COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JANUARY 16, 2019 •
11A
Off beat Oregon: Sheepman’s disappearance maybe be Oregon’s oldest cold case
By Finn J.D. John
for The Sentinel
T
he disappearance of
sheep rancher Shorty
Davis has got to be Cen-
tral Oregon’s oldest cold case …
there are older unsolved crimes,
but it’s hard to think of an older
one that people are still thinking
about. It’s been almost 120 years
since the aff able, odd-looking
pioneer vanished, and locals
are still spinning theories about
what might have happened.
Th e most popular theory,
then and now, is that he was
a victim of the last round of
the Oregon range wars — the
Crook County Sheepshooters
outbreak of 1896-1906.
Another good possibility,
supported by local resident
Dorothy Lawson McCall —
Gov. Tom McCall’s mother, by
the way — is that he was mur-
dered by one of his neighbors,
an ill-tempered cattleman who
later proved the low quality of
his character by perpetrating a
murder-suicide on his wife aft er
some fi nancial setbacks.
Whatever happened, it seems
to have left no trace of the
stockman. He took with him
only his horse, his saddle, and
(some sources say) a gun. He
left behind 800 acres of good
ranch land, roughly 3,000 head
of sheep, about 60 cattle, 14,000
pounds of wool in the barn
ready to be shipped to mar-
ket — and lots of very puzzled
friends. A $1,000 reward was
promptly off ered for anyone
who could fi nd him or his body.
No one ever claimed it.
S
horty Davis fi rst came to
Crook County when it was
still part of Wasco County, in
1881 — the year before the for-
mation and reign of terror of
Colonel William “Bud” Th omp-
son and his Prineville Vigilan-
tes.
As a general rule, all men
nicknamed “Shorty” are either
very short or very tall; and in
Shorty’s case, it was the for-
mer. He was a powerful, bar-
rel-chested man, with very long
arms and an unusually large
head, but with very short legs;
it was as if he were a dwarf from
the waist down and a giant from
the waist up.
He was a dark man, ol-
ive-skinned and with black hair.
And there seems to have been
something about him that in-
spired friendship and trust.
Upon arrival as a penniless
laborer in his mid-20s, he im-
mediately started working for
local sheep outfi ts, taking his
pay in sheep at the end of every
season and acquiring land every
chance he got. By 1895 he had
a substantial acreage — three
quarter-sections plus a ranch
with a house and barn on it. He
also had a big fl ock of sheep.
But 1896 was the year a group
of cattle ranchers got togeth-
er to do something about the
“sheep problem.” Th e increasing
popularity of sheep ranching
in central Oregon was putting
pressure on the publicly-owned
rangeland. Legally anyone was
allowed to graze anything on
that land at any time; but the
cattlemen felt that since they
had been there fi rst — well, ac-
tually, they personally hadn’t,
but there had been cows on the
range before there had been
sheep — they should be entitled
to fi rst rights on it.
Th ey decided that when they
found a fl ock of sheep grazing
on public land that they had
“claimed” for their gang, they
would sneak up on the sheep-
herder, tie him up, and massa-
cre the sheep. Th ey took their
style and tactics from Th omp-
son and the Vigilantes, wearing
masks and riding by night and
sending anonymous sinister
threatening messages to anyone
who opposed them; in fact, his-
torian David Braly reports that
a number of them had been
members of the Vigilantes, 15
years before.
And so, slowly at fi rst but
with increasing boldness over
the following decade or so, they
started doing this. By the time
a long-suff ering and exasperat-
ed federal government ended
the squabble by establishing a
grazing-permit system, tens of
thousands of sheep had met an
untimely end at their hands.
S
horty, of course, had a lot
of sheep, and ran them
NEW EXPANDED HOURS
Mon- Th urs 11- 9 • Fri - Sat 11 - 10 • Sun 11 - 7
Locally
Sourced
PIG
&
TURNIP
LOW COST
Local & Metro Weekday Trips
Professional Caring Staff
EST
2015
UNITE
Your Regional Public Transportation Service
No elgibility requirements.
German
Inspired
Fo o d
Beer
Wine
Cider
541-942-0456
60 Gateway Blvd. Cottage Grove, Or 97424
southlanetransit.com
418 A St., Springfi eld, OR 97477 • 541-968-2403
541-942-6130 • pigandturnip.com
STILL
RUNNING
OUT TO
FETCH THE
PAPER?
on lands that cattlemen were
pleased to think of as their own
turf. So, tensions rose as the
1890s ripened into the dawning
of the new century.
Th en one mid-August day in
1900, Shorty’s neighbors heard
a big commotion at his ranch:
all the animals were bawling
and bleating. Th ey were, as it
turned out, hungry. Shorty had
apparently left without feeding
them.
Or maybe he didn’t leave.
In any case, he was never seen
again.
