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October, 1873 - Letter from Frances
Marie Antoinette Mack Roe
 Frances was the wife of
Fayette Washington Roe, a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States
Army. In October, 1871, Roe was sent to Fort Lyon in
Colorado
Territory
and his wife Frances went with him. During this time she wrote a number of
letters describing her experiences on the frontier. In 1909, these were
published in a book called Army Letters From an Officer's Wife.
"Dodge
City used to
be that way and there was a reign of terror in the town, until finally the
twelve organized
vigilantes became desperate and took affairs in their own
hands. They notified six of the leading desperadoes that they must be out
of the place by a certain day and hour. Four went, but two were defiant
and remained. When the specified hour had passed, twelve double-barreled
shotguns were loaded with buckshot, and in a body the
vigilantes hunted
these men down as they would mad dogs and riddled each one through and
through with the big shot! It was an awful thing to do, but it seems to
have been absolutely necessary and the only way of establishing law and
order. Our friends at Fort Dodge tell us that the place is now quite
decent, and that a man can safely walk in the streets without pistols and
a belt full of cartridges."
May 13, 1874 - Resolution of the Ford County
Commissioners
"Any person who
is not engaged in any legitimate business, and any person under
influence of intoxicating drinks, and any person who has ever borne
arms against the Government of the United States, who shall be found
within the limits of the town of odge
City, bearing on his person a
pistol, bowie knife, dirk, or other deadly weapon, shall be subject
to arrest upon charge of misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be
fined in a sum not exceeding $100, or by imprisonment in the county
jail not exceeding three months, or both, at the discretion of the
court, and same to take effect on date."
June 25, 1874 - Dodge City
Messenger
"Dodge
City Town
Company, Ford Co.,
Kansas. Inducements offered to actual settlers!
Prospects of the town better than any other in the upper Arkansas Valley!
Free Bridge across the Arkansas River! The town a little over one year
old, and contains over seventy buildings! Good school, hotel, etc. AT&SF
RR depot in town. Enquire of: R. M. Wright at Chas. Rath & Co. store or
E. B. Kirk, Secy and Treas., Fort Dodge, June
25, 1874."
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 April 24, 1876 - Letter from Governor Thomas Osborn to
Charles Bassett, Sheriff of Ford County,
Kansas
"This will be handed to you by Mr. R. C. Callaham, whose
son, John F. Callaham, was executed by mob violence in your county, on the
8th. He visits Ford County for the purpose of making a thorough
investigation of all the facts and circumstances attending the death of
his son. He claims that there is no doubt of his son's innocence, and if
this claim is correct the atrocity of the crime - an utterly law-defying
one at the best - certainly demands the attention of all law-abiding
people, and more especially of the officers to whom is entrusted the
execution of the law and the preservation of the public peace.
I trust that you
will extend to Mr. Callaham all the "assistance, counsel and encouragement
which it may be in your power to extend. There must be an end to mob
violence in this state, and local officers exercising vigilance and energy
in its suppression and punishment may rely upon the Executive for support
and assistance. Let me know in what manner I can be of service in bringing
to justice the perpetrators of this recent outrage, and I shall not be
slow in responding to any practical suggestion. In the meantime I trust
that you will do everything in your power to facilitate the inquiry which
Mr. Callaham proposes to institute."
April 28, 1876 -
Response to Osborn from
Sheriff Bassett
"Through what little information I gave him and his own
exertions he has ascertained the fact that his son, John Calleham, was at
Dodge City, on the 3rd day of April 1876 the day on which we held our
municipal election. It appears from the statements made by the Sumner
County and other papers that the horses were stolen on the 30th, and that
the parties in pursuit followed the thieves a distance of 30 miles. The
theory is that if the deceased John Calleham was here on the 3rd day of
April that it would be physically impossible for him to have stolen those
horses. Several Citizens of good standing are willing to qualify that they
spoke with him on the 3rd of April, at
Dodge City. If he was one of the
thieves the time given him to travel over 300 miles of ground was 3 days
from the night of the 30th of March to the morning of the 3rd of April. I
do not hesitate to say that this fete could not be performed by any one
horse or horseman in the time given, especially as the ground was so soft,
as to leave an impression, so plain that it could be followed at a very
rapid gait.
To be brief I am now of
the opinion that the man was innocent of the crime alleged, and for which
he has suffered death. Mr. Calleham wishes me to go to Sumner County and
arrest the parties interested in the hanging, but without the assistance
of the executive department I am totally unable to do anything, as I am in
a poor fix financially to undertake so lengthy a journey."
July 7, 1877 - Dodge City Times
"Wyatt Earp,
who was on our city police force last summer, is in town again. We hope he
will accept a position on the force once more. He had a quiet way of
taking the most desperate characters into custody which invariably gave
one the impression that the city was able to enforce her mandates and
preserve her dignity. It wasn't considered policy to draw a gun on
Wyatt
unless you got the drop and meant to bum powder without any preliminary
talk."
