Latest / Ridiculous History / Billy Cottrell, the Tyrant Mayor of Cedar Key, Florida

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Billy Cottrell, the Tyrant Mayor of Cedar Key, Florida · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much
0:31
Speaker 1: as always for tuning in. No before we start today's episode,
0:36
Speaker 1: which is a doozy, I have to say, I woke
0:38
Speaker 1: up this morning as we were about to record, and
0:41
Speaker 1: I realized, holy smokes, it's March again. I woke up
0:45
Speaker 1: this moan and it was March again. Was it kind
0:49
Speaker 1: of like that? Did you have the blues? That was? Actually?
0:52
Speaker 1: That was? Was that? That was really a harmonica situation
0:55
Speaker 1: you had going on there? Ben, I have the do
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Speaker 1: be as superpower to impersonate a harmon on it? Yeah? No,
1:01
Speaker 1: it's good. Um I think the I think the cold,
1:04
Speaker 1: the bitter cold of winter may well be behind us.
1:07
Speaker 1: Knock on, knock on wood. Yeah, who hopefully, hopefully man.
1:12
Speaker 1: But but for me, it was more thinking about just
1:16
Speaker 1: how odd it was that we in many ways lost
1:21
Speaker 1: a year right on activities of travel, Uh, you and
1:25
Speaker 1: I especially because we were always on plates. It's true,
1:28
Speaker 1: we were, we were planed up and then all of
1:31
Speaker 1: a sudden we were we were grounded. But you know,
1:34
Speaker 1: there there was there's a silver lining in all of this. Um.
1:37
Speaker 1: I discovered macromay, I learned how to knit. Uh, And
1:41
Speaker 1: I've been making music in my home studio a bunch. Okay,
1:44
Speaker 1: the third one is true. I was gonna say, I
1:46
Speaker 1: was gonna say I would love to hear about the
1:48
Speaker 1: nitty I know about the studio stuff. Let's see, I
1:51
Speaker 1: memorized the periodic table, the Greek alphabet or something else. Yeah,
1:57
Speaker 1: I learned a lot of useless knowledge, and a horse
2:00
Speaker 1: worked on my pseudo harmonicas skills. But perhaps nobody was
2:05
Speaker 1: feeling the heat of the pandemic more so than our
2:09
Speaker 1: good pal super producer Casey Pegram, who has not returned
2:15
Speaker 1: to his second life as La Boush in some time, right, Yes, indeed, um.
2:20
Speaker 1: And you know another thing I think that we may
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Speaker 1: have had a pretty good run on during this COVID
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Speaker 1: situation is Florida man stories. But today we have a
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Speaker 1: particularly historical Florida man story. Dare I say the precedent
2:34
Speaker 1: of the Florida man meme? Oh, well, that's just the
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Speaker 1: way I'm looking at it. I don't know if anyone
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Speaker 1: else thinks of it that way, but it's it's up
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Speaker 1: to our fellow ridiculous historians. I am tempted to agree
2:45
Speaker 1: with you, my friend. You see, back in eighteen ninety,
2:50
Speaker 1: in the spring of eighteen nine, Uncle Sam sent a
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Speaker 1: heavily armed ship to get rid of a local despot.
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Speaker 1: This is thing that the US does all the time,
3:02
Speaker 1: and has done uh in the century or so since.
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Speaker 1: But this is a little bit different because this military intervention,
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Speaker 1: which was okayed by the President of the time, Benjamin Harrison,
3:15
Speaker 1: this military intervention was not on the shores of Tripoli,
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Speaker 1: wasn't you know, half a world away in the Pacific Theater. Instead,
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Speaker 1: it was in our very own US state. That's right,
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Speaker 1: everyone's favorite peninsula, Florida. Yeah, it turns out, um, they
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Speaker 1: had themselves a real tyrant on their hands in the
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Speaker 1: form of a mayor by the name of William W.
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Speaker 1: Billy Cotrell, who reigned down terror and menace, most foul
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Speaker 1: on one particular little town in Florida called cedar Key.
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Speaker 1: And it really did take the intervention of Washington and
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Speaker 1: a full on military coup to remove this man. It's
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Speaker 1: so very wild. So just so you get a sense
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Speaker 1: of where cedar Key is, it's in the Gulf facing
4:08
Speaker 1: side of the Florida Peninsula. It's kind of a little
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Speaker 1: north of Tampa and UH little southeast of Tallahassee, uh
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Speaker 1: kind of southwest of Gainesville. It looks like a beautiful
4:20
Speaker 1: place if you love archipelago's and islands. But today we're
4:24
Speaker 1: gonna learn why Billy was the only US mayor so
4:29
Speaker 1: far who was ever deposed by a full on military coup.
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Speaker 1: So only one of the Cedar Keys way Key is
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Speaker 1: inhabited today. There are a bunch of other islands that
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Speaker 1: collectively form what we call the Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge.
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Speaker 1: Just like it's like our earlier story on the Dead
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Speaker 1: Pig War. If you look at the map, then these
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Speaker 1: islands don't seem particularly They don't seem to be a
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Speaker 1: big deal until you think of them in the context
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Speaker 1: of the time and the area. UH. They are strategic
5:05
Speaker 1: during the nineteenth century. They have a supply depot that
5:10
Speaker 1: was instrumental during the Second Seminole War. Later, during the
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Speaker 1: Civil War, they're occupied by Union troops. They're part of
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Speaker 1: a railroad system that makes them a hub for trade
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Speaker 1: and transport. It's an important place, even though it's relatively
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Speaker 1: new in comparison to some other U. S cities. Because
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Speaker 1: it was UH it was only really formed during the
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Speaker 1: Civil War in eighteen forty. Yeah. It also makes me
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Speaker 1: think of another topic we did on stuff they don't
5:37
Speaker 1: want you to know about, the Marshall Islands, which had
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Speaker 1: some strategic qualities as well. That we're exploited pretty heavily
5:44
Speaker 1: by the United States government in the form of uh,
5:48
Speaker 1: pretty brutally thoughtless nuclear weapons tests. Absolutely uh and luckily uh,
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Speaker 1: as we'll see, we're very lucky that Mayor Cotrell was
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Speaker 1: not able to get his hands on some nukes because
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Speaker 1: that guy Noll, that guy with some nukes, who buddy.
