USA > Kansas > Ford County > Dodge City > Dodge City, the cowboy capital, and the great Southwest in the days of the wild Indian, the buffalo, the cowboy, dance halls, gambling halls and bad men > Part 11
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Referring again to the subject of General Miles' opinion that Fort Dodge should have been at least a ten- company post, it might be added that the General, with that very purpose in mind, visited the fort, several years after its abandonment. I was living there at the time, being appointed by the government to take charge of the property left there, and see to the care of the buildings. I drove him down, and he took lunch with me. He said: "Wright, your Dodge people made a big mistake when you placed your smallpox patients in the old hospital." You see, Dodge City was visited once with smallpox, and it raged pretty strongly. A great many of our people took it, and it was so violent and virulent that it carried off not a few. Mayor Webster seized the old military hospital and had the patients quarantined in it.
The General further said: "I see Fort Dodge's great military importance, and I would like to garrison it to its full capacity and would do so; but, Wright, you know, if a single soldier died there from smallpox, even years from now, the press of the country would get up and howl, and censure me ever so severely for subjecting the army to this terrible disease. I can't afford to take such chances." General Miles was right; this is just what would have been done, if the smallpox had ever broken out.
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CHAPTER VII. The Beginnings of Dodge City
TT has already been said that Dodge City was established in 1872, upon the advent of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. Dodge was in the very heart of the buffalo country. Hardly had the railroad reached there, long before a depot could be built (they had an office in a box car), business began; and such a business! Doz- ens of cars a day were loaded with hides and meat, and dozens of carloads of grain, flour, and provisions arrived each day. The streets of Dodge were lined with wagons, bringing in hides and meat and getting supplies from early morning to late at night.
Charles Rath & Company ordered from Long Broth- ers, of Kansas City, two hundred cases of baking-powder at one order. They went to Colonel W. F. Askew, to whom we were shipping immense quantities of hides, and said: "These men must be crazy, or else they mean two hundred boxes instead of cases." They said there were not two hundred cases in the city. Askew wired us if we had not made a mistake. We answered, "No; double the order." Askew was out a short time after that and saw six or eight carloads of flour stacked up in the warehouse. He said he now understood. It was to bake this flour up into bread.
I have been to several mining camps where rich strikes had been made, but I never saw any town to equal Dodge. A good hunter would make a hundred dollars a day. Everyone had money to throw at the birds. There was no article less than a quarter-a drink was a quarter, a shave was a quarter, a paper of pins a quarter, and needles the same. In fact, that was the smallest change.
Governor St. John was in Dodge once, when he was notified that a terrible cyclone had visited a little town
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close to the Kansas line, in Nebraska. In two hours I raised one thousand dollars, which he wired them. Our first calaboose in Dodge City was a well fifteen feet deep, into which the drunkards were let down and allowed to remain until they were sober. Sometimes there were several in it at once. It served the purpose well for a time.
Of course everyone has heard of wicked Dodge; but a great deal has been said and written about it that is not true. Its good side has never been told, and I cannot give it space here. Many reckless, bad men came to Dodge and many brave men. These had to be met by officers equally brave and reckless. As the old saying goes, "You must fight the devil with fire." The officers gave them the south side of the railroad-track, but the north side must be kept respectable, and it was. There never was any such thing as shooting at plug hats. On the contrary, every stranger that came to Dodge City and behaved himself was treated with politeness; but woe be unto the man who came seeking a fight. He was soon accommodated in any way, shape, or form that he wished. Often have I seen chivalry extended to ladies on the streets, from these rough men, that would have done credit to the knights of old. When some man a little drunk, and perhaps unintentionally, would jostle a lady in a crowd, he was soon brought to his senses by being knocked down by one of his companions, who remarked, "Never let me see you insult a lady again."
In fact, the chivalry of Dodge toward the fair sex and strangers was proverbial. Never in the history of Dodge was a stranger mistreated, but, on the contrary, the utmost courtesy was always and under all circum- stances extended to him, and never was there a frontier town whose liberality exceeded that of Dodge. But, while women, children, and strangers were never, anywhere, treated with more courtesy and respect; while such things as shooting up plug hats and making strangers dance is all bosh and moonshine, and one attempting such would
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have been promptly called down; let me tell you one thing-none of Dodge's well-known residents would have been so rash as to dare to wear a plug hat through the streets, or put on any "dog", such as wearing a swallow- tail or evening dress, or any such thing.
