Now, gentlemen, there being nothing further to do, suppose we adjourn to the bar and take a little something just for old time’s sake.
—LUKE SHORT
The Dodge City War had its roots in an action taken by nervous ranchers later backed by the law. Cattle coming up from South Texas were transmitting splenic fever to the longhorns in the Panhandle. When Governor Oran Roberts failed to quarantine cattle in the south, the rancher Charles Goodnight led a “Winchester Quarantine,” a line of defense consisting of armed men with orders to shoot any cattle and cowboys who tried to enter West Texas or the Panhandle. When the Kansas legislature contemplated (and would later issue) a ban on the importation of all Texas cattle, wherever they were from, and prohibited shipping them across the state in railroad cars, Dodge City waned as a cow town. The summer of 1881 saw the last big cattle drive along what had become known as the Great Western Trail.
It was a step away from the wide-open frontier but another one toward civilization. Dodge City still had the railroad, at least, but by 1883, so did just about every place else of consequence. That November, to help organize and coordinate the shipping of passengers and freight every day over the thousands of miles of rail line that covered North America, at noon on the eighteenth the railroad companies in the United States and Canada would implement time zones. Timetables could then allow for there being an hour difference from Eastern to Central to Mountain to Pacific time zones.
No longer being in a cow town, Dodge City saloon owners and some other businessmen had to figure out a future with far fewer cowboys spending their money fast and furiously. About the same time as this uncertain future was being pondered, Luke Short returned to town. He spent enough time at the Long Branch Saloon and did well enough at gambling and other pursuits that he would buy a piece of the place. And one indication of the hopes that the city would have a stable environment and truly leave the “wicked” days behind was the opening of the Bank of Dodge City, the first such institution. In 1882, with the surrounding frontier deemed safe enough, Fort Dodge closed its gates for good.
It is one of those delicious ironies of history that such milestones pretty much coincided with the death of America’s most famous bank robber. By 1882, many of the outlaws who had put Dodge City and other notorious frontier towns on the map were in prison or dead. That April, they would be joined by one more.
After the disastrous bank robbery attempt in Northfield, Minnesota in 1876, Jesse James and his brother Frank had spent several years under assumed names farming in the Nashville area. They probably could have lived out the rest of their lives there as history moved on, raising families. Frank had married seventeen-year-old Annie Ralston, and in 1878 the two had a son, Robert. But the brothers were not very good at farming, and in October 1879, the pockets of their overalls empty, a new James Gang was formed, and they robbed a train near Glendale, Missouri, hauling in a handsome thirty-five thousand dollars.
This obviously held them over for a time because the gang’s next robbery was not until 1881, when they robbed a stage in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. That July, during a robbery of a train back in Missouri, two men were shot dead, reportedly both by Jesse. There was a big public outcry, and Governor Thomas Crittenden offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for the capture and conviction of the James brothers. However, this did not stop them from thievery. Jesse had even taken to reading dime-store novels about himself and no longer bothered to wear a mask. During another train robbery in Missouri, he entered a passenger car, announced, “I’m Jesse James,” and as if hosting a stage show, he introduced the other members of his gang. They took fifteen hundred dollars and rode off.
The gang fell apart soon after, though, and the only two men left riding with the James brothers were Bob and Charlie Ford. On April 3, 1882, Jesse was at home in St. Joseph, Missouri, with his wife, Zee, and their two children. He invited the Ford brothers there to plan a robbery of the Platte County Bank. Jesse did not know that the Fords had secretly met with Crittenden about betraying Frank and his younger brother. After sharing a meal, the three men went into the parlor. Jesse stepped up on a stool to straighten a framed picture on the wall, and Bob Ford moved close behind him with a pistol and fired several times. Jesse was dead when he hit the floor. As the Fords ran from the house, Bob kept shouting, “I killed him! I killed Jesse James!” They went to the nearest telegraph office and wired the news to Crittenden.
They were charged with murder, but the governor had the charges dropped and the ten-thousand-dollar reward was paid. The Fords lived in fear that Frank James would avenge his murdered brother, but five months later, he walked into Crittenden’s office, took off his gun belt, and surrendered. Still, Charlie Ford remained so frightened that he committed suicide. The “cowardly Bob Ford,” as he was known, made his way farther and farther west, through Kansas and into Colorado, working in saloons. In Creede, in 1892, he was shot to death.