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Speaker 1: Uh So Cedar Key is named Cedar Key because of
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Speaker 1: a fifteen forty two Spanish map that described as the
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Speaker 1: Cedar Islands. You can probably guess why, folks. One of
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Speaker 1: the first things the early European explorers noticed was that
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Speaker 1: there were a ton of cedar trees all over the archipelago,
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Speaker 1: and so, as you might imagine, lumber becomes a primary
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Speaker 1: industry totally. I mean, they're also is fishing. They also
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Speaker 1: exported cotton, but the island was dotted with sawmills and
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Speaker 1: pencil factories, which I love the idea of a pencil factory,
6:42
Speaker 1: that's something you think of today, but it was a
6:44
Speaker 1: big deal at the time. It's churning out pencils in
6:47
Speaker 1: the eighties, and the pencil plants didn't farewell as the sawmills.
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Speaker 1: The cedar was eventually depleted and it became much more
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Speaker 1: of an important strategic location as far as the rail
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Speaker 1: system went. Cedar Key was a very important port city
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Speaker 1: until eighteen eighties six, when the Port of Tampa nearby
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Speaker 1: started to draw shipping business away from cedar Key. It
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Speaker 1: was a real upset about residents lost their jobs when
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Speaker 1: those mills closed. And then adding insults to injury, you
7:19
Speaker 1: had a hurricane and an accompanying tidal wave that absolutely
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Speaker 1: obliterated much of the area. So you know, this was
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Speaker 1: it was. It really does make me think of the
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Speaker 1: kinds of situations that often lead to tyrannical rule, right.
7:35
Speaker 1: I mean, you had Hitler coming into power after the
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Speaker 1: devastation that Germany saw during World War One. The you know,
7:43
Speaker 1: people who had lost their jobs, been demoralized in the
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Speaker 1: face of the world, and then you got someone coming
7:49
Speaker 1: in to take advantage of that economic strife and um
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Speaker 1: kind of just generalized anxiety. Right. Yeah, when it rains,
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Speaker 1: it pours and the town itself became a fundamentally different place.
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Speaker 1: The population plummeted. There were barely two thousand people there.
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Speaker 1: There was only one road, one in and out area
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Speaker 1: right a parallel the very thin section of the Central
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Speaker 1: and Peninsula Railway. And this made the town's population easy
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Speaker 1: to control. And in this chaos, it was a little
8:26
Speaker 1: fingering game of Thrones, says, chaos is a ladder. In
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Speaker 1: this chaos, someone climbed the ladder. A thirty three year
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Speaker 1: old William W. Cotrell. In eight eight nine, he had
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Speaker 1: been elected mayor of Cedar keys Uh. He was elected unanimously,
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Speaker 1: which seems pretty unusual until you realized only a hundred
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Speaker 1: and one people voted. He wasn't just the mayor, he
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Speaker 1: was also the customs inspector. I know, on the face
8:53
Speaker 1: of it that sounds incredibly corrupt, but you have to
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Speaker 1: remember in a lot of small towns, even a day uh,
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Speaker 1: the same individual will end up taking multiple positions in governance,
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Speaker 1: not not necessarily out of corruption, just out of necessity. Anyway,
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Speaker 1: here's the thing with Cantrell. He is a terrible and
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Speaker 1: super sketchy mayor. When he was first elected, he disappeared.
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Speaker 1: He just straight up ghosted off the grid for more
9:24
Speaker 1: than a month, and then when he came back, people
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Speaker 1: were like, dude, you were a better mayor when you
9:31
Speaker 1: were not here. Yes, some really really strange, unpredictable behavior.
9:38
Speaker 1: He did appear to set a pretty nasty precedent from
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Speaker 1: the start. For example, he was a big fan of
9:46
Speaker 1: carrying around firearms and using them, brandishing them to intimidate
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Speaker 1: his constituents. It was reported at the time that he
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Speaker 1: had used a install uh to force a black man
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Speaker 1: to beat a telegraph operator brutally in the streets in
10:07
Speaker 1: front of you know, just pastors by um. There were
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Speaker 1: women who were reportedly shopping at the nearby dry goods
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Speaker 1: store who he held hostage at gun point, seemingly for
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Speaker 1: his own amusement. There was a place called the Schlemmer
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Speaker 1: House Hotel, which actually was riddled with bullet holes from
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Speaker 1: when the mayor, drunken lee let off a volley of
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Speaker 1: shots in pursuit of someone he had a beef with.
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Speaker 1: The guy was an absolutely like the very definition of
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Speaker 1: a loose cannon. He's he's like the Tasmanian devil from cartoons. Also,
10:43
Speaker 1: you know, obviously the policy of ridiculous history is there's
10:47
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with one or three good cocktails. But this
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Speaker 1: guy was wasted in office continually, and he was quite
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Speaker 1: a belligerent person when inebriated. Uh, It's it's strange because
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Speaker 1: he also he physically assaulted, intimidated, and threatened everybody in town.
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Speaker 1: Social class didn't matter, and he verbally abused them. But
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Speaker 1: he got support in his shenanigans because his own goons
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Speaker 1: were elected to be the police force. Drinking buddies became
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Speaker 1: the cops. You mean that's he literally had a goon
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Speaker 1: squad at his disposal, hiding behind the legitimacy of of
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Speaker 1: the badge, you know. Um town Marshal j R. Mitchell
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Speaker 1: was one of Cotrell's loyal followers, and it was said
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Speaker 1: of of the time, you know, in hindsight perhaps that
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Speaker 1: he only really stuck with Mitchell because he himself was
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Speaker 1: afraid of being shot. Yeah, and this guy, this guy
11:49
Speaker 1: was essentially like a Boss Tweed type figure, but like
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Speaker 1: worse literally like almost like a Wild West kind of
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Speaker 1: you know, just ruling with an iron fist kind of
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Speaker 1: pine of terror type dude. Yeah, you know, I was
12:08
Speaker 1: thinking about this. I was looking over this past week
12:12
Speaker 1: or so. He's not quite a Colonel Kurtz because the
12:16
Speaker 1: people Colonel Kurtz ruled supported him, which is weird if
12:22
Speaker 1: you are you are losing a popularity test with the
12:25
Speaker 1: villain of apocalypse. Now, yeah, his goons would have gun parties.