S
horty was declared dead less
than a month later — which
seems unusually hasty, even by
the standards of a century ago,
but Shorty had a lot of valuable
property and most likely some
of the would-be bidders were
well connected; they would
have wanted to hurry things up
before any relatives could fi nd
out. If so, this tactic worked.
Shorty’s relatives wouldn’t learn
of his disappearance for several
years aft er it happened.
Meanwhile, a desultory run
of advertisements in nearby
papers didn’t turn up any heirs,
so his stock and land were auc-
tioned off — and the bidders
got the land and stock for about
15 cents on the dollar of its ac-
tual value.
Elsewhere, the Sheepshoot-
ers were getting increasingly
bold. In 1903 alone, they killed
over 10,000 sheep. Communi-
ty opinion was starting to turn
against them, as it had with the
Vigilantes two decades before,
and for similar reasons; they
were powerful, scary, anony-
mous, and accountable only to
themselves.
Plus, they hated sheepmen. It
was only natural that suspicion
would fall on them for Shorty’s
disappearance.
In 1905, a witness in a land-
fraud trial in Portland claimed
Shorty had been murdered and
dumped into an old dry well on
his property. Th e well was exca-
vated; it contained no trace of
Shorty. Apparently the witness
had made up the story just on
the off -chance that the murder-
er had disposed of the body that
way, so that he could snag the
$1,000 reward.
In 1909, a spring fl ood ex-
posed some bones in a creekbed
near Prineville, and on the basis
of that evidence Charles Colby,
the neighboring cattle rancher
who had feuded with Shorty,
was arrested. He was released
for lack of evidence — although
Dorothy Lawson McCall re-
mained personally convinced of
his guilt. Th e bones apparently
were not his.
By that time, though, Shorty’s
relatives had been found.
H
is real name, it turned out,
was Leonidas Douris; he
was a Greek by birth. He had
changed his name to conceal
himself from other Greeks, in-
cluding his relatives, who would
put the bite on him for loans
and then never pay them back.
Shorty was a nice guy — appar-
ently too nice for his own good
— and therefore easy to take
advantage of. It had become a
big enough problem that he lit-
erally went on the lam from his
friends and family to short-cir-
cuit it.
Shorty’s brothers came to
town to wrap up all his aff airs
and to collect and distribute
what was left of his estate. But
still there was no trace of Shorty
himself.
Over the following years,
Shorty Davis became some-
thing like an obsession, and
remained so for decades aft er-
ward.
In March 2008, Shorty’s
grand-niece, Anastasia Douris,
came to the U.S. to learn more
about him. Th e family back in
Greece had heard that he’d been
murdered by cowboys, who had
taken over his ranch. She found
that, far from being a forgotten
victim of Old West violence, her
relative was Prineville’s munici-
pal mystery — still.
So, what really happened to
Shorty Davis? It seems unlikely
that, if he died of natural caus-
es, no body would have been
found. During the years when
a $1,000 reward was being of-
fered, people were crawling all
over the landscape looking for
clues. If he’d drowned in a riv-
er, his horse would have been
found; if the horse had slipped
off a trail and over a cliff , some-
one would have found the bod-
ies or bones.
So it’s most likely someone
hid him deliberately, presum-
ably aft er murdering him. And
if that’s the case, unless his mur-
derer was incompetent, we’ll al-
most certainly never know.
Finn J.D. John teaches at
Oregon State University and
writes about odd tidbits of
Oregon history. For details, see
http://fi nnjohn.com. To contact
him or suggest a topic: fi nn2@
offb eatoregon.com or 541-357-
2222.
Another dental visit?
Turns out, you have better things
to do with your time.
Subscribe to home delivery,
and we’ll deliver it to your mailbox!
SUBSCRIBE
At the 2018 Rate
and Save!
Subscribe before
January 31, 2019 to take
advantage of the
2018 rate of $41.00.
Ask us about Auto Pay
S entinel
C ottage G rove
541-942-3325
www.cgsentinel.com
*This offer is not transferable and the offer is available those who have not subscribed in the last 31
days. Special introductory offers are limited to no more than two special subscriptions in a twelve
month period and must be paid in advance to qualify for special rate. Once the above discounted
period ends, you will be billed at the regular subscription rates.
We know your time is valuable. That's why we've invested in CEREC
technology that allows for a faster experience when you need crowns,
fillings or veneers. With CEREC, there's usually no need for a temporary
and return visit. Everything is done in one visit, in about an hour -
leaving more time for whatever is important to you.
Implants •Teeth Whitening • Extractions • Lumineers (no prep veneers as seen on TV)
Cottage Grove Dental
Dr. Brent Bitner, DDS
350 Washington, Cottage Grove
(behind Better Bodies)
942-7934
CEREC® is a registered trademark of Sirona Dental Systems.