The tours that Frank led on the family farm in Kearney, Missouri, until his death at seventy-two in 1915 (with he and Bat Masterson still corresponding) included Jesse’s grave site. Visitors could buy stones right from the site. Whenever there were only a handful of stones left, Frank replaced them with more from a nearby creek. Ultimately, enough stones were sold to have covered dozens of graves.
Luke Short was not the sole owner of the Long Branch, because in February 1883, when he bought out the interest of Chalk Beeson, Beeson’s partner, William Harris, became Luke’s partner. That was fine with both men, who had last done business together when Harris and Wyatt were partners in the Oriental Saloon back in Tombstone. Harris was a solid businessman and founder of the Bank of Dodge City. But when he ran for mayor, trouble followed.
In the election that April, Harris lost to a familiar figure in Dodge City, Lawrence Edward Deger, the count being 214–143. Just beating Harris at the ballot box was not enough for the rotund new mayor: he wanted to put him—and by extension Luke—out of business. The campaign began on April 26 when it was decreed that brothel keepers and their prostitutes would be fined and other forms of unsavory entertainment were no longer welcome in Dodge City. That apparently included singing, because two days later, three women performing in the Long Branch Saloon were hauled off to jail. Singing wasn’t the primary way that girls in saloons brought in money, everyone knew, but it was a tad too vindictive to, as Bat put it, have them “locked up in the city calaboose.”
When Luke Short learned that no other singers at the saloons in the city had been arrested, he strapped on his guns and headed for the jail to get them out. Once that task was attended to, Luke would take his grievances to the new mayor. He knew that Deger was the hand-picked successor of the outgoing mayor, Ab Webster, who owned the Stock Exchange, a rival saloon one door east of the Long Branch. And word around town was that Harris had been defeated thanks to railroad workers casting illegal ballots. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad wanted Dodge City even more tamed than it was when Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson had removed their badges and left it several years earlier. Other sins to be outlawed were “loitering, loafing, or wandering,” the idea being to get rid of vagrants and any others not contributing to the local economy.
Deger knew that Short was a friend of Bat Masterson’s, and that alone put him on the wrong side of the law. He still bore a grudge over Bat defeating him for Ford County sheriff in November 1877 and then losing his deputy job soon afterward. Let Luke Short and his six-shooters come on. If Deger couldn’t get Bat, he’d get one of his good friends.
It was moonless and dark that cool late-April night when Luke marched toward the jail. Lou Hartman had the bad luck of being on the wooden sidewalk outside of it. He had been hired as a city policeman by Deger within the last couple of days, and here was a known killer coming his way. Not taking any chances, Hartman drew his gun and fired. His bad luck continued, because he missed his diminutive target, the bullet kicking up dust behind him. Luke whipped out his pistols. Clearly, Hartman had not signed up for this, and he turned and ran. His one piece of good luck was that he tripped and fell off the sidewalk, so that when Luke fired, the bullets flew overhead.
Seeing the policeman topple out of sight caused Luke to think he’d killed Hartman, meaning he’d sure done more damage than he’d intended to do. He hightailed it back to the closed-up Long Branch and fortified it further by piling chairs and a table up against the door. He grabbed the shotgun from behind the bar, made sure it was loaded, and waited. Deger and his remaining crooked lackeys would have to come and get him.
Luke needn’t have bothered erecting the barricade and, no doubt, losing a night’s sleep. Hartman was not hurt, just embarrassed. In the morning, a messenger was sent by City Marshal Jack Bridges, whom The Kansas City Evening Star would soon describe as “a well-known character”; whatever that meant, it wasn’t good. The deputy shouted the news about the resurrected Hartman through the saloon’s door. And, the groggy Luke was told, if he surrendered peacefully, the only punishment would be a small fine for shooting off his guns.
The gambler in him saw this as a winning hand and not for the bluff it was. Down came the barricade, and Luke emerged, leaving his pistols on the bar along with the shotgun. But policemen took him into custody and he was tossed in jail. Luke was charged with assault—though the sidewalk had done more damage to Hartman than he had—and was released only when he put up two thousand dollars as bond.
That wasn’t enough for Webster, Deger, and the other “reformers,” some of whom had been deputized by Bridges. They were now riding roughshod over the town government and what had once been a pretty impartial law-enforcement system. Short and his gambler pals were viewed as a reminder of past evils as well as future rivals. Best to be rid of them altogether; so a couple of days after his assault arrest, Luke was again taken into custody. Five friends shared his cell. They were charged as being “undesirables,” which sounded more like a social gaffe than a crime. Even so, they were not allowed to see lawyers. The six prisoners may have felt their necks itching as they wondered how far the reformers would go.