12:30
Speaker 1: They would get drunk and party and then they would say,
12:32
Speaker 1: let's make everybody in town come out and dance, and
12:35
Speaker 1: then they would, like, under the threat of being shot,
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Speaker 1: they would make these people dance. The guy had so
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Speaker 1: many grudges. He was like an evil elephant that never forgot,
12:48
Speaker 1: and a lot of his grudges. I think this is
12:51
Speaker 1: a good argument for maybe late stage alcoholism, because a
12:54
Speaker 1: lot of his grudges were things that nobody understood, like
12:59
Speaker 1: including the people out of grudge for including the people
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Speaker 1: who knew both parties. One time he tried to kill
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Speaker 1: a guy who worked at the railroad for some reason,
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Speaker 1: and then another time he tried to stab a dude.
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Speaker 1: He wounded him, but he didn't kill him over an
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Speaker 1: insult that no one was aware of, and it seemed
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Speaker 1: like the mayor himself could not explain what happened. This
13:19
Speaker 1: was like, I know, I know local politics can be
13:22
Speaker 1: a sticky situation, but I think having a mayor that
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Speaker 1: randomly stabs people is a municipal issue that takes precedence
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Speaker 1: over party affiliation. Hopefully that's not a hot take. The
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Speaker 1: town was riddled with bullet holes all over the buildings
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Speaker 1: because he was he was just so gunhappy. I'm laughing,
13:44
Speaker 1: but I probably shouldn't be, because he also reportedly killed
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Speaker 1: his own brother in law and then cursed out his
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Speaker 1: sister for quote unquote being poor. He would hit children
13:57
Speaker 1: while their mothers were carrying them. This is nuts at
14:01
Speaker 1: this point, it's like a Roman emperor. How much of
14:03
Speaker 1: this is true? Oh yeah, exactly, it's It's a really
14:05
Speaker 1: good point, Ben, And that really applies to a lot
14:07
Speaker 1: of the Roman emperor stories when you had their political
14:10
Speaker 1: opponents being the ones who were writing the history books.
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Speaker 1: Uh and possibly either you know, obviously, where there's smoke,
14:17
Speaker 1: there must be some fire most of the time. But
14:19
Speaker 1: exaggerations did certainly happen. I think at the very least
14:24
Speaker 1: we can assume with some level of certainty, this man
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Speaker 1: had a serious drinking problem, a serious lea violent temper,
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Speaker 1: and not much respect for any form of human dignity
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Speaker 1: at all. Uh So, like you said, Ben, the town
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Speaker 1: was absolutely riddled with bullet holes that were kind of
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Speaker 1: little reminders of these uh temper tantrums that he would throw.
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Speaker 1: And we have accounts that when taken with the you know,
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Speaker 1: descriptions of of how he would behave when he was
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Speaker 1: you know, older and and uh actually in charge of
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Speaker 1: the town, along with some stories of his youth, and
15:00
Speaker 1: those stories kind of portrayed him as a young man
15:04
Speaker 1: completely unhinged. Uh. There's a quote from James L. Jim Cotrell,
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Speaker 1: the great grand nephew of Billy even you know in
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Speaker 1: the family, it's completely willing to throw his relative under
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Speaker 1: the bus and saying when people talk about him when
15:18
Speaker 1: he's not intoxicated, he's a normal person. He behaves, he
15:22
Speaker 1: gets along, and then you throw some whiskey in him
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Speaker 1: and he turns into Billy the Kid, which is a
15:28
Speaker 1: hilarious and astute reference there. Totally. So yeah, there are
15:34
Speaker 1: signs here that he was a son of privilege and
15:37
Speaker 1: things that cast a bit of ominous foreshadowing on his
15:41
Speaker 1: life story. So he was racing to his family's schooner
15:45
Speaker 1: called Nanny in Tampa Bay when another boat pulled ahead
15:49
Speaker 1: and he got angry that he wasn't the first place
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Speaker 1: in the race. So he ran below deck, grabbed a
15:55
Speaker 1: firearm and was trying to shoot the competition, shoot the
15:59
Speaker 1: people on the other boat before the crew was able
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Speaker 1: to restrain him. This is the big question, folks as well.
16:06
Speaker 1: This is one of the big questions. How on earth
16:10
Speaker 1: was Bill getting away with all of this? Well, like
16:14
Speaker 1: we just said, son of privilege. Turns out his father,
16:18
Speaker 1: one J. L. F. Co Trell, was a state senator
16:22
Speaker 1: and one of his siblings was also an owner of
16:25
Speaker 1: a store on the main street drag, so he had juice,
16:30
Speaker 1: he had political and economic connections. And also remember this
16:34
Speaker 1: is somewhat of an isolated place this time, there's one
16:36
Speaker 1: way in, one way out. The population is plummeted due
16:40
Speaker 1: to economic turmoil as you described earlier, Noal and the
16:44
Speaker 1: entire town of cedar Key is kind of in an
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Speaker 1: abusive relationship with this dude. And what happens in abusive
16:50
Speaker 1: relationships a lot of threats. So the majority of the
16:54
Speaker 1: citizens are not talking about this hellish stuff happening in
16:58
Speaker 1: their town because they have received death threats. In fact,
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Speaker 1: three of his he had three brothers, and when they
17:05
Speaker 1: joined his campaign, part of their platform, part of the
17:08
Speaker 1: stuff they declared was that they would explicitly hunt down
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Speaker 1: and murder anyone who talked trash about their brother or
17:16
Speaker 1: tried to harm him. Yeah. More additions to the goon Squad,
17:20
Speaker 1: the bully patrol. Uh and these actually had legitimate skin
17:24
Speaker 1: in the game, you know, being of blood relation, I imagine. Uh,
17:27
Speaker 1: really you know, believed were true believers of of their brother,
17:31
Speaker 1: possibly from you know, years of of their own bullying
17:35
Speaker 1: at his hands. Again just editorializing here a bit, but
17:38
Speaker 1: as opposed to like the marshal who was you know,
17:40
Speaker 1: possibly based on reports that we read going along with
17:43
Speaker 1: him specifically because he was afraid of him himself of
17:47
Speaker 1: actual you know, physical harm coming to him or his family. Yeah. Now,
17:51
Speaker 1: of course there are legal mechanisms that exist. The Levy
17:55
Speaker 1: County Grand Jury had issued some eighteen indictments against him,
18:00
Speaker 1: but this never came to anything. None of those indictments
18:04
Speaker 1: were served. The Revenue Cutter Services Lieutenant Cardon later said
18:10
Speaker 1: that any of the eighteen charges he got hit with
18:13
Speaker 1: would have carried a hanging or life sentence in New York. However,
18:18
Speaker 1: Cantrell's father still has a lot of political influence, and
18:23
Speaker 1: he's the one who contacts the other patricians or members
18:26
Speaker 1: of the political class, like the governor of Florida at
18:29
Speaker 1: the time, Francis P. Fleming District Attorney Joseph Stripling, and
18:33
Speaker 1: tells them specifically that his son is untouchable. And although
18:39
Speaker 1: his father, the elder Senator Cantrell's last term was five,
18:44
Speaker 1: he had enacted a special bill that placed a time
18:48
Speaker 1: limit on his son's indictments. So they were like, you
18:53
Speaker 1: can eventually touch him, but not now. And so one
18:57
Speaker 1: thing he is really good at is levery gene this
19:00
Speaker 1: kind of nepotistic power, because he's certainly not a good mayor.
