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Leigh Johnson

Leigh Johnson (1860-1929) was a US Marshal and the Democratic Sheriff of Armadillo, New Mexico from 1897 to 1914.

Biography[]

Leigh Johnson was born in 1860, and he joined the US Marshals before being assigned to serve as Sheriff of Armadillo in 1897. Johnson was dedicated to enforcing law and order in the lawless county of Cholla Springs, but he faced several challenges, even as the Wild West era began to pass into history. Just a year into his tenure as Sheriff, he and most of the townspeople were forced to relocate due to a cholera pandemic, not returning until after 1907. Johnson, a Democrat, distrusted the federal government and its attempts to modernize the West (which he believed made the rich richer and the poor poorer) and believed that the government only brought "trouble and taxes," but he was willing to work with the federals to restore law and order to his lawless region.

1911[]

Leigh Johnson Walton

Johnson with a captive Walton Lowe on the back of his horse

While the town's populace returned and the shops reopened, Armadillo continued to be a cesspool of outlawry, and, by 1911, Johnson was faced with cattle rustlers in a box canyon who needed shutting down, a gang that kept murdering homesteaders out in the back country, and Walton Lowe's gang in the saloon (who got drunk and threatened to shoot up the whole town). He enlisted the aid of the former outlaw John Marston in capturing Lowe, dealing with the Bollard Twins' gang in the canyon, and rescuing the missing snake oil salesman Nigel West Dickens in exchange for helping him in assaulting the outlaw Bill Williamson's stronghold at Fort Mercer, which was technically outside of his jurisdiction. After the assault, Marston and Johnson thanked each other and parted ways as Marston pursued Williamson into Mexico, and, in 1914, by which time he had become a legend of the Wild West, Johnson retired as Sheriff after 17 years of service and moved as far away from Armadillo as possible.

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