One morning, a group of deputies and others recruited for the task showed up at the jail and escorted the six men out of it and through town to the train station. Webster and Deger may have recognized how fitting it was that the railroad would remove the problem from Dodge City. The men were told it didn’t matter which way they went, they should just get on a train. Three men chose to head west. Luke Short, accompanied by two others, took the eastbound train, to Kansas City.
From there he sent a telegram to Bat Masterson. Luke Short’s wire found him in Denver. Ever loyal to friends, Bat hopped on a train and joined Luke in Kansas City, where he also found his old undersheriff, Charlie Bassett, who had been helping his brother at a saloon there. Bat’s advice was that Luke should head to Topeka and plead his case to the governor of Kansas. George Washington Glick was an opponent of prohibition, which appeared to be what the reformers in Dodge City were trying to impose. While Luke was on that mission, Bat’s would be to round up supporters in case the governor failed to act.
Luke would learn that Governor Glick was already aware that things might get out of hand there. A Kansas City newspaper reported that “prominent Kansas City attorneys left to-day for Topeka to petition Gov. Glick in the interest of Dodge City property owners that the town be placed under martial law.” It further informed readers, “The place is practically in the hands of the ‘vigilantes’ and the situation is more serious. The trains are watched and armed men guard the town while a list of others who would be ordered out has been prepared. Every source of reliable information indicates that Dodge is now in the hands of desperadoes [and] the lives and property of the citizens are by no means safe.”
Luke did petition the governor, who in turn wired George Hinkle, still the sheriff of Ford County, requesting his view of the situation. Hinkle responded that it had been blown all out of proportion, and if need be he could take on any troublemakers. Glick was not convinced, but he was reluctant to send a contingent of Kansas militia to Dodge City and round all the reformers up. He suggested to Luke that he return to Dodge City under the protection of the governor and with a ten-day grace period, during which he would settle up his business affairs and leave.
This was not a smart suggestion. The Kansas City Evening Star emphasized that after the ouster of Short and other business rivals of the Webster/Deger faction, “vigilantes took possession of the town.” A reporter in Dodge City sent by The Chicago Times had been warned not to send any telegrams notifying his newspaper of what was transpiring, and “a body of armed men watched the arrival of each train to see that there was no interference. That there will be trouble of a very serious character there, is anticipated.”
Luke was no rube. He saw the grace period as a death sentence. He would return to Dodge City, all right, but not alone. Once more, he sent a telegram to Bat Masterson.
Within days, Bat was back in Kansas City, and rendezvousing with him, Luke, and Bassett there were Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and others with a thirst for a new adventure in old surroundings. Getting wind of this, The Kansas City Journal predicted “a great tragedy” once these tough men answered the call, referring to Bat as “one of the most dangerous men the West has ever produced,” adding, “For the good of the state of Kansas, it is hoped the governor will prevent violence.”
Given that the two years since the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral had not been easy ones, Wyatt was not fixing for a new gunfight. But when Bat’s telegram found him in Colorado, working full-time as a faro dealer, because his code called for not letting a friend down, he made ready for his return to Dodge City to make sure Luke Short received a fair shake.
Wyatt may have looked forward to him and Bat setting things right in Dodge City again, to experience once more having each other’s back. Most of the time in the “old” days, the good guys had won. Here was another opportunity. But Luke Short’s troubles meant the good guys weren’t winning. The ending in Dodge City had yet to be written. The six-shooters on their belts might be the pens that would do it. More old acquaintances flocked to Kansas City or headed directly to Dodge City to follow Bat and Wyatt.
If Webster and Deger and their armed supporters weren’t yet aware of the force being arrayed against them, it had to be an unpleasant surprise when words drifted west that gathering in Kansas City were Wyatt, Bat, Doc, Luke, Bassett, Shotgun Collins, Rowdy Joe Lowe, and like-minded adventurers and that they were armed and ready for action. Newspapers in several major cities reported on the imminent “Dodge City War.”
The Kansas City Evening Star had a ringside seat, and it told readers that “those who are acquainted with the party and their disposition are at no hesitancy in predicting that there is going to be trouble of a bloody nature if resistance is offered to Short’s return.” It further reported that when Hinkle “learned of this threat from Kansas City, he gathered a posse to meet all incoming trains.” The Daily Commonwealth of Topeka chimed in, “The plan is to drive all of Short’s enemies out of Dodge at the mouth of the revolvers.”