19:04
Speaker 1: How did he leverage this power well? In I think
19:08
Speaker 1: just after he took office on January second, eight nine,
19:13
Speaker 1: he found a bride. He married a woman named Carolina Freer.
19:18
Speaker 1: She also came from a heavily politically connected family. So
19:22
Speaker 1: he's just like racking up insurance policies in between bouts
19:26
Speaker 1: of getting black out, drunk and shooting at people. Yeah,
19:30
Speaker 1: more of the same. So we know what you're thinking, folks,
19:34
Speaker 1: This is America. This guy is a cartoon. What an
19:38
Speaker 1: unfortunate thing to happen to the good people of cedar Key.
19:41
Speaker 1: Thank God who was only a one term mayor. Right yeah, no,
19:46
Speaker 1: uh no, no, uh, I don't even It must just
19:51
Speaker 1: be more intimidation, I suppose, or some form of Stockholm
19:55
Speaker 1: syndrome perhaps. Like literally, it feels like this man was
19:59
Speaker 1: holding the town hostage and he was able to get reelected.
20:05
Speaker 1: His behavior was damning the town to further economic loss. Uh.
20:11
Speaker 1: He was terrifying the few businessmen that were willing to
20:15
Speaker 1: kind of come into Cedar Keys to try to help
20:18
Speaker 1: maybe revitalize the town hopefully, or looked at it as
20:21
Speaker 1: a business opportunity. I mean, the streets were literally again
20:24
Speaker 1: riddled with bullets. It was like a Wild West situation.
20:28
Speaker 1: His own brothers, Eugene and James, had a business, a
20:33
Speaker 1: mercantile business that had to close itself because of lack
20:36
Speaker 1: of customers because nobody wanted to come through town. He
20:40
Speaker 1: did have methods of kind of coercing townspeople to shop
20:45
Speaker 1: at his brother's store, but even that wasn't enough. It
20:49
Speaker 1: was so bizarre, as was his brother's behavior. They were
20:53
Speaker 1: just completely inconsistent. Uh. They wasn't clear whether they fully
20:57
Speaker 1: wanted to support him or whether they were in it
21:00
Speaker 1: to make money for themselves. It was just a very
21:03
Speaker 1: very strange relationship. There were newspaper reports at the time
21:07
Speaker 1: that the business in town was almost entirely d o
21:11
Speaker 1: a uh. There were you know, long lines of storefronts
21:15
Speaker 1: closing down, one firm after another having sold their assets.
21:20
Speaker 1: The business owners were either afraid to hang around in
21:24
Speaker 1: such a terrifying place, or they just gave up in
21:28
Speaker 1: utter despair when they saw this decline continuing. You know.
21:34
Speaker 1: But despite his terrible and clearly illegal behavior, he still
21:41
Speaker 1: had some support from a minority of the people in town,
21:46
Speaker 1: a minority of the white towns folks, because they were
21:49
Speaker 1: able to, i think, glean some benefits from this corrupt system.
21:54
Speaker 1: And they had all the typical rationalizations and dismissals. You know,
21:58
Speaker 1: they would say, look, he's a great i you know
22:01
Speaker 1: when he's sober, or he's a dashing young man. Maybe
22:05
Speaker 1: just a little spoiled, but he comes from a wonderful family,
22:08
Speaker 1: and we're friends with that family. So as a result,
22:11
Speaker 1: anybody would have been opposition and had the means to leave,
22:16
Speaker 1: just left. Why would you stay in a place that
22:19
Speaker 1: it's not good for business, it's not good for families,
22:22
Speaker 1: it's not great for education. So why why stay in
22:25
Speaker 1: cedar Key. That's how he gets re elected. But this
22:28
Speaker 1: time it's not unanimous, and twenty four people vote, he
22:32
Speaker 1: gets sixty seven of the votes and the remainder go
22:36
Speaker 1: to his opponent, One Samuel G. Reddick. But I would
22:39
Speaker 1: also argue this vote was probably fixed. I'm just guessing.
22:44
Speaker 1: I'm just assuming here. Uh, the votes weren't secret. Remember
22:48
Speaker 1: we talked about in the famous episode the importance of
22:51
Speaker 1: secret polls. So the votes aren't secret, especially in a
22:54
Speaker 1: place like this, a lawless and insane you know, God,
22:58
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine be terrified. Yeah, not to not
23:01
Speaker 1: vote for the guy with the gun. Yeah, and to
23:03
Speaker 1: know that he knows who you voted for. And so
23:08
Speaker 1: he is going crazy because he holds all these grudges. Right,
23:11
Speaker 1: So he's in his mind the people who voted for
23:16
Speaker 1: his opponent, Reddick, have essentially put themselves on a kill list.
