1887.

Sometimes it’s better not to wait.

A regular source of mine mentioned a letter his office got from a national organization for cops killed in the line of duty. The group was trying to research two names to see whether they belonged on a national memorial. The two men died in 1887.

My dude gave me a copy of the letter and a few short newspaper items from around the country that mention the men’s deaths. His office hadn’t found anything, but maybe my newspaper’s archives might have something.

I suppose I could have looked around a little and passed along what I found, then waited for some movement on their cases to write a story. But I had a different idea: Why not research the deaths myself, see what I could find or prove, then write a story about how we did the research. Sort of a meta story.

Every time I read one of those stories about long-dead cops getting recognized, there’s rarely anything in there about how, exactly, people found what they found. I thought our readers might be kind of interested.

So I started simply. The men worked in Grant County. I called the sheriff, who never heard of them, and a local history museum. I also found a couple clips in our archives. Based on the little bit I found in those places, I checked Census records, personal property tax records, probate and criminal court records, election records — anything I could find that might tell me a little more about who these men were and how they died.

What I was looking for was at least 122 years old. Not all of what I wanted still existed. But I found enough.

These two men aren’t listed on the state’s memorial either. But now, with this story and the research behind it, they might be. A cool little thing, that.