ELLSWORTH KANSAS

"As we go to press, Hell is in session at Ellsworth."

Kansas State News, 1873.

With advent of the Union Pacific and Santa Fe railroads, trailherders from Texas rushed their longhorn cattle northward to market. The meat industry was prime and Kansas packers, buying their cattle for dinner tables across America, offered top prices for cattle, more so than anywhere else along the Chisholm Trail. Cattle camps sprung up around the rails, and those cattle camps blossomed like mushroom growth into towns. Ellsworth, Abilene, Hays City, Wichita, Newton, Dodge City -- clapboard front go-get-em-hell-bent-for-leather Gammorahs where cattlemen could sell their herds, then spend their money on whisky, wine, women and wonders of many kinds.

Wyatt Earp had heard the lusty tales about these places during a brief rest stop in Kansas City, which smoldered, feeling left out, as the last "civilized town" before the free-for-all frontier. Hanging out with fellow hide hunters in the town’s Market Square, he acquainted many of the colorful characters whose names were already legendary among the Western cow towns; among these were golden-haired James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, crusty Jack Gallagher and the theatrical William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody.. From these men, sharpshooters all, he learned the fine art of handling a six-chamber revolver. Taking part in shooting contests, which were held regularly in the square, Wyatt earned the respect of men like Hickok who passed down tricks of the trade.

He practiced until he excelled in the straight-shoot and the border-draw. He especially liked the "feel" of the latest Colt .45. But, as he put it, "the most important lesson I learned from these proficient gunfighters was that the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time."

When he crossed the Smoky Hill River into Ellsworth in 1873, he may have remembered the "rules of the gunman," but had no intention of employing them. Although Hickok had warned him that it would be naive to go westward without being properly armed, Wyatt didn’t own a gun. All he hoped for was to find a peaceable job. But, only hours after hitching his horse in town he began to wonder if perhaps Hickok was right.

Ellsworth was mean, and it was ugly. The stench of the its manure-laden streets fell second to the odor of the unbathed saddle tramps who had just delivered 150,000 cattle from San Antonio to its freight yards. Adding to these smells were the blends of rot-gut whisky, tanning leather, kerosene and carved carcasses, a revolting combination. Gunfights were spontaneous, either over a hussy or a card game. Most of the iron-packers were intoxicated and unreasonable. Which is perhaps why the town’s sheriff, C.B. Whitney, was nowhere to be seen during these brujajas.

The most boisterous spot in town was Brennan’s Saloon, off Ellsworth Square; its faro and poker tables buzzed 24 hours, bartenders tapped beer and poured whisky constantly. Pouty-lipped whores lingered at the bar before disappearing elsewhere with a dusty cowpoke. At the height of the trail season, brothers Ben and Bill Thompson showed up, following the herdsmen, to open their gambling concessions in town. Drinking establishments, like Brennan’s, welcomed these dealers and gave them a percentage of the house take for the trade they generated.

Both of the slick, mustachioed Thompsons were crooks; and they were killers. Wyatt had heard of them and, although sensing the gambler’s urge many an evening, avoided their tables. But, most of the money-eager cowboys fell like turkeys in a turkey shoot before the Thompson’s promise of a "square game".

Wyatt had been in town only short term when he found himself at odds with the brothers Thompson. Lingering in the shade of a verandah outside Brennan’s Saloon one afternoon, he became aware of loud epithets bouncing back and forth between two men inside the gin mill. From what he deduced, it sounded like a simple case of card-game larceny -- a four-flusher had cheated and was caught red-handed. He didn’t pay much attention to the disturbance until Sheriff Whitney and two deputies appeared on the boardwalk and turned into the saloon. The shouting grew louder. Wyatt peeked in.

A cowboy was telling the sheriff that he had been bilked out of money by the fast hands of gambler Bill Thompson. Both the Thompsons denied it. But, when the lawman threatened to break up the game once and for all, Bill produced a double-barreled shotgun from below his chair and, at point-blank range, fired a volley into the sheriff’s chest. Onlookers recoiled from splattering blood.

Horrified and dismayed, Wyatt watched the pair of deputies cower into the sidelines, then sulk out the side door without even the decency to take their boss’s body off the floor. He watched stunned as Bill Thompson swaggered to his horse and cantered out of town, unmolested. Ben waved him goodbye, hallooing like a barn dance caller. "I’ll give $1,000 to anyone who brings in the head of another lawman!" Ben told the crowd gathering around him, and, roaring at his own gall, ambled across the square.

It was more than Wyatt could take. "What kind of a town is this?" he snapped at the deputies who now stood meekly across the square. Between them, equally timid, was Mayor Jim Miller. Everyone wondered what the tall blonde stranger was up to when he borrowed a pair of six shooters from a nearby spectator, shoved them in his belt, and pursued Ben Thompson’s footsteps. He caught up with him outside the Grand Central Hotel a block away.

"Come in peacefully," Wyatt suggested. "Or draw."

Thompson turned coolly towards the voice. His spontaneous grin sagged when he saw the determination in his confronter’s eyes and the sleek hunch of someone who knew the draw.

"Who the...Who are you? Do you know I have friends in this town?"

"Never mind that. Ease your guns down and you nor they will get hurt."

This boy’s too sharp, Thompson thought. Well...so am I! "Are you gunna make me, stranger?" bellowed Thompson, obligated to remain the tough guy in front of several dozen witnesses.