The general reputation of young Dodge City is well described in an article entitled, "Reminiscences of Dodge," written in 1877, and expressing what a stranger has to say about the town. The article runs as follows:
"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 prin- ciples, notwithstanding it is supplied with a church, court- house, and jail. Other institutions counterbalance the good works supposed to emanate from the first men- tioned. 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-a- luck 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 dark- eyed virago or some brazen-faced blonde, with a modern sundown, will saunter in among the roughs of the gam-
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bling houses and saloons, entering with inexplicable zest into the disgusting sport, breathing the immoral atmos- phere with a gusto which I defy modern writers to ex- plain. Dance houses are ranged along the convenient distances and supplied with all the trappings and para- phernalia which go to complete institutions of that char- acter. 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 artisti- cally 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 remark- able 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 look- ing 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 ap- plied 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
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clean sheet on their beds-the soul in this case is a sec- ondary consideration."
So much for one view of Dodge City, but, though common, this view was not quite universal. Sometimes a writer appeared who could recognize a few slightly better features in the border town, and who could look beyond its existing lawlessness and see the possibilities and beginnings of a higher state of things. In proof of this I'll quote an article, written in 1878, a year later than the last, and entitled, "The Beautiful, Bibulous Babylon of the Frontier":
"Standing out on the extreme border of civilization, like an oasis in the desert, or like a light-house off a rocky coast, is 'The Beautiful, Bibulous Babylon of the Frontier,' Dodge City, so termed by Lewis, editor of the 'Kinsley Graphic.' Dodge City is far famed, not for its virtues, but for its wickedness; the glaring phases of its vices stand pre-eminent, and attract the attention of the visitor; and these shadows of Babylon are reproduced in the gossip's corner and-in the press. It is seldom the picture has fine embellishments; but the pen artist of the 'Graphic' put the finer touches of nature to the pen por- trait of Dodge-'she is no worse than Chicago.' This, we admit, is a slight leverage in the social scale, to be placed in the catagory of Chicago's wickedness.
"Dodge City has magnetic attractions. Few people are attracted here by curiosity; every one has business, except the tramps, and they have no business here. But our visitors see it all before they leave, and they use the same circumspection here they would under their own vine and fig tree. Many of them are not charitable enough to tell the unvarnished truth. In vain boast and idle glory they recount the pilgrimage to Dodge as though they passed through blood, rapine, and war- fully attested their courage.
"But the 'Kinsley Graphic' pays the 'Bibulous Bab- ylon' a high compliment, besides raising the moral
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standard of Dodge to that of the immaculate virtue of Chicago.
"Kansas has but one Dodge City. With a broad ex- panse of territory sufficiently vast for an empire, we have only room for one Dodge City. Without particularizing at length, we were most favorably impressed generally during a brief visit at our neighboring city Tuesday. Beautiful for situation, cozily nestled on the 'beach' of the turbid Arkansas, while on the north the palisades rise above the busy little city, which in the near future will be ornamented with cozy cottages, modern mansions, and happy homes. The view from the elegant brick court house, situated above the town, is grand. The panorama spread out west, south, and east, takes in a vast scope of valley scenery such as only can be found fringing our river. Seventy-five thousand head of cattle, recently driven in from the ranges south, can be seen lazily feed- ing on the nutritious native meadows, while the cowboys gallop here and there among these vast herds, displaying superior horsemanship. Five miles down the river, the old flag floats proudly over the garrison at the military post.
"The city proper is a busy beehive of bustle and busi- ness, a conglomerated aggregation of every line of busi- ness alternating with saloons. Francis Murphy don't live in Dodge. There are a few institutions of which Dodgeites are justly proud-the ever popular Dodge House, "The Times', the court house, the fire company, Mayor Kelley's hounds, and the 'Varieties'. Much has been said of the wickedness and unrighteousness of the city. If 'old Probe' should send a shower of fire and brimstone up there, we would not vouch for there being a sufficient number of righteous citizens to save the city; yet with all her wick- edness, she is no worse today than Chicago and many other cities where the music of the chimes are daily heard. There is but one difference, however, which is a frontier characteristic; our neighbors do not pretend to
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hide their peculiarities. A few years hence Dodge City will be a model of morality and a city of no mean im- portance.
"For courtesies shown us we acknowledge our obli- gations to Messrs. Kline & Shine of the lively 'Times', Judge Gryden (who deserves to be known as Prince Harry, and whose only fault is his rock-footed Democ- racy), Mayor Kelley, Hon. H. M. Sutton, the popular county attorney, E. F. Colburn, the modest city attorney, Samuel Marshal, the portly judge, Fringer, the post- master, Hon. R. M. Wright, Dr. McCarty, Sheriff Mas- terson and his efficient lieutenant City Marshal Basset, and our old friends at the signal office."
