Western Lawmen

 

Doc Holliday

Lawmen often straddled the line between good and evil in the Wild West. It was impossible to distinguish the good guy from the bad guy in many situations. The Opelousas Courier said, “it was a common custom in the west to select a sheriff who made a record as a killer.”

Doc Holliday was a notorious gambler but quick to join a posse when the call went out. Although never officially a lawman, he had a habit of popping up whenever the Earps needed him.

One day, a group of cowboys rode into Dodge City with their guns blazing, shooting up storefronts and shop windows. After blowing off a little steam, the cowboys headed to the Long Branch Saloon where Doc was dealing faro. The group’s leader, Ed Morrison, saw Wyatt Earp coming through the door. Morrison drew down on him, challenging Earp to draw or die.

Doc got the drop on them and ordered the cowboys to drop their guns. Doc and Wyatt quickly disarmed the cowboys and tucked them away in the Dodge City jail. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that would last the remainder of Doc’s short life.

Wild Bill Hickok

Wild Bill Hickok served as city marshal of Hays City, Kansas, and later as marshal of Abilene, Kansas. But in real life, he was a badass gambler and gunman, rumored to have started over 100 men on their journey to perdition.

Wild Bill “was the quickest, surest shot ever in the West,” wrote the Saint Paul Daily Globe. “He had killed nearly forty men in his time, ‘not including Indians and greasers,’ as the bad men used pleasantly to say. It was the rarest thing that he shot his victim more than once. His favorite spot in which to plant his deadly bullet was between the eyes.” At one time, he was an excellent lawman. But, “woman, whisky, and Faro proved the ruin of Wild Bill.”

On September 8, 1869, Bill was elected city marshal of Hays City, Kansas, one of the toughest towns on the frontier. Not long after that, Sam Strangham approached him at a local saloon and pulled his Navy Colt. Bill got off the first shot and fired his derringer into Strangham’s left eye. “The man was stone dead on his feet, falling forward onto his face without even a twitch of the muscles.”

In December 1869, Bill Mulvey went on a drunken bender, terrorizing the town—breaking windows. After that, Mulvey got the drop on Bill, holding two pistols to his head. Bill faked him out by telling an imaginary constable behind him not to kill him. Mulvey turned to look, and Wild Bill blew his brains out. It was a dirty trick, but it saved his hide.

Wyatt Earp officiating at a boxing match

By the end of 1879, Wyatt Earp, his brothers Morgan and Virgil, and Doc Holliday made their way to Tombstone, Arizona. Since their arrival, the Earps had nursed a feud with the Clantons.

It came to a head in late August 1881.

“Tuesday night Ike Clanton and Doc Holliday had some difficulty in the Alhambra saloon,” wrote the Arizona Weekly Citizen. “Hard words passed between them, and it was assumed next time they met, there would be trouble.”

That was an understatement.

The next day, Ike Clanton strode down the street, armed with a revolver and a rifle. Wyatt Earp disarmed him. In court later that morning, Earp challenged Clanton to “get his crowd” and get ready for a fight.

About 2 p.m., crowds gathered on the corners of Allen and Fourth Streets, waiting for the expected fight to break out.

Sheriff Behan ordered Wyatt Earp to disarm his posse.

The Earps continued to walk down Fremont Street. Behan shouted at Earp, warning him not to go. He had disarmed the men waiting at the corral.

During the fight, the Earps and Doc Holliday brutally shot down James Clanton and Frank and Tom McLaury. After Morgan’s death, the Earps rode out dead set upon vengeance and killed Frank Stillwell, Florentino Cruz, and three other men they suspected were involved in his murder.

Bat masterson as a buffalo hunter

Today we think of Bat Masterson as one of the Old West's good guys, but in his day not everyone was convinced which side of the law he was on.

The confusion was understandable. Bat wore a badge, but he spent plenty of time around gamblers, gunfighters, saloon owners, and sporting men. On the Kansas frontier, that made him as dangerous as the men he arrested.

Bat was elected sheriff of Ford County, Kansas, in November 1877. Dodge City was booming, cattle money was flowing, and trouble was never far away. The Dodge City Times described him as "cool, decisive, and a bad man with a pistol." The New York Times agreed. "It took a man with a reputation to be sheriff of Ford County." If reputation were the job requirement, Bat was a natural fit.

As sheriff, he hunted horse thieves, tracked down fugitives, and kept order in one of the roughest cattle towns in the West. He survived gunfights, political feuds, and more than a few close calls. By the time he turned in his badge, he was one of the best-known lawmen on the frontier. And one of the least trusted.

In 1883, Police Superintendent Thomas Byrnes of New York asked Bat to track down a mysterious stranger stalking millionaire George Gould. Byrnes chose Bat because he wanted a man who "would not be afraid to shoot a man on a crowded Broadway and who would be certain to hit the right man."

Bat chased his quarry for eight months before finally making an arrest. The suspect claimed Helen Gould had promised to marry him. Authorities said he was a lunatic—but a clever one if he could evade the New York Police Department and Bat Masterson for nearly a year.

And then, like a cat with nine lives, Bat reinvented himself as a journalist and then a fight promoter (although allegations of cheating and fixing fights followed him).

The Dalton Gang fighting for their lives at Coffeyville

The three Dalton brothers—Grat, Bob, and Emmett — served as lawmen early in their careers.

