Dan Tucker

Dan Tucker, better known as "Dangerous Dan" Tucker, (1849 – after 1892), is a little-known Canadian-American lawman and gunfighter of the Old West.

Arrival in New Mexico Territory and early career Early career and reputation Tucker first ventured into New Mexico Territory in the early 1870s. Born in Canada, Tucker was said to have been soft-spoken and laconic, and with a slight accent often mistaken for being southern. Famed New Mexico sheriff Harvey Whitehill was, at the time, serving as the Grant County, New Mexico, sheriff. Whitehill first met Tucker in 1875, when the latter drifted into Silver City, New Mexico, after managing a stage station near Fort Selden. Although some were suspicious of Tucker, he was in Colorado for a time, but was rumored to have fled that state for New Mexico after stabbing a man to death. He initially introduced himself as David Tucker, but preferred to be called Dan. Whitehill took a liking to him, and hired him as a deputy sheriff.

One of the first incidents of violence in which Tucker took part after accepting his new job occurred in 1876 and was witnessed by Sheriff Whitehill's son, Wayne Whitehill, who was then a child but able to give a full account of the incident during an interview in 1949. According to him, two Mexican men began fighting inside "Johnny Ward's Dance Hall", in Silver City. One of the men stabbed the other, wounding him, then ran out into the street to escape. Just as he rounded a corner on Broadway Street, Dan Tucker shot him in the neck in full view of many citizens, the young Whitehill being one. An account of this shooting was also taken from Dan Rose, who was 12 years old at the time but also on the street that night.

Another incident, occurring in 1877 and also witnessed by Wayne Whitehill, concerned a report that a Mexican man was intoxicated and throwing rocks at people as they passed by, on a side street in Silver City. Tucker responded, with several young boys running a short distance behind, due to his being somewhat of a fascination to them and an enigma to the locals after the first shooting. According to witnesses, Tucker merely located the intoxicated man and, without ever muttering even one word to him, killed him with one shot. No charges were ever filed against Tucker for that shooting. In 1878, Tucker shot and killed a fleeing thief, as well as becoming engaged in a gunfight with three suspected horse thieves inside a Silver City saloon, killing two of the thieves and wounding the third. By this time, Tucker was legendary in the area, and had acquired the nickname "Dangerous Dan" after the shooting of the rock-throwing suspect.

Legacy Although little known today, Tucker is considered by some historians to have been one of the most dangerous, albeit underestimated, gunmen in the history of the Old West. Author Bob Alexander, who wrote the biography Dangerous Dan" Tucker, New Mexico's Deadly Lawman, proclaimed Tucker was more dangerous and more effective than better-known lawmen, including Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp. He was supported in this claim by historian Leon C. Metz. He was also a subject in the book Deadly Dozen, by author Robert K. DeArment, who included Tucker as one of the twelve most underrated gunmen of the Old West.