23:20
Speaker 1: And that's when our hero of the story steps in
23:25
Speaker 1: her name, Mrs rose Bell. Uh. She is the person
23:30
Speaker 1: that we mentioned the very top who looks for help,
23:33
Speaker 1: and she knows, she's well aware that Florida's political system
23:37
Speaker 1: is what we would sometimes call food bar. So she
23:41
Speaker 1: doesn't right to the governor of Florida. She doesn't right
23:44
Speaker 1: to other local mayors, she doesn't write to other local
23:46
Speaker 1: law enforcement. Instead, she writes to the President of the
23:49
Speaker 1: United States on August four, eight ten nine, and she says,
23:54
Speaker 1: this guy is a loony tune. He is an habitual drunkard.
24:00
Speaker 1: He's threatening everybody. And then she describes in details some
24:04
Speaker 1: of the terrible stuff he does. And thank God for
24:07
Speaker 1: Mrs rose Bell, you know, the one person with the
24:10
Speaker 1: stamina and the courage to to stand up to this
24:14
Speaker 1: man um. She described the good Christian men of the
24:18
Speaker 1: town as being too timid to put a stop to
24:22
Speaker 1: this psychotic behavior, and ended the letter by saying that
24:25
Speaker 1: she had quote no son or husband for him to
24:28
Speaker 1: fuss with and shoot I expose his character. Yeah, Which
24:33
Speaker 1: that's such an interesting sentence to me there, because it's
24:36
Speaker 1: almost as if she's saying, I have nothing to lose here,
24:40
Speaker 1: so you can kill me, but I want to save
24:42
Speaker 1: this town. And then President Harrison is to a degree
24:46
Speaker 1: touched by this. Smithsonian Magazine reports that he later noted
24:51
Speaker 1: it was a grim commentary upon the condition of social
24:54
Speaker 1: order at Cedar Keys that only a woman had the
24:58
Speaker 1: courage to file charges against Counturroll. So he's Harrison is
25:03
Speaker 1: being you know, a fair bit misogynistic there, but also
25:07
Speaker 1: he is asking the question many of us asked ourselves
25:11
Speaker 1: when first learned of this story, which is how did
25:13
Speaker 1: he get this far? How did it happen? So Harrison
25:18
Speaker 1: figures out quickly. He says, okay, we need to get
25:21
Speaker 1: some boots on the ground. When you get some eyes
25:24
Speaker 1: in the streets here, figure out how this mayor is
25:28
Speaker 1: keeping this town in a tyrannical death grip. It seems
25:32
Speaker 1: like it is family connections, fear and isolation. And so he, uh,
25:36
Speaker 1: he gets his main man, J. H. Pinkerton to get involved,
25:42
Speaker 1: and you know the Pinkerton Agency, and Pinkerton himself tremendously
25:45
Speaker 1: controversial figures. Pinkerton had been named the new customs collector
25:50
Speaker 1: and he had the oversight of revenue generation in maritime law.
25:54
Speaker 1: This is a pretty this is a catbird seat kind
25:57
Speaker 1: of position. And so as soon as he gets to
26:00
Speaker 1: cedar Key, he runs head to head up against Mayor Cartrell,
26:04
Speaker 1: and they have problems right from the beginning. So because
26:10
Speaker 1: Cartrell was already mayor and customs inspector, customs inspector was
26:14
Speaker 1: a positioned by the way outranked by the job Pinkerdon had.
26:18
Speaker 1: But because Catrell was already serving these two different government positions,
26:23
Speaker 1: he pretty much thought he deserved the promotion to customs collector.
26:28
Speaker 1: He was like, I should do this, It's my town.
26:31
Speaker 1: So finally Coutrell seems to have met his match. Like
26:35
Speaker 1: you said, Pinkerton was a tough dude and was not
26:38
Speaker 1: going to be pushed around by this rogue mayor, so
26:44
Speaker 1: of course he threatened him. He sent him a telegram
26:47
Speaker 1: to Washington as soon as he felt like it was
26:49
Speaker 1: safe to do that, and their feud had already kind
26:52
Speaker 1: of escalated in previous weeks um when Pickerton insisted the
26:56
Speaker 1: Coutrell resigned from this post as inspector because of his
27:00
Speaker 1: erratic behavior, and he was ultimately removed from that inspector's post,
27:06
Speaker 1: at which time he approached Pinkerton in town on May nine,
27:10
Speaker 1: asking him if he could go get his personal belongings
27:15
Speaker 1: that he had left behind in the customs house. But
27:18
Speaker 1: it was after office hours, so Pinkerton says, uh, no,
27:23
Speaker 1: we're not open. So how does Mayor Contrell respond? He says,
27:30
Speaker 1: watch out, Pinkerton, I better not see you on these
27:32
Speaker 1: streets or I'm going to kill you and uh. And
27:37
Speaker 1: Pinkerton knows this threat was serious, and so he stayed home.
27:41
Speaker 1: He actually stayed off of the streets. He was kind
27:44
Speaker 1: of in quarantine or a house arrest will be a
27:46
Speaker 1: better word. And this frustrates the mayor, and so the
27:51
Speaker 1: mayor is like, why won't this guy come out of
27:53
Speaker 1: his house so I can shoot him like I said
27:56
Speaker 1: I would. So he tried to force someone else to
27:59
Speaker 1: go into Pinkerton's home and then drag him physically into
28:03
Speaker 1: the street. This guy was like, no, you're crazy. You
28:06
Speaker 1: are a terrible mayor, dude, and then the mayor beat
28:09
Speaker 1: the crap out of him. Yeah, as was his way.
28:13
Speaker 1: So you know, there was a telegram that Pinkerton's sent
28:17
Speaker 1: on May to the Treasury Department that really does a
28:20
Speaker 1: fabulous job outlining the situation and how dire it was.
28:24
Speaker 1: He refers to the situation where he refused to open
28:27
Speaker 1: the customs house store after hours and that is when um.
28:31
Speaker 1: In addition to threatening him himself, Contrell also ordered the
28:34
Speaker 1: town Marshal j R. Mitchell to quote shoot the goddamn
28:38
Speaker 1: Republicans son of a bitch if he failed to open
28:41
Speaker 1: the doors to him. He then called me him in
28:44
Speaker 1: his in his dispatch, called me vile names he could
28:47
Speaker 1: think of in a loud and angry voice, and said,
28:50
Speaker 1: I will make it a hell for you, and you're
28:53
Speaker 1: set as long as you stay in cedar keys and
28:56
Speaker 1: many other vile things, equally bad, using all the time
28:59
Speaker 1: the most profane oaths and vile epithets. Yeah, so he's
29:04
Speaker 1: a potty mouth too. The marshals found themselves out gutten
29:14
Speaker 1: by what essentially had become a gang terrorizing the town.
