Searching for the grave of legendary lawman “Doc” Shores, Gunnison Co.
Famous lawman on the western slope of Colorado. Lawman. He was a well-respected lawman of the early days on Colorado’s Western Slope. He served as the sheriff of Gunnison County when it was still “wild” and was noted as the lawman who captured Alferd Packer, the infamous “Colorado Cannibal.” Shores also served as a deputy U.S. marshal, a railroad
detective and as chief of police for Salt Lake City, Utah. He rode with Tom Horn when Horn was still on the right side of the law. Shores was the subject of a historical novel published in 1999 by Richard Davis called “A Man to Cross Rivers With.” His autobiography, “Memoirs of a Lawman”, edited by Wilson Rockwell, was published by Sage Books in 1962. The inscription on
his headstone reads: “Western Colorado’s most noted frontiersman, pioneer and lawman.” Both Doc Shores and Tom Horn were law enforcement officers in the frontier era of Colorado’s Western Slope. Shores, upon his death at the age of ninety, had become a celebrated peace officer, who would be recalled thenceforth as “… just, fearless, and above reproach.” Horn, on the other hand, abused his power, besmirched his reputation, and died at the age of forty-three, swinging at the end of a rope. Unlikely as it later seemed, these two men once worked together as a team and were very successful in the apprehension of horse thieves and train robbers.