Several accounts have Wyatt traveling to Dodge City before the others. The Daily Commonwealth even confided that “Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp are now secretly in Dodge City, watching matters,” and when showdown time came, a telegram would be sent to the others containing a coded message. This was as silly as it was untrue. Wyatt did go to Dodge City, accompanied by Dan Tipton, Johnny Green, Texas Jack Vermillion, and Johnny Millsap. It is not known why Doc did not make the trip. One possibility is that he may have been too ill to be of much good should there be a showdown. It was reported—more accurately—that Bat and Luke had stayed behind to welcome supporters who were still trickling in from all over the West.
According to Wyatt’s recollection offered to Stuart Lake, waiting for him and his group when they stepped off the train from Kansas City was Prairie Dog Dave Morrow, who was a member of the police force. Wyatt was thirty-five then, still lean and handsome with his blond hair and dark mustache, wearing a black vest, coat, hat, trousers, and a crisp white shirt. If he had to return to Dodge City for some unofficial lawing, he wanted to make an immediate impression.
Prairie Dog, not at all happy that he was the only lawman who had shown up at the station, had a choice: try to disarm the men who were weighed down by rifles and six-shooters, or listen to what Wyatt had to say. Wyatt said he did not want trouble, he was there only to see that his friend Luke Short was treated like everyone else. If Morrow would deputize him and his companions, that would resolve the problem of carrying guns in public. He may not have had the legal authority to actually do that, but Prairie Dog saw the wisdom of Wyatt’s way, and Dodge City had five new deputies.
Wyatt directed his men to take up lookout stations in case the Webster-Deger alliance was dismayed about the sudden expansion of the police force. They sure were. According to Bat, “It finally became whispered about that Wyatt Earp had a strong force of desperate men. When [Webster] learned that he had been trapped by Earp, he hunted up the sheriff and prosecuting attorney and sent a hurry-up telegram to the governor.” They begged the governor for two companies of militia or “a great tragedy would be enacted on the streets of Dodge City.”
When the next train arrived, it carried Bassett, Collins, Frank McLain, and others. There was no need to deputize them, because no local lawman could be found to greet them. Wyatt would have to go look for one. He sauntered to Deger’s office and told the sweating marshal, “Bat will arrive at noon tomorrow, and upon [his] arrival we expect to open up hostilities.”
“News” spread fast. One report being passed among Dodge City residents was that ruthless men, including Dirty Sock Jack, Cold Chuck Johnny, Black Jack Bill, and Dynamite Sam were also on their way to Dodge City to back Wyatt up. And about the former lawman himself, The Kansas City Journal was colorfully reporting that Wyatt “is equally famous in the cheerful business of depopulating the country. He has killed within our personal knowledge six men, and he is popularly credited with relegating to the dust no less than ten of his fellow men.”
When Luke Short, the reason for all the fuss, arrived, The Kansas City Evening Star reporter informed that “he slung a 6-shooter on each hip, and with a double barreled shot gun in his hands, walked down the street to the Long Branch saloon, carefully watching the corners.” He also announced to anyone within earshot that Bat Masterson was on his way.
The Dodge City Times would later report, “For a number of days the city was like a powder magazine, the slightest spark would have caused a concussion fearful in consequences and revolting in details.”
All this was a lot more than Mayor Deger had bargained for, and even Sheriff Hinkle found his former confidence evaporating. With some satisfaction, Glick rejected the feverish request for troops. He wired back that instead he would dispatch Thomas Moonlight, his adjutant general, to Dodge City to size up the situation. When Webster and Deger heard about this, they realized their goose was cooked. Within hours, their vigilante followers melted away.
As promised, Bat arrived, carrying a loaded shotgun, and Wyatt greeted him at the station. There were at least fifty men in town now ready to back their play. It was time to take back Dodge City.
For purely dramatic purposes, it would be wonderful to describe the wild shoot-out that followed, one that would make the Battle of the Plaza or the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral pale in comparison. And where better could it take place than Dodge City, whose law-and-order system emerged after the high body count of its first years.
But Webster and his supporters wanted to live, not die in a blaze of bullets. As Bat later described events, “The Mayor called a hasty meeting of his friends, and after they had all assembled in City Hall, he informed them of what he had heard about the Earp invasion. Anyone who was present at the meeting could easily see that anything BUT a fight was what the Mayor and his friends were looking for, now that a fight was not altogether improbable.”
Harris and Webster pulled Wyatt and Bat aside and told them that Luke could stay in Dodge City and return to what he was doing. Gambling could resume in all the saloons as long as the gaming rooms were screened off from the barrooms and dance halls. Women would be welcome in the saloons. Without exactly doing so, the former mayor apologized for all the inconvenience he and Deger and their supporters had caused.