29:19
Speaker 1: And so at this point Pinkerton requested assistance. Casey, can
29:25
Speaker 1: we get some like history appropriate going to war music? Perfect?
29:31
Speaker 1: It's crazy how we can just describe that stuff and
29:34
Speaker 1: you always know what it is. Case, but this is it.
29:38
Speaker 1: Pinkerton asked for federal and intervention as well as our
29:43
Speaker 1: earlier letter writer, and this request was granted through that
29:47
Speaker 1: revenue cutter service. They sent a ship called McClean to
29:51
Speaker 1: the islands on May nine. The Captain Thomas S. Smith
29:56
Speaker 1: and his crew arrived just a few days later, and
30:01
Speaker 1: they were appalled. We have to remember they were outsiders.
30:03
Speaker 1: They realized how abnormal this was, and the captain Captain
30:07
Speaker 1: Smith said, quote the newspaper reports are not only not exaggerated,
30:13
Speaker 1: but do not tell what half of this man Cartrell's crimes.
30:17
Speaker 1: The fact is the people here are in a perfect
30:20
Speaker 1: state of terror and are unable to obtain assistant to
30:23
Speaker 1: all protection from the state authorities owing to the influence
30:26
Speaker 1: wielded by Cartrell and the methods resorted to when frightening
30:30
Speaker 1: and terrorizing witnesses. So because they have this ship with them,
30:36
Speaker 1: the captain and his crew and some additional marshals start
30:40
Speaker 1: searching Sea heer Key for the mayor sort of like
30:44
Speaker 1: I get the sense, snol that this is like house
30:46
Speaker 1: by house knocking on doors, like you know, a man hunt.
30:50
Speaker 1: Almost right, yes, yeah, but as you know, big bads
30:54
Speaker 1: in many stories are wont to do uh. He did
30:57
Speaker 1: escape Contrell, Eva did capture. He made his way up
31:02
Speaker 1: the Swannee River and out of the reach of his pursuers.
31:08
Speaker 1: And even after this escape, Pinkerton requested that the cutter
31:12
Speaker 1: remained nearby to you know, give people a little bit
31:16
Speaker 1: of comfort, right, to make sure that they knew that
31:19
Speaker 1: they were going to be taken care of, and that
31:21
Speaker 1: Catrell could not just you know, come back as big
31:25
Speaker 1: bads are also want to do and undeterred and just
31:28
Speaker 1: continue his reign of terror. So, uh, the McClain remained
31:32
Speaker 1: docked and continued firing blank rounds, and that sound could
31:37
Speaker 1: be heard throughout the keys. But despite being absolutely terrorized
31:44
Speaker 1: by this guy for over a year, Uh, they didn't
31:47
Speaker 1: care for the idea of federal intervention either. In fact,
31:52
Speaker 1: they may have disliked it even more. They saw the
31:56
Speaker 1: docking of this federal vessel on their shores as a
32:01
Speaker 1: sign of a lack of their own autonomy and of
32:05
Speaker 1: big government sort of swooping in. And keep in mind
32:08
Speaker 1: with the twenty five years after the Union had left,
32:12
Speaker 1: so there was still, you know, as don't we know,
32:16
Speaker 1: there remains today in some pockets of the South, this
32:19
Speaker 1: kind of hostility, this kind of sense of an identity
32:24
Speaker 1: separate from the rest of the country. Right. Uh. There's
32:28
Speaker 1: a really great quote from the New York Times from
32:30
Speaker 1: that era saying, quote, the people here have lived so
32:33
Speaker 1: long in an unreconstructed condition that the appearance of the
32:37
Speaker 1: United States seamen in the streets intent on forcing order
32:40
Speaker 1: and obedience is especially galling. Captain Smythe was actually threatened
32:47
Speaker 1: by a resident who threatened to shoot on site anyone
32:51
Speaker 1: who attempted to come into his home. This is also ironic, Ben,
32:55
Speaker 1: considering that he's you know, we know that that Billy
32:59
Speaker 1: Catrell and his goons often would enter people's homes, forcing
33:04
Speaker 1: them out into the street and making them dance like
33:07
Speaker 1: little puppets. And yet the the idea of any outside
33:11
Speaker 1: force coming in and doing the same in the name
33:14
Speaker 1: of keeping order and maintaining their safety. This is serious
33:19
Speaker 1: Stockholm syndrome stuff here, right, So there's a lot to
33:22
Speaker 1: be said here with bed side manner. First off, we
33:25
Speaker 1: have to understand these people have endured a lot of abuse.
33:30
Speaker 1: And then secondly, we have to understand that the way
33:33
Speaker 1: the FEDS are approaching this situation is not particularly like
33:39
Speaker 1: touchy feely or helpful. They're on a man hunt and
33:42
Speaker 1: so they're doing kicked doors house by house, clearing the block.
33:46
Speaker 1: So of course you would react adversely to that because
33:49
Speaker 1: it's like terrifying tactics, if not terrorism itself, because they're
33:53
Speaker 1: like kicking doors in, they're hitting people with rifle butts,
33:58
Speaker 1: tearing apart houses. So they're like talking, I guess you
34:01
Speaker 1: would call it tossing. You know, they're looking for any closet,
34:04
Speaker 1: under any floorboards where somebody might be hiding. And to me,
34:09
Speaker 1: it's kind of silly that Smythe and his team don't
34:15
Speaker 1: understand why people would react adversely to busting in their
34:18
Speaker 1: house and tearing apart their stuff. But these people were
34:22
Speaker 1: complaining about these house searches. So the telegrams complaining about
34:26
Speaker 1: this made their way back to Washington, and uh. This
34:30
Speaker 1: gave the the folks of the Revenue cutter Service increased scrutiny,
34:35
Speaker 1: and Congress started to argue about it. One special deputy said, look,
34:41
Speaker 1: we have to keep our eyes on this situation. We
34:44
Speaker 1: have to ensure that homes haven't been entered unlawfully or
34:48
Speaker 1: without permission. But he did include a very classic line
34:52
Speaker 1: where he said, otherwise, quote the rabbi will tell and bluster.
