By 1877, Kennard had thoroughly tamed the once wild and woolly mining town. The population was also declining as the gold began to play out. The traffic through Yankee Hill dropped because mining in Central City and Georgetown had plummeted. Kennard, most likely Colorado’s first black lawman, decided it was time for him to move on as well. He handed in his badge, saying he was headed back East to find a wife. Not much is known of his whereabouts or activities after he left Yankee Hill. He surfaced for a time in Denver in 1884, working as a bodyguard for Barney Ford, a wealthy businessman and former slave who became known as the Black Baron of Colorado. Where Kennard went after that remains a mystery, as does the date of his death. As for Yankee Hill, it is gone and all but forgotten. Only remnants of a few buildings remain.

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Legendary lawmen such as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Wild Bill Hickok are well remembered today, but most Western lawmen, like Willie Kennard, toiled and died in obscurity after bringing law and order to an untamed land. Bat Masterson described them as just plain ordinary men who could shoot straight and had the most utter courage and perfect nerve–and, for the most part, a keen sense of right and wrong. Well, in Willie Kennard’s case, maybe not so ordinary.

This article was written by Gerald Lindemann and originally appeared in the February 1996 issue of Wild West. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Wild West magazine today!

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