[Vigilanteman]

The old gallows at Ft. Smith operated for two decades, sent over 200 perps to meet their maker, brought commerce into the town and turned it from one of the most lawless places on the frontier in 1880 to a nice quiet little town of church goers by 1900. There was not one botched hanging on record. You just need a hangman who knows what he’s doing.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Dick Hickock and Perry Smith spent six years on death row, following their conviction of the killings in western Kansas.
Hickock bragged he could ‘beat the hangman,” by doing a series of upper body exercises that strengthened his neck.
His neck did not snap when he was dropped through the gallows floor and he took nearly 25 minutes to die.