Again, under the heading, "The Wickedest City in America," the "Kokomo, Indiana, Dispatch," of an issue in July, 1878, refers to Dodge: "Its character as a hell, out on the great plains, will be," said a local writer, "maintained in the minds of traveling newspaper writers, just so long as the city shall remain a rendezvous for the broad and immense uninhabited plains, by narrating the wildest and wickedest phases of Dodge City; but we have to commend them for complimenting Dodge on its orderly character." The "Dispatch" speaks very highly of Dodge as a commercial point, and his letter bears many complimentary features. We extract the following:
"'My experience in Dodge was a surprise all around. I found nothing as I pictured it in my mind. I had ex- pected, from the descriptions I had read of it, to find it a perfect bedlam, a sort of Hogathian Gin Alley, where rum ran down the street gutters and loud profanity and vile stenches contended for the mastery of the atmos- phere. On the contrary, I was happily surprised to find the place in the daytime as quiet and orderly as a country village in Indiana, and at night the traffic in the wares of the fickle Goddess and human souls was conducted with a system so orderly and quiet as to actually be pain- ful to behold. It is a most difficult task, I confess, to write
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SENICO
× OLOGE CITY COW BOY BAND JSNIDER & CO
000
0
THE FAMOUS DODGE CITY COWBOY BAND, THE LEADING MUSICAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SOUTHWEST IN THE EARLY DAYS (Used by Courtesy of C. M. Beeson, Director.)
up Dodge City in a manner to do impartial fairness to every interest; the place has many redeeming points, a few of which I have already mentioned. It is not nearly so awful a place as reports make it. It is not true that the stranger in the place runs a risk of being shot down in cold blood, for no offense whatever."
In the year 1878, the "Topeka Times" says, in a cer- tain issue:
"During the year of 1873 we roughed it in the West. Our first stopping place was the famous Dodge City, at the time a perfect paradise for gamblers, cut-throats, and girls. On our first visit the buildings in the town were not buildings, with one or two exceptions, but tents and dugouts. Everyone in town, nearly, sold whisky or kept a restaurant, perhaps both. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was just then working its way up the low-banked Arkansas, and Dodge was the frontier town. Its growth was rapid, in a month from the time the railroad was completed to its borders, the place began to look like a city; frame houses, one story high, sprang up; Dodge became noted as the headquarters for the buffalo hunters, and the old town was one of the busiest of trading points, and they were a jolly set of boys there. They carried a pair of Colt's revolvers in their belts, wore their pants in their boots, and when they died, did so generally with their boots on. It wasn't safe, in those times, to call a man a liar or intimate that his reputation for honesty was none of the best, unless you were spoiling for a fight. In those days, 'Boot Hill' was founded, and the way it grew was astonishing to new comers and terrifying to tenderfeet. We well remember, but now forget the date, when a party of eastern capitalists came out to look around with a view to locating. They were from Boston and wore diamonds and kid gloves. The music at one of the dance halls enticed the bald-headed sinners thither, and what with wine and women, they became exceedingly gay. But in the midst of their sport
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a shot was fired, and another, and, in a little time, the room gleamed with flashing pistols and angry eyes. This was enough, and the eastern capitalists hurried to the depot, where they remained until the first train bore them to the classic shades of Boston. But with all its wildness, Dodge could then, as it does yet, boast of some of the best, freest, and whitest boys in the country. We were down there again last week, and were sur- prised in the change in the city. It has built up wonder- fully, has a fine court house, church, good schools, large business blocks, a good hall, first-class hotels, and two live newspapers. The editor of the "Times' was not in, but we saw Honorable D. M. Frost, the editor of the 'Globe'. Dodge is coming out and is destined to be a city of considerable size."
Another writer of the times, defending Dodge City, says:
"There is an evident purpose to malign and create false impressions concerning the character of Dodge City. It is a pretty general impression that a person here is insecure in life, and that the citizens of Dodge are walk- ing howitzers. This is a bad impression that should, by all means, be corrected. Having but a short residence in this town, it is our deliberate opinion, from a careful ob- servation, that Dodge is as quiet and orderly as any town of its size in Kansas. We have been treated with the utmost cordiality. We have observed officers prompt and efficient, in the discharge of their duties. There is an ordinance prohibiting the carrying of fire arms, which is rigidly enforced. The citizens are cordial, industrious, and display a business alacrity, characteristic of the fron- tier tradesman. We are surprised to note the difference of character of this town and the impression aimed to be made upon us before coming here. There is a lurking jealousy somewhere, that gives rise to false rumors, and we trust every citizen of Dodge City will correct these false impressions, as far as lies in his power. This, alone,
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would efface bad impressions and false rumors, but for- bearance ceases to be a virtue, and we kindly protest."
