An evasive burglar known as the Wooden Leg Bandit made his rounds through Leadville, Colorado, in the fall of 1881. The well-known crook, whose real name was Mike Govern and who relied on a wooden leg to get around, had a knack for slipping through the wheels of justice without a scratch.
Govern arrived in Leadville from Chicago in July 1881. He had already established himself as a burglar in the Windy City, and after being released from a brief stint in prison, he drifted westward to continue his criminal ways.
Unlike the unsavory men with whom Govern associated, his appetite for crime wasn’t bred in the bone. He had held a legitimate job with a railroad company for many years before committing his first burglary. He worked hard like everyone else along the tracks and his character was unmarred. Everything changed when a railroad accident resulted in the loss of his leg. Govern was compensated with a sizable sum of cash and a wooden prosthetic, but he lost his desire to live an honest life.
Now called “Limp Leg” on account of his wooden limb, Govern deposited the cash from his compensation into the “bank of chance” and gambled away every penny. Broke and unmotivated, he loafed around Chicago, begging for coins. Vagrancy laws prohibited his behavior, but law enforcement took pity on the one-legged man and looked the other way to spare him the drudgery of pounding stones to build new roads.
Mike Govern’s days of begging in Chicago were short-lived. A gang of opportunistic thieves believed they could capitalize on his desperation and took him into their ranks.
Working together, Govern and the band of criminals committed a handful of burglaries around Chicago until the law caught up with them. Govern couldn’t move quickly on his wooden leg and was the only thief who failed to get away when the group fled the scene.
At the police station, Govern was pressed to snitch on his fellow thieves but refused. He felt compelled to uphold the honor among thieves. Since he hadn’t been in possession of stolen goods or burglary tools when caught, the police did not have enough evidence to lock him up for any meaningful amount of time.
During his short incarceration, it occurred to Govern that he had a special trick up his sleeve; or rather, his wooden leg. With that trick in mind, he made his way to Leadville upon his release in 1881, a rough and tumble mining camp where he was sure to fit in.
Leadville was infested with thieves in the 1880s. The good news was that holdups and murders were on the decline, but burglaries were filling the vacancy they left behind. These burglaries were often daring and brazen, but the culprits were rarely caught red-handed. Part of the problem was the inadequate size of Leadville’s police force, which hadn’t kept pace with the town’s rapid population growth. Only eight officers were on duty at any given time in a town of over 30,000 inhabitants.
A newspaper story published in the Leadville Democrat in February 1881 reported, “Burglars continue on the warpath in Leadville. It seems impossible to break up the pestiferous gangs. There is undoubtedly a large number of men who make their living by burglary. While some of them have been caught, there are plenty left to make honest men go to bed with one eye open and with their revolvers handy.”
The circumstances of the burglaries were as varied as their numbers were large.
In February 1881, an audacious thief entered a boarding house in a residential area of Leadville at three o’clock in the morning and crept from room to room while the boarders slept. He picked the rudimentary locks, then quietly lifted small valuables within reach and hid them in his pockets. His spree ended when one of the boarders whose room he entered had not yet fallen asleep threatened to shoot the burglar where he stood.
In May 1881, a variety artist performing at Leadville’s McDaniel’s Theatre returned to her hotel after a late-night show to discover her room had been broken into. Several silk dresses and expensive sealskins were snatched from her trunk. The unseen burglars had smashed their way into her room, broken the lock on her trunk with a hammer, and slipped out with nearly $1,000 in stolen garments (the equivalent of around $31,000 today).
Early in 1881, four Leadville homes and businesses were burglarized in under 24 hours. First, a Tudor home a block from the heart of town was hit. Thieves broke a window to gain entrance to the stately house and stole diamond jewelry, expensive suits, and silk garments. Next, they robbed the Palace of Fashion, where they made off with several pairs of boots and fine clothing. Then they struck the Howard and Le Claire horse stable, from which they purloined numerous valuable tools. Finally, they burglarized the Frey home on Chestnut Street, stealing an unwieldy haul of furniture, bedding, guns, and even a stove.
Leadville was sure to provide Mike Govern with easy pickings. He knew his disability would prevent him from making a quick escape should the police arrive at the scene in time to catch him, but he wasn’t worried about being prosecuted. Neither his burglary tools nor the valuables he stole would be found in his possession. He had fashioned a secret compartment within his wooden leg that provided the perfect hiding place.
Over the handful of months Govern operated in Leadville, he was suspected of committing several burglaries. He was even nabbed making a clumsy escape on more than one occasion. But the secret compartment in his wooden leg served its purpose. It was only his poorly contained pride that eventually betrayed him.
After several failed attempts to prove Govern’s involvement in the burglaries, the police captain shrugged off protocol and brought the one-legged bandit before a grand jury. Govern laughed throughout the proceedings, confident he would never be charged due to insufficient evidence. He was right, and the jury determined he must be freed.
During the proceedings, Govern was held in the county jail since he couldn’t pay his bond. It was there that his arrogance nearly came back to bite him. On the day of his discharge, Govern boasted to another inmate about the secret compartment in his wooden leg. He removed the prosthetic to demonstrate how he could easily slide his tools and loot in and out.
The inmate was more amused than Govern could have imagined. By the time the door to his jail cell was opened by the guard to release Govern back into the wild, the amused inmate was howling with laughter. This captured the attention of the guard, who demanded to be let in on the joke. Prisoners rarely squealed on each other, but the inmate couldn’t resist spilling the beans about Govern’s unconventional use of his wooden leg.
The jig was up for Mike Govern, but in the end it didn’t matter. The grand jury had already ruled he was in the clear. Still, the guard pressed him to demonstrate how he had concealed his burglary tools and stolen goods inside his wooden leg. He promised to give Govern an hour to get out of town if he complied.
Govern thrust his wooden leg at the guard, certain the man would be unable to figure out how to access the secret compartment. But the prisoner who had ratted Govern out was still laughing wildly and shouted, “Touch the spring.” The guard pressed his thumbnail to the tiny spring and a small door on the wooden leg popped open. An assortment of burglary tools was concealed inside: skeleton keys, pinches, and a slender file.
Being a man of his word, the guard opened the gate and ordered Govern to “git up and git.” The Wooden Leg Bandit complied and was never seen in Leadville again.
