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How many people were legally hanged for stealing horses back in the Old West?

Was it dozens, hundreds, maybe even

thousands? What if I were to tell you that the actual number is just one? That's right,

just one person in the entire history of the old west was legally hanged for stealing horses.

An old boy over in California by the name of Theodore Valenquez. And even then the horse theft was charged

his grand larceny. Now, don't get me wrong, there were a lot of people who got strung up for

stealing horses, but it was almost exclusively done by lynch mobs as opposed to a jury of their peers

or a court-appointed executioner. And yes, this also includes my own home state of Texas.

If you look at the penal codes in Texas from the 1850s,

horse theft only carried a sentence of two to seven years in the penitentiary.

They bumped it up in 1879 to a maximum sentence of 15 years,

but it was never punishable by death.

Now, the reason I'm specifically bringing up Texas

is because there's a lot of people under the impression that you can still hang someone in the state of Texas if you catch them still in your horse. I've heard this my entire life, and it is absolutely false. Don't do it, okay? You're just going to get yourself in a whole lot of trouble. But as far as all the other Western states and territories, same thing applies.

At no point was there a law in the books in the Old West that made stealing horses a capital offense,

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