Nevada side, 1½ miles south of Willow Beach. The corpse was well preserved thanks to the desert climate. It was surrounded by a variety of artifacts, including a Winchester Model 94 .30-30 rifle, a 12-gauge Hopkins & Allen double-barreled shotgun with a rope sling, cooking utensils, crude Indian bows, arrows and Doc Gilbert’s special deputy badge No. 896. Shotgun shells matched the fired cases that had been found beside the body of Maude Douglas in 1919.

A recovery party, including former lawman Frank Wait, Kenyon and Schroeder, identified and removed Queho’s remains and all the items found nearby. The corpse was taken to the Palm Funeral Home in Las Vegas, but that was not the end of Queho’s story. Kenyon, the undisputed finder of the body, demanded that either the reward money be paid him or the body be turned over to him so that he could sell it to the Las Vegas Elks Lodge for exhibition purposes. In the meantime, Judge Nelson of Boulder City issued a court order preventing any parties from taking custody of the corpse or artifacts until a positive identification was made. At this point several Indians living in Clark County brought forward what they said were the remains of Queho, whom they had secretly buried years ago. The Indians claimed to be Queho’s heirs. Judge Nelson, though, ruled that the corpse at the Palm Funeral Home was indeed the Queho for whom rewards had been issued in 1919.

Since neither Nevada nor Arizona seemed disposed to make good on their old reward offers, and since the corpse, weapons and artifacts were beginning to develop a greater value as curios, the legal battle shifted from one of ‘finder’s rights’ to one of legal possession for purpose of sale. In addition, the Parks family, who owned the Palm Funeral Home, demanded that the body be removed and that they be paid for Queho’s storage charges.

As soon as it became known that there would be expenses involved with acquiring the remains, those claiming to be his heirs disappeared, the city of Las Vegas dropped its own claim, and Kenyon withdrew the lawsuit he had filed. After three years, the Parks family issued their ultimatum: Someone must either pay up and pick up Queho at once or the remains would be cremated and the ashes scattered in the desert. Frank Wait paid up and then turned the body over to the Las Vegas Elks Lodge. In their Helldorado Village, the Elks built a facsimile of the cave and enclosed it in glass. Queho and some of his possessions were put on display. Over the next few years the mummy became a great attraction at the annual Helldorado Days celebration. Queho even rode in the back of a convertible in one parade.

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Tags: Native American History, The Wild West, Wild West

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