Again, the character of early Dodge was defended by Charles D. Ulmer, of the "Sterling Bulletin," thus: "On Friday, the party visited Dodge City, the rip- roaring burg of the West. As we glided into the depot, we looked anxiously along the street, expecting to see many squads of festive cowboys, rigged out with arms enough to equip a regiment, and ready to pop a shot at any plug hat that might be in the crowd, but nothing of the kind was to be observed; instead, there was a busy, hustling little city, like many others in Kansas, with, perhaps, a few extra saloons thrown in for variety. Dodge City was a surprise to us. It is beautifully located-the residence portion on the hills which command a magni- ficent view of the country, east, west, and south. The business portion is on the level bottom at the foot of the hills. The railroad track is a little close to the main busi- ness street for convenience.
"The party, on landing, instead of being received by a howling lot of cowboys, with six-shooters and Win- chester rifles rampant, were received by a delegation of as gentlemanly and courteous men as can be found in the state. During our stay in Dodge, we had the pleasure of meeting most of the men who have been so prominent- ly mentioned in the late trouble at that place. Instead of low-browed ruffians and cut-throats, we found them to be cultivated gentlemen, but evidently possessing plenty of nerve for any emergency. Among those we met and conversed with was Luke Short, his partner, Mr. Harris, who is vice-president of the Dodge City bank, and Mr. Webster. The late trouble originated in differences be- tween Messrs. Short and Webster, and, we believe, after both sides get together it could and should have been settled without the hubbub made, and interference of the state authorities. Mr. Short, Mr. Harris, and others assur- ed us that their side, at all times, was ready and willing to
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submit their differences to the decision of the courts. The trouble has been amicably adjusted, and no further trouble is anticipated on the old score."
But, as has already been stated, often only the worst side of Dodge City was written up, in a way to make the most of it. In protest against this practice, a local writer of early times refers to a write-up of the sort, in this wise: "A verdant editor of the 'Hays City Sentinel' visits our brothels and bagnios. From the tone of his article, he must have gone too deep into the dark recesses of the lascivious things he speaks of, and went away in the con- dition of the monkey who got his tail too near the coals. He says: 'After a long day's ride in the scorching sun, I arrived in Dodge City. Dodge is the Deadwood of Kansas. - Her incorporate limits are the rendezvous of all the unemployed scallawagism in seven states. Her principal business is polygamy without the sanction of religion, her code of morals is the honor of thieves, and decency she knows not. In short, she is an exaggerated frontier town, and all her consistences are operated on the same principle. Her every day occurrences are such as would make the face of a Haysite, accustomed as he is to similar sights, color to the roots of his hair and draw away disgusted. Dodge is a fast town and all of her speedy proclivities exhibit to the best advantage. The employment of many citizens is gambling. Her vir- tue is prositution and her beverage is whisky. She is a merry town and the only visible means of support of a great many of her citizens is jocularity. Her rowdyism has taken a most aggravated form, and was it not for the most stringent ordinances (some of which are unconsti- tutional), and a fair attempt to enforce them, the town would be suddenly depopulated and very much in the manner that Ireland got rid of her snakes. Seventeen saloons furnish inspiration and many people become in- spired, not to say drunk. Every facility is afforded for the exercise of conviviality, and no restriction is placed
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on licentiousness. The town is full of prostitutes and every other place is a brothel. Dodge by day and Dodge by night are different towns;" and, then he goes on with more abuse too vile and untruthful to mention. Our brother from Hays City must indeed have been hard hit, but must not have visited any good spot in Dodge City, but, on the contrary, must have confined himself entirely to the very lowest places and worst society in Dodge. Birds of a feather, you know, will flock together. We hope his dose was a mild one-though he does not de- serve our sympathy.
Besides this generally sensational mode of writing up the town, Dodge City was the theme of many lurid stories and sulphurous jokes which tended, no less than the write-ups, to establish her position, in the public eye, as the "Wickedest Town in America." The following letter is from the "Washington, D. C., Evening Star," January Ist, 1878.
"Dodge City is a wicked little town. Indeed, its character is so clearly and egregiously bad that one might conclude, were the evidence in these later times positive of its possibility, that it was marked for special Provi- dential punishment. Here those nomads in regions remote from the restraints of moral, civil, social, and law enforc- ing life, the Texas cattle drovers, from the very tendencies of their situation the embodiment of waywardness and wantonness, end the journey with their herds, and here they loiter and dissipate, sometimes for months, and share the boughten dalliances of fallen women. Truly, the more demonstrative portion of humanity at Dodge City gives now no hopeful sign of moral improvement, no bright prospect of human exaltation; but with Dodge City itself, it will not always be as now. The hamlet of today, like Wichita and Newton farther east in the state, will antagonize with a nobler trait, at some future day, its present outlandish condition. The denizen of little Dodge City declares, with a great deal of confidence, that
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