Criminal Rattlesnake Dick buried in an unmarked grave in Hawthorne Nevada

Rattlesnake Dick was the second criminal to use this name. The first was a Canadian Man named Richard Barter, he lived 1833-1859. He robbed mining camps in California. The second man to go by Rattlesnake Dick was  John Richard Darling who lived from 1840-1883 in Nevada and deliberately adopted that name and chose a similar lifestyle. Nevada’s Rattlesnake Dick beat a man senseless and was sentenced to prison in 1866 for 14 years but only served 5. He was pardoned because he gave information about a prison break. Soon after, with two masked associates, Dick robbed a prominent lawyer and political figure near Virginia City. Shortly thereafter, he attempted to sell the victim back his watch, and was promptly arrested, convicted, and sentenced to a term of 10 years, of which he served eight. While in prison he had a fight with his associate, the same man who helped him rob the lawyer and killed him in so called self-defense, so he was not punished. He did go straight for a while and worked for the Carson Colorado Railroad which introduced him to Hawthorne. One night he went to a party of some sort and got into a squabble over a woman with a man named James Warren or Jimmy the Fresh ( which had which had questionable repute himself). Later he went to the Lakeview Hotel ( located then approximately where the car wash is now)and was drinking at the hotel bar until the wee hours of the morning. He ran into James Warren again. The two men started up their argument , which resulted in a gun fight right there in the hotel bar and Rattlesnake Dick ended up the on the front porch of the hotel with a gunshot to the head.  James shot and killed Rattlesnake Dick. James Warren  went to the Nevada State Prison and Rattlesnake Dick is buried in an unmarked grave in the Hawthorne Cemetery.



Bibliography:

Harold Fullers Goldfield Radio Show KTFN episode 78a.

Nevada Magazine March -April edition Nevada Outlaws

Mineral County Museum, Book Hawthorne Cemetery Historical Section researched by Sue Silver