34:57
Speaker 1: So it came down to President Benji Harrison, who said
35:01
Speaker 1: on June six that he had decided it just didn't
35:05
Speaker 1: make sense to appeal to local authorities. They were all corrupt.
35:08
Speaker 1: They would have to do something else. So we actually
35:11
Speaker 1: we have a full quote from his written statement. That's right.
35:13
Speaker 1: He says, quote it will be agreeable to me if
35:16
Speaker 1: the local authorities. This is how he talked clearly, acting
35:19
Speaker 1: upon their own sense of duty, maintain the public order
35:23
Speaker 1: in such a way that the officers of the United
35:25
Speaker 1: States shall have no occasion to appeal for the intervention
35:29
Speaker 1: of the general government. But when this is not done,
35:33
Speaker 1: I shall deem it my duty to use the adequate
35:36
Speaker 1: powers vested in the executive to make it safe and
35:40
Speaker 1: feasible to hold and exercise the officers established by the
35:44
Speaker 1: Federal Constitution and the Lyre. So what he's saying there
35:50
Speaker 1: is that, look, the local system isn't working, so Uncle
35:56
Speaker 1: Sam is going to have to bring the hammer down
35:58
Speaker 1: and restore order. I, as president, considered that part of
36:02
Speaker 1: my job based on just how far out of hand
36:04
Speaker 1: this has gone totally. I mean, and you got to
36:06
Speaker 1: think too, Ben, there had to have been a collective
36:09
Speaker 1: more than PTSD. But also just like they lived in
36:12
Speaker 1: this weird violent bubble, and when you're governed by violence,
36:16
Speaker 1: violence probably becomes kind of an undercurrent of of day
36:20
Speaker 1: to day life. So even like left with this vacuum
36:24
Speaker 1: of this iron fisted you know, despot people didn't know
36:27
Speaker 1: how to govern themselves. You know, they were probably you know,
36:30
Speaker 1: kind of freaking out. And I and I understand nobody
36:33
Speaker 1: wants the FEDS coming into their house to search their stuff,
36:36
Speaker 1: but I understand the need for this level of intervention.
36:40
Speaker 1: What do you think then, Yeah, well I think it's
36:42
Speaker 1: weird because I I would be hesitant to say that
36:45
Speaker 1: the townsfolk who are being victimized had some kind of
36:49
Speaker 1: Stockholm syndrome. It's just like these are two now, these
36:52
Speaker 1: are two different gangs carrying up our town essentially. And
36:56
Speaker 1: also we have to remember everybody who could have left,
37:00
Speaker 1: who was not part of the goon squad already left.
37:05
Speaker 1: So the people there are probably don't have the means
37:07
Speaker 1: to relocate or they're part of this brutal gang structure.
37:13
Speaker 1: And people still hadn't found Mayor Billy. He made his
37:17
Speaker 1: way up the Swannee River. He's heading hot headed towards
37:20
Speaker 1: the Georgia border, traveling onward to Alabama. He learned nothing
37:25
Speaker 1: from this. From his narrow escape, he did not change
37:28
Speaker 1: his behavior, but this kind of stuff doesn't fly in
37:32
Speaker 1: the rest of the US. So on July same year,
37:36
Speaker 1: he was arrested in Alabama for you know, being a lunatic,
37:41
Speaker 1: and he posted a two thousand five bond. He had
37:46
Speaker 1: a trial set for Jacksonville, but he never made the trial.
37:50
Speaker 1: On November five, he got intensely intoxicated, picked a fight
37:55
Speaker 1: with a guy at a restaurant who owned the restaurant,
37:58
Speaker 1: and then, according to the newspaper, the police chief of Montgomery, Alabama,
38:04
Speaker 1: Adolph Gerald, got on Cantrell's bad side by not allowing
38:09
Speaker 1: him to do whatever the hell he wanted, and so
38:12
Speaker 1: Catrell like picture this picture, like pointing at him and going,
38:16
Speaker 1: you've made a powerful enemy. We're gonna have a duel.
38:21
Speaker 1: I swear vengeance upon you. And then he told all
38:24
Speaker 1: the people he knew or anyone who was listening, like
38:26
Speaker 1: I'm going to kill the police chief. It's just scheduling. Now,
38:29
Speaker 1: we just have to get our schedules to align for
38:31
Speaker 1: the duel. I think he's got a thing at three,
38:34
Speaker 1: but maybe maybe four thirty, So just past eleven in
38:37
Speaker 1: the morning. The next day, Cattrell showed up at police
38:41
Speaker 1: headquarters um exiting a horse drawn buggy, and Cherald didn't
38:47
Speaker 1: wait for the like the duel to begin for you know,
38:52
Speaker 1: pistols at dawn. Right as Cantrell was getting out of
38:55
Speaker 1: the carriage, Gerald walked up and just blasted him with
38:59
Speaker 1: both earls of a double barreled shotgun got him once
39:03
Speaker 1: in the torso and once right in the eye, leaving
39:07
Speaker 1: him bleeding out in the street, and what was described
39:10
Speaker 1: as a bloody and ghastly spectacle by the Montgomery Advisor
39:15
Speaker 1: fitting fitting in. I mean, from bloody beginnings come bloody endings.
39:21
Speaker 1: Uh and gerald s He surrendered himself to the county sheriff,
39:24
Speaker 1: claiming self defense, which I don't know how that would
39:28
Speaker 1: work out in court. I guess, can you act preemptively
39:31
Speaker 1: in self defense? Well? Was it preemptive because the guy
39:35
Speaker 1: had explicitly told multiple people he was going to kill
39:38
Speaker 1: the police chief. He showed up Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
39:41
Speaker 1: he showed up intending to kill him. So like, look,
39:44
Speaker 1: also it didn't hurt that Catrell was just a massive jerk.
39:49
Speaker 1: So the next day the coroner says, okay, we we
39:54
Speaker 1: accept that this was self defense because everything about this
39:57
Speaker 1: man's life proves that he definitely was there to kill you.
