Editing Kokomo, Indiana (section)

===Mayor Cole===
In 1881, one of the most remarkable and controversial events in Kokomo's history took place. Mayor Henry C. Cole was shot to death by a sheriff's posse. Dr. Cole had a curious history and had stirred up a great deal of passion in the previous fifteen years. He was reputed to have been a gifted surgeon, who served in the Union Army during the Civil War and when afterwards he settled in Kokomo, he became a prominent physician. In Kokomo he married a woman, Natalie Cole, of whom he became intensely jealous.<ref name="Leiter">{{Cite web
 | title = The Case of Dr. Henry Cole
 | last = Leiter | first = Carl
 | publisher = Kokomo-Howard County Public Library
 | work = From Out of the Past
 | id = undated clipping
 | url = http://www.howardcountymemory.net/item.aspx?details=36919
}}</ref> He became suspicious of one Allen, whom he warned away from Kokomo. When he discovered Allen leaving the post office one day in October 1866, he shot him dead.<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = Crimes and Casualties
 | last = Pollard | first = Otis C.
 | publisher = by Jackson Morrow (Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen & Co. [1909?]), Vol. I, pp. 282–304 ("Pollard"), p. 292-93
 | work = History of Howard County
 | year = 1909 | url = https://archive.org/details/historyofhowardc01morr
}}</ref> The fact that the killing both took place in broad daylight and showed cold-blooded rage (Cole continued shooting after Allen was down) caused the crime to receive national attention.<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = General News
 | newspaper = The New York Times
 | url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1866/10/29/83462422.pdf
 | date = October 29, 1866 | access-date = July 16, 2013
}}</ref> Cole's case was venued to Tipton County, where he retained [[Daniel W. Voorhees]] of Terre Haute to represent him.<ref name=Leiter /> Voorhees obtained a not guilty verdict on a plea of emotional insanity.<ref name="Pollard, p. 293">[[#Pollard|Pollard]], p. 293.</ref> Cole divorced his wife thereafter.

Cole's reputation for violent instability, and the cowardice in the way he killed Allen, created many enemies for him, but his generosity toward poor patients and a promise to "clean up" the town won him enough support to win a bitter election for Mayor in 1881.<ref name=Leiter /><ref name="Pollard, p. 293" /> Shortly thereafter, on September 19, 1881, he was shot dead by a sheriff's posse at Old Spring Mills at West Jefferson Street.<ref name=Leiter /> According to the coroner's inquest, he died from shotgun wounds inflicted by Deputy George Bennett (father of New York stage idol [[Richard Bennett (actor)|Richard Bennett]]).<ref name="Booher">Booher, Ned and Linda Ferries, ''Kokomo: A Pictorial History'' (St. Louis: G. Bradley: 1989), p. 28.</ref> The sheriff claimed that an informant had advised him that Cole was planning to rob a flour mill, possibly to incriminate his enemies. The posse was forced to fire on Cole in self-defense (the sheriff claimed he had two revolvers) and to prevent his escape, although his injuries seemed inconsistent with that version.<ref name=Booher /><ref>[[#Pollard|Pollard]], pp. 294–95.</ref> Cole's supporter's argued that no revolvers or burglary tools were produced and that the motive was implausible.<ref name=Booher /> Nevertheless, no action was taken against Bennett or the other members of the posse.

[[File:Natural gass well.JPG|thumb|[[Natural gas]] miners and their drill, near Kokomo, Indiana during the [[Indiana Gas Boom]], c. 1885]]