Birt Carter of the Mangas and the Mountain Lion
Little else is known of his life, but his name appears in the columns of the *Silver City Enterprise* for a single, striking encounter with a predatory cat [1].
In the last week of June or the first days of July 1888, Carter caught “a monster female mountain lion” at his ranch in Mangas [1]. He then transported the animal into Silver City, the county seat, and placed it in a cage that already held a male lion captured some weeks earlier by a rancher known as “Uncle Jim Metcalf” [1].
Within the same month, ex–United States scouts—men who had been employed by the government during Geronimo’s raid—reported a large party of “bad Indians” in the vicinity where a white man named Stevens had been attacked, and declared it unsafe for any single white man to travel that road [2].
Sources
- Birt Carter, of the Mangas, caught a mon-… (1888)Birt Carter, of the Mangas, caught a mon- ster female mountain lion last week at his ranch. It was brought into town and put into the same cage with the male lion captured by “Uncle Jim Metcalf” some weeks a…
- Silver City Enterprise — 1888-1890 (full OCR, Internet Archive) — 1888-07-20 (1888)are ex-United States scouts, who were employed by the government during Geronimo’s raid. He states further that there is a large party of bad Indians in the vicinity where Stevens was attacked, and thinks it…