40:02
Speaker 1: So in the end, President Harrison, his intervention didn't really matter,
40:07
Speaker 1: not not too much, and the coast Guard didn't really matter.
40:11
Speaker 1: But it was a shootout in Alabama that ultimately put
40:15
Speaker 1: an end to this guy's reign. Of terror, and newspapers
40:20
Speaker 1: across the country carried the story. The New York World
40:23
Speaker 1: called it the bloody end of a bloodthirsty monster, and
40:26
Speaker 1: the New York Times even ran this headline by way
40:29
Speaker 1: of obituary, Cultrell killed at last. Can you imagine people
40:34
Speaker 1: hate you so much that your obituary basically as yea
40:38
Speaker 1: in the headline. I would argue that our buddy Robert
40:42
Speaker 1: Evans ought to consider this guy for an episode of
40:44
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards. Yes he was absolutely that, Yes he
40:48
Speaker 1: was a bastard. Indeed. Uh, Luckily, folks who may be
40:51
Speaker 1: glad to know that the town of Cedar Keys still
40:54
Speaker 1: around today. It is way more chill than it was
40:59
Speaker 1: in the eighteen nineties. Fishing is still a big industry.
41:03
Speaker 1: I think the pencil factory closed. And uh, the local
41:07
Speaker 1: historical Society has a lot to tell you about, a
41:10
Speaker 1: lot to talk about. And nowadays, if you if you
41:14
Speaker 1: ever find yourself down that way, do stop by. It
41:17
Speaker 1: seems like a quiet, wonderful place to relax. Maybe they
41:23
Speaker 1: have a sign in the town square that says, you know,
41:26
Speaker 1: like X amount of years or days since the mayor
41:29
Speaker 1: shot someone, or maybe it's still too soon to joke about.
41:32
Speaker 1: But I I would visit cedar Key, you know, I'm
41:34
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of road trips. I would love to
41:37
Speaker 1: check it out. I know I would too. I got
41:38
Speaker 1: I gotta wonder too, Ben the the You know how
41:41
Speaker 1: Florida has these standard ground laws, you know, like if
41:44
Speaker 1: anyone's coming at you or encroaching upon your property or
41:48
Speaker 1: what have you, you know, fair game for you to
41:50
Speaker 1: blast them. Do you think this is I mean, I'm
41:52
Speaker 1: sure it was more than just this, but this does
41:54
Speaker 1: seem like kind of a precedent for that, you know what?
41:57
Speaker 1: That is an interesting question wondering. Let's see, the standard
42:02
Speaker 1: ground law was that in two thousand five. It was passed.
42:06
Speaker 1: I don't recall exactly. I just know it was very controversial. Um,
42:10
Speaker 1: and you know, I just it just I wonder if
42:12
Speaker 1: just there's something in the history of Florida that led
42:15
Speaker 1: to it being one of the only states that has
42:17
Speaker 1: such a law. True. Uh, and maybe this was not
42:21
Speaker 1: the only incident of its type. But regardless, it's tough
42:26
Speaker 1: to have much sympathy for this mayor, even though he
42:28
Speaker 1: did die in a very painful way. Uh. He is
42:31
Speaker 1: estimated to have murdered himself anywhere from five to ten people.
42:35
Speaker 1: So he was a big bully, uh and the town
42:38
Speaker 1: was inarguably better off without him. Thus ends the story
42:42
Speaker 1: of the tyrant Mayor of cedar Key. And that's our
42:46
Speaker 1: episode for today. Think you as always to super producer
42:51
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram thinks also to Gabe Louisier, who we've been
42:56
Speaker 1: teasing for so long, but we you know, we did
42:59
Speaker 1: have a great talk with him. Um, we're gonna take
43:02
Speaker 1: him to the circus? Can I say that as a spoiler?
43:05
Speaker 1: Is that enough of a teaser? Maybe? I think that's
43:07
Speaker 1: perfect Ben? Uh, Now you know, not literally, we're not
43:11
Speaker 1: quite there yet and and these are COVID time but
43:13
Speaker 1: hopefully soon everybody, hopefully so hopefully your loved ones are
43:17
Speaker 1: getting that vaccine. And by the way, I want to
43:19
Speaker 1: say this, I think just for everyone's benefit. Um. I
43:22
Speaker 1: have a friend who pointed out to me that you
43:25
Speaker 1: can actually call places like Walmart, for example, this may
43:28
Speaker 1: be the only one around here that's doing it, and
43:30
Speaker 1: get on a waiting list for leftover doses of the
43:33
Speaker 1: vaccine because it's all appointment based and sometimes people don't
43:36
Speaker 1: turn up and they expire if they're not used the
43:39
Speaker 1: day that they're taking out a cold storage or put
43:42
Speaker 1: into the actual syringes for distribution, you know, for inoculation.
43:46
Speaker 1: So if anyone is interested, you can call local Walmart
43:50
Speaker 1: and actually get on a waiting list. And my my
43:52
Speaker 1: friend got the first dose of the vaccine and she
43:55
Speaker 1: is uh not an elderly person at all. Yeah, yeah,
43:58
Speaker 1: yeah you can. The vaccine situation in the US is
44:02
Speaker 1: going state by state. Please do be safe, folks, Uh,
44:07
Speaker 1: please take care with yourself and your loved ones. We'll
44:10
Speaker 1: get that through this together. If Cedar Key can survive
44:14
Speaker 1: a tire at mayor that we can weather a pandemic.
44:17
Speaker 1: Thanks of course to our favorite audio infection, Jonathan Strickland,
44:22
Speaker 1: a k a. The Quisted. Yeah for sure, I think
44:25
Speaker 1: we'll be hearing from both him and UH hero of
44:29
Speaker 1: the day, Gabe Luzier in the very near future. Huge
44:32
Speaker 1: thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Christopher haciois
44:35
Speaker 1: here in spirit. He's Jeff Coach. Check out this Day
44:37
Speaker 1: in History class on a podcast platform near you. And
44:41
Speaker 1: of course, thanks to the Cedar Keys Board of Tourism,
44:46
Speaker 1: a thing that I just made up. We'll see you
44:48
Speaker 1: next time. Books for more podcasts. For my heart Radio,
44:58
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio, ap Apple podcasts, or wherever
45:01
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.