Colorado Charlie Utter
Charlie Utter was born in New York State near Niagara Falls in 1838 and spent his youth in Illinois. By the 1860s Utter had moved to Colorado where he earned his living as a trapper and prospector. He became a well known packer and guide in the silver and gold regions of the Rocky Mountains west of Denver.

Although only five feet six inches tall, Charlie made up for his size by his dandified appearance. He wore his blond hair long complemented by a moustache. Some reports suggest that in Deadwood he also sported fringed buckskins, beaded moccasins and a pair of silver-mounted pistols.

It is uncertain when Charlie Utter and Wild Bill first met, but by 1876 both men were in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, and were considered partners. Colorado Charlie, his brother Steve, and Wild Bill Hickok arrived in Deadwood around July 12, 1876.

Utter immediately started working on his Pony Express service. He and his other riders transported sometimes two to three thousand letters at a time, at a charge of $.25 each, across hostile mountains and plains between Laramie and Deadwood with some trips being concluded in just 48 hours.

Charlie Utter was seeing to his business affairs on August 2, 1876, when Wild Bill was killed by Jack McCall. As soon as he heard about the shooting, he rushed to the saloon and claimed the body of his friend. The following day Charlie held a funeral for Wild Bill. Hickok was laid to rest in a plot at Ingleside Cemetery paid for by Utter. An epitaph carved into a tree stump at the head of the grave was later replaced by a specially-prepared board which read: Wild Bill, J. B. Hickock [sic] killed by the assassin Jack M’Call in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2d, 1876. Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting ground to part no more. Good bye, Colorado Charlie, C. H. Utter.

Three years later, Utter oversaw the relocation of Wild Bill’s body to Mt. Moriah Cemetery where Hickok rests today. In 1880 it was rumored that a New York museum was anxious to dig up Wild Bill’s body, which when he had been re-interred, was reported to have become petrified by chemicals in the soil. Charlie returned to Deadwood to prevent such a thing from happening.

Charlie Utter returned to Colorado but always stayed informed about Wild Bill’s grave and those anxious to erect memorials. His biographer, Agnes Wright Spring, traced him to Panama after the turn of the century where it is believed that he was known as Dr. C. H. Utter. His date of death is unknown.