July 7, 1877 - Dodge City Times
"Mr. G. C. Noble, of the Atchison Champion, made the following
observations during his recent visit here:
'At Dodge City we found everything and everybody busy as they could
comfortably be. This being our first visit to the metropolis of the West,
we were very pleasantly surprised, after the cock and bull stories that
lunatic correspondents had given the public. Not a man was seen swinging
from a telegraph pole; not a pistol was fired; no disturbance of any kind
was noted. Instead of being called on to disgorge the few ducats in our
possession, we were hospitably treated by all. It might be unpleasant for
one or two old time correspondents to be seen here, but they deserve all
that would be meeted [meted] out to them. The Texas cattle men and
cow-boys, instead of being armed to the teeth, with blood in their eye,
conduct themselves with propriety, many of them being thorough gentlemen.
Dodge City is supported principally by the immense cattle trade that is
carried on here. During the season that has just now fairly opened, not
less than 200,000 head will find a market here; and there are nearly an
hundred purchasers who make their headquarters here during the season. Mr.
A. H. Johnson, the gentlemanly stock agent of the A.T.& S.F. Co. informs us that the drive to this
point during the season will be larger than ever before. May it prove a
matter of great good to the company and to
Dodge City.
From our window in the Dodge House — which, by the way, is one of the best
and most commodious in the West — can be seen five herds, ranging from
1,000 to 10,000 each, that are awaiting transportation. The stock yards
here are the largest west of St. Louis, and just now are well filled.
Chas. Rath & Co. have a yard in which are about 50,000 green and dried
buffalo hides.
F. C. Zimmermann, an old patron of the Champion, runs a general outfitting
store, and flourishes financially and physically.
Many other friends of the leading journal are doing business, and are
awaiting patiently the opening up of the country to agricultural purposes.
In the long run, Dodge is destined to become the metropolis of Western
Kansas, and only awaits the development of its vast resources.'"
August 11, 1877 - Dodge City Times
"The
blood spilling events of the past week if accurately related would make
our friends abroad think we were not such a strictly moral town as we
pretend to be. To begin with, slugging has been the order of the day. All
along the line this pastime has been general; no less than five or six of
the wayward females have had their bewitching countenances pounded into
unnatural shape by the fists of their more muscular companions. We hope
things will move more smoothly hereafter, as broken heads and disfigured
countenances are not pleasant to look upon."
August 11, 1877 - Reminiscences of Dodge by Frank
Barnard of the Corpus Christi Gazette, reprinted in the
Dodge City Times
"By virtue of the falling off
in the cattle drive to
Kansas
for this year, and the large number of cattle driven under contract,
Dodge City became the principal depot for
the sale of surplus stock; buyers met drovers at this point, purchased and
received purchases without unnecessary delay, thereby greatly facilitating
business and enabling quick returns of both owners and hands. In the
future, situated as it is upon one of the best railroads traversing the
country from east to west, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, it will
probably occupy an enviable position as a cattle market. "Dodge
has many characteristics which prevent its being classed as a town of
strictly moral ideas and principles, notwithstanding it is supplied with a
church, courthouse, and jail. Other institutions counterbalance the good
works supposed to emanate from the first mentioned. Like all frontier
towns of this modern day, fast men and fast women are around by the score,
seeking whom they may devour, hunting for a soft snap, taking him in for
cash, and many is the
Texas
cowboy
who can testify as to their ability to follow up successfully the calling
they have embraced in quest of money.
Gambling ranges from a game of five-cent chuck-aluck to a
thousand-dollar
poker pot. Nothing is secret, but with open doors upon the
main streets, the ball rolls on uninterruptedly. More than occasionally
some darkeyed virago or some brazen-faced blonde, with a modern sundown,
will saunter in among the roughs of the gambling houses and
saloons,
entering with inexplicable zest into the disgusting sport, breathing the immoral atmosphere with a gusto
which I defy modern writers to explain. Dance houses are ranged along the
convenient distances and supplied with all the trappings and paraphernalia
which go to complete institutions of that character. Here you see the
greatest abandon. Men of every grade assemble to join in the dance. Nice
men with white neckties, the cattle dealer with his good clothes, the
sport with his well-turned fingers, smooth tongue, and artistically
twisted mustache, and last but not least the
cowboy, booted and spurred as
he comes from the trail, his hard earnings in his pocket, all join in the
wild revel; and yet with all this mixture of strange human nature a
remarkable degree of order is preserved. Arms are not allowed to be worn,
and any noisy whisky demonstrations are promptly checked by incarceration
in the lock-up. Even the mayor of the city indulges in the giddy dance
with the girls, and with his cigar in one corner of his mouth and his hat
tilted to one side, he makes a charming looking officer.
Some things occur in
Dodge that the world never knows of. Probably it
is best so. Other things occur that leak out by degrees, notwithstanding
the use of hush money. That, too, is perhaps the best. Men learn by such
means.
Most places are satisfied with one abode of the dead. In the grave
there is no distinction. The rich are known from the poor only by their
tombstones, so the sods that are upon the grave fail to reflect the
characters buried beneath them. And yet Dodge boasts of two burying spots,
one for the tainted whose very souls were steeped in immorality, and who
have generally died with their boots on. 'Boot Hill' is the somewhat
singular title applied to the burial place of the class just mentioned.
The other is not designated by any particular title but it is supposed to
contain the bodies of those who died with a clean sheet on their beds-the
soul in this case is a secondary consideration."
Continued
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HISTORICAL
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