Lovell’s forgotten 1924 murder and its hard lessons

We study the past to avoid the mistakes of history, yet too often we turn away from its warnings and repeat its sad stories. One such tragedy struck in the winter of 1924, when violence shattered the quiet streets of Lovell.

On February 6 of that year, Joseph O. Evans, a 28-year-old World War I veteran, drew a pistol in the washroom of the Overland Hotel and shot his closest friend, 20-year-old George Moreland. The two had grown up together in the Midwest and had come west to Northern Wyoming together in search of steady wages at the newly opened Lovell Glass Factory.

Though they looked scarcely older than boys, Evans carried unseen scars, his body marked by wounds, his mind weighed down by the trenches, the mud, the shellfire and the gruesome scenes no one back home could imagine. Those ghosts followed him into that narrow washroom of a small-town hotel, where in a single instant, friendship gave way to tragedy.

Two weeks earlier, Evans had been handed a $700 military settlement, a small fortune at the time, nearly a year’s wages at the glass factory. But there was no guidance, no plan for what to do with such money. His training had taught him how to march, to shoot, to endure, but not how to manage a sudden windfall. So he quit his steady factory job and slid headlong into drink, chasing down whatever liquor or substitute he could get his hands on.

He was not alone. In 1917 and 1918, as young Americans pushed across Europe, alcohol became as much a part of soldiering as fear and exhaustion. Officially, the Army frowned on hard liquor, but beer was easy enough to find in the mess halls, and fighting beside the Allies came with its own intoxicating perks: French comrades happily traded their daily wine ration, while the British shared measures of rum. And in every battered town and half-ruined village, locals were quick to sell homemade spirits to the wide-eyed boys from America, eager for a taste of relief.

Some soldiers drank to forget. Others drank simply to be part of the group. Whether it led to dependence or just a habit of escape, they carried that thirst home. By the time they stepped back onto American soil, many returned with more than memories of battle, they returned with a taste for booze, one that would not be easily shaken.

The cruel irony was this: just as millions of soldiers returned from the horrors of war, many were suffering from what we now recognize as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Left unspoken and untreated, the United States chose that moment to outlaw the production and sale of alcohol nationwide.

Which brings us back to Joseph O. Evans. With a fortune in his pocket and plenty of time on his hands, Evans was drinking constantly, quarreling and threatening violence. He consumed dangerous substitutes, including Alcorub, a drugstore lotion with 70% alcohol. Newspapers described him as “crazed from drinking bathing liniment and alcohol.” He experimented with anything he could find, paint thinner, rubbing alcohol, women’s perfume, even Jamaican ginger.

That fateful morning, Evans purchased a handgun from the local hardware store and was showing it off recklessly. Lester Thatch, described as “a very big man,” physically confiscated the weapon. But Evans soon bought another, a brand-new Colt .32-20 revolver, and loaded it with soft-nosed bullets.

Later that evening, Evans and Moreland entered the hotel washroom. Witnesses could not say whether Moreland tried to disarm him or calm him, but Evans suddenly pulled the revolver and fired. The bullet struck Moreland in the thyroid gland of the neck, killing him instantly.

The hotel guests rushed in, seized the gunman and called the sheriff. Evans, still dazed, refused to believe he had killed his friend and begged officers to let him see Moreland’s body to “prove it.” Sheriff McMillan and Coroner Minnis quickly arrived, held an inquest and transported Evans to Basin. By the following afternoon, the sheriff reported Evans was finally becoming rational again as the effects of his binge wore off.

At trial, Evans claimed he had no memory of firing the shot. Witnesses testified he had been on a “prolonged debauchery” and had openly threatened to shoot someone earlier that day. Some in the community, shaken by the senseless killing, even called for his lynching. Sheriff’s deputies had to guard the jail night and day to prevent frontier justice.

Contemporary newspaper accounts focused on the contrast between the crime and the prisoner’s appearance. The Basin Rustler noted that when Evans was taken to prison he was “dressed in the neat attire of the average lad of the times with a youthful face, free of any of the earmarks of the criminal.”

It was a sad tale that echoed every mother’s fear: that their perfect son might return from war not only dead but perhaps worse, broken in mind and spirit, with no treatment available beyond the hollow advice to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” a meaningless phrase that placed the blame back on the one suffering.

As Joe Evans sat in the jail cell in Basin that cold February he mourned the loss of his best friend, his responsibility for his death and the prospect of spending the rest of his life in the austere horrors of the Wyoming Penitentiary. 

“When it was finally time to travel to Rawlins, Evans was handcuffed to another convict who had been sentenced for the attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl.” The Rustler editorial lamented that the honored veteran, in a different environment, “would have lived the life of an average normal American” but instead “became the victim of booze and must now pay the price.”

George Moreland’s body made the final trip home in a coffin accompanied on the train by his mother who had come to Wyoming to make arrangements for his travel.  Moreland is buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Belleville, Illinois, next to his father, who had passed away six years earlier and was spared the grief that his mother felt to lose a child in such a violent and unusual way.

Questions to Consider

Although these events happened more than a century ago in our small town, several of the issues at play seem sadly familiar today.

Are veterans given the physical and mental care they need after enduring the violence of war?

When governments dictate what people may or may not put in their bodies, do the consequences sometimes lead to worse outcomes, street drugs, vaping, meth and binge drinking?

Do our schools prepare young people for real-world financial decisions such as budgeting, saving and investing, or only for solving far more abstract math?

What factors should limit an individual’s access to firearms? Mental health crises? Destructive behaviors? Dangerous addictions?

Is incarceration in the harsh conditions of a state prison truly the best hope for rehabilitation and future success?

Do our communities provide meaningful support for mental health, or does admitting to depression or anxiety still carry a label of weakness?

Some hope

Joe Evans, the baby-faced veteran hardened by the brutal war in Europe, was shown unexpected compassion by the judge and the Big Horn County jurors. Though some had demanded the gallows, Evans was instead convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 8–12 years in the Wyoming State Penitentiary at Rawlins, with the possibility of early release for good behavior. 

In prison he took advantage of a library full of books and spent his days reading and teaching his fellow inmates, and after serving just over three years in prison, he walked free. Evans returned to Kansas, where he lived quietly near his family until his death. He now rests in the Fredonia Kansas Cemetery.

The killing of George Moreland by his friend Joe Evans was a personal tragedy born of alcohol abuse, easy access to guns and a lack of support for a struggling young veteran. Though the crime occurred a century ago, its underlying causes remain with us. The solutions are not simple.

The only path forward is through respectful and thoughtful dialogue—not inflammatory rhetoric, not violence and not the deepening separation of ideological “tribes.” These problems can only be resolved with compromise, empathy and respect.