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Glendale, Ore., Marshal Gets Cold Feet During Dust-Up

The Rogue River Courier reported on how the city marshal got cold feet during a shooting at the Glendale, Ore., Depot that nearly got four men killed in 1908.

Just before midnight, station employees realized that three men who'd been hanging around the waiting room all day weren’t planning to board a train.  The employees asked them to leave.  Two complied but the other, identified only as Furbush, had to be forced out.  A few minutes later he returned with a double-action revolver and fired four shots at station workers. 

The newspaper said he was a bad marksman and nearly as bad at holding hostages.

An engine watcher, Roy Kenyon, talked his way free and ran for the Marshal. The marshal refused to go near the depot, so Kenyon recruited another railroad employee to help.  The gunman took both of them hostage when they arrived at the station and marched them into the depot with hands up.  Somehow, Kenyon talked Furbush into lowering his gun and leaving the building.

The newspaper said Furbush remained at large because the marshal refused to go after him.

Source: "Bad Man Shoots Wild at Glendale." Rogue River Courier 10 Apr. 1908 [Grants Pass OR] : 1. Historic Oregon Newspapers. Web. 16 Sept. 2016. .

Lynda Demsher has been editor of a small-town weekly newspaper, a radio reporter, a daily newspaper reporter and columnist for the Redding Record Searchlight, Redding California. She is a former teacher and contributed to various non-profit organizations in Redding in the realm of public relations, ads, marketing, grant writing and photography.