Their oldest brother, Frank, a United States Marshal, was shot and killed while trailing horse thieves through Oklahoma Territory in 1887. Then, brothers Bob, Grat, and Emmett turned outlaws in early 1890 after they had trouble collecting their pay for some law enforcement work they were involved in.

They weren’t the first outlaws to get their start as lawmen, only to decide the pay was greater on the other side.

Tom Horn check his rifle

Tom Horn may have been a cattle detective, but his idea of bringing his man to justice had nothing to do with courts or justice. He had a more permanent solution in mind. Criminals who faced him ended up planted six feet underground.

From 1886 to 1888, Horn served as a deputy sheriff in Yavapai and Gila Counties, Arizona. Several years later, he joined the Pinkertons in Denver, Colorado.They hired him because of his unique tracking skills. He could sniff out a trail faster than a coon dog trailing a bitch in heat.

Horn said he “never had a very good feeling about the Pinkertons.” They spent too much time talking and too little time doing. So when superintendent, James McParland asked how he would handle a train robbery case, Horn didn’t need time to think. He said, “If I had a good man with me, I could catch up to them.” He did. A few years later, he left the Pinkertons and struck out on his own.

Heck Thomas

Heck Thomas was in on the kill for some of the West’s most dangerous outlaws. He helped take down Bill Dalton, Bill Doolin, and the Lee brothers, a notorious group of Texas cattle rustlers. He rode on the final chase after “Dynamite Dick” Clifton but missed out on the kill.

Thomas got his start in law enforcement at seventeen when he joined the Atlanta, Georgia, police force. From 1875 to 1885, he worked as a railroad guard for the Texas Express Company. In 1885, he became a member of the Fort Worth Detective Association.

He became a member of the “Three Guardsmen” in 1891. The other members were Bill Tilghman and Chris Madsen. Together they took down over 300 outlaws and fugitives in the Indian Territory.

After the Adair, Oklahoma train robbery in July 1892, Heck trailed the Dalton Brothers to within twenty miles of Coffeyville, Kansas. Before he could close in on their campsite, he received word of their annihilation during the Coffeyville Bank robbery.

Bill Tilghman

In 1894 and 1895, two teenage girls caused a stir in Indian Territory—peddling whisky and stealing horses. Jennie “Little Britches” Stevens and “Cattle Annie” McDougal were sixteen and thirteen when they were accused of running messages for the Doolin-Dalton gang.

Bill Tilghman and Steve Burke chased the girls to a farmhouse outside Pawnee, Oklahoma. When they moved in, the girls took off on horseback. Burke rode off after “Cattle Annie.” Tilghman chased after “Little Britches.”

Even though she was only sixteen, “Little Britches” challenged Bill’s man-hunting skills. She let loose with her Winchester, sending a bevy of hot lead swirling around the marshal’s head. Tilghman pulled back to regroup, then charged the girl, shot down her horse, tackled her, and brought her to the ground.

On July 6, 1895, “Cattle Annie” was sentenced to one year in Federal prison for peddling whisky to the Osage Indians. “Little Britches” was sentenced to two years for horse theft and whisky peddling.

Not long after that, Tilghman was chasing down Bill Raidler, a member of the Doolin-Dalton Gang. He arrested Bill Doolin single-handedly on January 18, 1896.

Tilghman became the sheriff of Lincoln County, Oklahoma, in 1899. Five years later, he was a member of the Oklahoma delegation of the Democratic National Convention in St. Louis. Tilghman became an Oklahoma State Senator in 1910 and chief of police in Oklahoma City in 1911.

Evett Dumas Nix

Most people remember Bill Tilghman, Heck Thomas, and Chris Madsen. Few remember the man who hired them.

EvettDumas Nix never achieved the fame of the frontier lawmen who worked for him, but as U.S. Marshal for Oklahoma Territory, he oversaw the capture of many of the Old West’s baddest outlaws.

When Nix took office in 1893, Oklahoma Territory was a haven for robbers, cattle rustlers, and killers. The Doolin-Dalton Gang was at the height of its power, and deputy marshals regularly risked their lives tracking fugitives across thousands of square miles of rough country.

Just weeks after Nix’s appointment, a posse rode into Ingalls, Oklahoma, to arrest members of the Doolin-Dalton Gang. The gunfight that followed became one of the bloodiest battles in U.S. Marshals Service history. Three deputies were killed, several outlaws were wounded, and the gang escaped.

Nix stepped up the pressure, assembling an elite force of deputy marshals that included Tilghman, Thomas, and Madsen. Within a few years, most of the Doolin-Dalton Gang was dead, behind bars, or on the run.

Unlike many frontier lawmen, Nix wasn’t known for fast draws or gunfights. His talent was organization. He built the team that broke the back of outlawry in Oklahoma Territory and brought one of the Wild West’s final crime waves to an end.

Without Evett Dumas Nix, some of the West’s most famous lawmen might never have become legends.

There was something about the West that messed with a man’s mind. So many times, there was no right or wrong. Justice came down to which side of the tracks you found yourself on at a particular moment in time.

Another truth, reported in The Opelousas Courier, was, “When a man accepted the marshal’s star or service badge, he knew pretty well that he was taking long chances in a game with death.” A silver star glowed like a target over the marshal’s heart.

It acted as an invitation to drunken fools, gunfighter wannabes, and men seeking a reputation. By killing the marshal or sheriff, many felt they’d share his power. It was like the ancient Indian civilizations where warriors ate the hearts of their dead enemies—it transferred their strength, power, and cunning to them.

 

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