Wyatt consulted with Bat and the others, then responded that this return to normal was fine with them. Bat had arrived fully loaded and expecting a furious fight, but he later wrote that “if at any time they did ‘don the war paint,’ it was completely washed off before I reached here.” To his observation, and with a touch of sarcasm, Bat contended that most of the people in Dodge City “hailed the return of Short and friends with exultant joy.”
When Moonlight, the governor’s emissary, arrived all was well. To be on the safe side he formed a group composed of friends of Webster’s and friends of Luke’s and dubbed them “Glick’s Guards.” Such a committee could settle disputes instead of needing a nail-biting confrontation. Eight members of what had been dubbed, with some tongue in cheek, the Dodge City Peace Commission—Wyatt, Bat, Bassett, Frank McLain, W. F. Petillon, Neil Brown, William Harris, and Luke—posed for a photograph on June 7. Luke invited everyone for a drink, and the following day most of the old acquaintances began to go their separate ways.
The Ford County Globe “regretted” the peaceful conclusion to the war, according to its June 12 editorial: “To make this abrupt settlement is very agreeable to our people, but rather rough on the press at large which has so gloriously feasted on our misfortune, to be so ingloriously cut off from publishing any further soul-stirring scenes from the late battlefield of Dodge City.”
A rather deflated Deger continued as mayor, but perhaps soured by the experience or afraid of being someone else’s rather large target, he did not remain a public servant the rest of his life. After marrying Etta Engleman in Dodge City, he relocated to Velasco, Texas, near the mouth of the Brazos River, and operated a lumber company. In 1898, when government pay became enticing again, he secured the position of postmaster, and he held on to it for sixteen years. He and Etta and their daughter, Bessie, moved on to Houston. Lawrence Deger died there in 1924 at the ripe age of eighty-nine.
Luke Short could have continued to enjoy the gambling and other charms of Dodge City indefinitely, but he chose not to. Later that year, in November, he sold his share of the Long Branch and relocated to Fort Worth. He opened a new saloon, the White Elephant, in that Texas town, and with the subsequent profits he invested in brothels and other gambling operations. When Fort Worth reformers outlawed gambling, Luke simply became more discreet and his revenue stream kept flowing.
Like Doc Holliday, Luke was a heavy drinker who had the deserved reputation as a hot-tempered gunslinger. Unlike Doc, Luke could shoot straight. One day in 1887, he was approached by Longhair Jim Courtright, a former Fort Worth marshal who was shaking down illegal saloon owners for protection money. Luke told him to get lost. Longhair Jim jerked his gun and was pulling the hammer back when Luke shot his thumb off. When the ex-lawman went for a second gun, Luke shot three more times, killing him. Three years later another man, Charles Wright, tried to take over Luke’s business interests. He too died from gunshot wounds.
There is a postscript to the White Elephant killing of Courtright. When the ex-marshal entered the saloon, the by-then-well-traveled Bat Masterson was sitting with Luke. “It was not a parley that he came for, but a fight,” Bat observed. A grand jury would not indict Luke after he spent a night in jail. But Bat feared that one night could be the last one for Luke because he overheard friends of Courtright planning to lynch the prisoner. As soon as the sun set, Bat showed up at the jail, and with the sheriff’s permission he conspicuously sat out front, his ivory-handled six-shooters prominently displayed. Any men who approached the building that night just kept walking.
On a happier note, Luke had gotten married in March 1887, to Harriet Beatrice Buck, in Oswego, Kansas. There were only six years of wedded bliss, however. It was not a gunman but his own unhealthy habits that caught up with Luke Short. In September 1893, while seeking relief from various ailments at a mineral spa in Geuda Springs, Kansas, he died of dropsy, or Bright’s disease. He was only thirty-nine years old, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas.
By this time, Dodge City had found itself settling into early middle age, far from being the wickedest city in the West. In November 1883, the same month that Luke sold his interest in the Long Branch and left town, Patrick Sughrue was elected sheriff of Ford County, replacing Hinkle. The following April, George Hoover was elected mayor, and he chose Bill Tilghman to be the new marshal. He helped to insure that the rowdy hurrahing days were over.
As Odie B. Faulk put it, “By 1885, the boom period was ending—and with it the gunfighting, gambling, prostitution, and fist fighting that had characterized Dodge City. Several factors in combination forced the city to become what several editors had been demanding for years: civilized.”