Shootout in the Bella Union Hotel

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It was precisely high noon on Thursday, July 6, 1865, when a sudden burst of gunfire in the barroom of the Bella Union Hotel signaled the beginning of one of the most sensational gun battles in early Los Angeles. The bloody encounter involved two members of the King family and wealthy rancher Robert Carlisle.

An eyewitness account of this famous gunfight appears in the privately published 1935 book Wranglin’ the Past, which was written by cowboy Frank King, son of gunfight participant Samuel Houston King. ‘I have personally known most of the gun shooters who filed notches on their guns and mighty few of them gave the man they killed a Chinaman’s chance,’ King writes in Chapter 1. The 1865 Los Angeles gunfight stood out most in his mind because it involved not only his father but also his uncle, Francis (’Frank’) Marion King.

The author writes that his grandfather, Samuel King, was a sheriff in Georgia before deciding in 1849 to go west. Sam King had heard tales of fortunes being made in California. So he loaded his family and belongings into two wagons and, with chickens squawking in their cages and cows lumbering behind, hit the westward trail. His family included two girls, Mary and Martha, and three boys, Andrew Jackson, Frank and Houston. The brothers, in their early teens, served as good guards because, being chips off the old block, they would fight anything that moved or made noise.

The Kings stopped for supplies in Socorro, New Mexico Territory, and Sam got into an argument with a Mexican farmer over the price of beans. The farmer called for help from a Mexican colonel. Reckless things were said by Sam, and the officer challenged him to a duel with pistols. In the duel, Sam inflicted only a minor wound on his opponent and escaped injury himself when the colonel slipped on the wet ground and misfired.

After first backtracking into Texas to check out a ranch he heard was for sale and deciding against it, Sam King set a course across central Arizona Territory to investigate mining possibilities. Because of strong rumors of an Apache uprising, Sam eventually pushed on to his original destination, California. In 1853, he and his family settled in El Monte, about 12 miles east of Los Angeles. As the years went by, Sam acquired considerable land holdings there. Though he was respected in the community, he was often at odds with someone over one thing or another. One such altercation involved a man named Johnson. What the argument was about has been lost to history, but Frank King states in Wranglin’ the Past that his grandfather was ‘assassinated by a man named Johnson.’ The author adds that his father, Houston, who was Sam’s second son, followed Johnson into Tehachipi Pass, 130 miles north of Los Angeles, cornered him on a trail and killed him in a gunfight.

At the same time the King family arrived in California, Robert Carlisle came across the Great Plains from Missouri. Carlisle was a large, strong, handsome man who possessed above-average courage but also a volatile temper. As had many of the frontiersmen of those days, he had already put a couple of men into their graves. In time, Carlisle put together one of the largest cattle operations in Southern California. The 46,000-acre Chino Ranch became known far and wide as the Carlisle spread. As for little Los Angeles, it was a hotbed for shootings and lynchings and was sometimes referred to as the town of Los Diablos (’the devils’).

At 4 p.m. on July 5, 1865, a high-society wedding took place in the brightly decorated ballroom of Los Angeles’ fashionable Bella Union Hotel. It was the social event of the season, with music, merrymaking and too much liquor. During the reception, an argument broke out between Undersheriff Andrew King and Carlisle. The rancher apparently accused King of falsifying evidence in the murder trial of one of the cowboys on the Chino Ranch. In the scuffle, Carlisle slashed Andrew King across the hand and stomach with a bowie knife. Carlisle also threatened to kill on sight any and all of the King brothers.

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Tags: 19th Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, The Wild West, Wild West

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