"It’s up to you." Wyatt stepped closer, nose to nose. "Answer me or fight."

A moment’s pause; Thompson calculated; Wyatt braced.

"Oh, what the hell!" laughed the gambler, unbuckling his gun belt. "I don’t feel like killing ya’ today." A Cheshire grin lit his face as he walked across the square for a night in the hoosegow. Despite his bravado, everyone knew that Thompson had been spooked.

The incident was the talk of the town. Impressed, Mayor Miller offered Wyatt the job as marshal to take Whitney’s place. Wyatt, however, declined, replying that he had only done what any good citizen would have done in his place. He did not see himself as a peace officer.

Years later, after Ben Thompson turned lawman, he remarked to Bat Masterson that there was something about that Earp fellow that drew his respect that day in 1873. There was no reason for him to be afraid of Wyatt -- after all, he was a nobody at the time -- but, said Thompson, "it was just a hunch."

WICHITA KANSAS

"Wyatt Earp was the handsomest, best-mannered young man in Wichita."

wife of Charles Hutton, U.S. Commissioner

The story of the Ellsworth episode spread fast, from cow town to cow town. Some lanky, nervy buffalo hunter named Wyatt Earp had faced down the infamous Ben Thompson and made him shrink. It had reached Wichita by the time Wyatt appeared there in May of 1874 to visit his brother James. As luck would have it -- and unbeknownst to Wyatt -- Thompson now resided there, too, along with a motley and murderous group of crones. At first, threats reached his ears through second parties. His own brother Jim had overheard a certain George Peshaur saying what he planned to do to Wyatt the first chance he found him alone.

If Wyatt initially scoffed at the rumors, it was Thompson himself who underscored the reality of danger. Oddly enough, a penitent Thompson sought out Wyatt on the street one evening to warn him. "I want you to know I hold no grudge," he said. "I admire your guts. But, step carefully -- I can’t control Peshaur and the boys." Wyatt, astounded, thanked him for the tip.

Nevertheless, Wyatt had no intention to run; he still sought his glory; maybe he’d find it here. That glory presented itself when Town Mayor Jim Hope offered him the position of deputy marshal of Wichita. It was Hope’s recommendation that, if Wyatt planned to stay there, he accept the job. Wyatt agreed that, yes, it might discourage the rousters -- and if it didn’t, then he’d be able to take on the rousters legally. Later pondering his decision to accept the job as a peace officer, Wyatt wrote, "I think I was out to prove something to myself."

And since Wichita was, in many ways, as untamed as Ellsworth had been, he found many opportunities to make his mark felt. Working under Chief Marshal Bill Smith, Wyatt threw himself into his duties with zeal. His superiors found the new hire to be delightfully more than they expected, for he immediately administrated new regulations to discourage after-hours drinking, gun-toting and other calamitous goings-on at the likes of the Occidental Saloon, the Keno House or on Horse-Thief Corner, a hang-out for bored Texans looking for questionable fun. What’s more, the wild element in town seemed to listen to him, something Smith had been unable to accomplish in many months. Wyatt’s talk was firm, and if someone ignored the talk they found their augmentive mien literally flattened with the butt end of his revolver. It became obvious: Wyatt meant business.

Like it or not, he realized that he had acquired a reputation in Ellsworth that demanded maintaining if he hoped to survive. George Peshaur and his hardcores were out to push him, to test their advantage against this new lawman. Wyatt knew that test was coming and he armed himself both psychologically and with a brace of new "Peacemakers" from the Colt gunmaker. Many times, in fact, the bold Peshaur delayed him outside the Keno House to taunt, but Wyatt merely laughed in his face. "Go home, Peshaur, you’re drunk again," he would say.

On a blistering midsummer afternoon, as Wyatt worked his rounds along the shanties of Douglas Avenue, he found his path suddenly blocked by more than a dozen scowling faces; among them were Peshaur and two sidekicks, Ed Morrison and Shanghai Pierce. All were heavily armed. Without ado, Wyatt veered down an alley to lead the gang on a chase through several yards until he bolted into a general store where he grabbed a shotgun and loaded it for bear. There, he turned the advantage the outlaws thought they had had by meeting them head-on out front, the barrel of his shotgun tapping Ed Morrison’s nostrils.

"Fun’s over, boys!" he shouted. A relieved Morrison watched as his pals dropped their guns as one into the dirt. Marshall Smith came running from his office to help Wyatt gather the weapons, and it wasn’t until Smith led them off under his barrels that Wyatt realized he had put the drop on 21 men!

From the balcony of Rupp’s Hotel across the street, a jubilant Ben Thompson saluted Wyatt. Grinning at the captives, he added, "I told ya’ Wyatt Earp was poison!"

But, Peshaur still needed to learn one last lesson. And Wyatt was prepared teach it. It wasn’t long after the previous display when Wyatt found himself enduring Peshaur’s insults again, outside Cogswell’s Cigar Store. Even though Peshaur was a much taller and meatier man, Wyatt challenged him to a "peaceable" fist fight. The pair removed to Cogswell’s back room where, from beyond closed doors, citizens heard what sounded like hell busting through the floorboards. A few minutes later, a grinning Wyatt emerged. Inside the room Cogswell found, what he called, "a spectacle...I don’t think there was a square inch of (Peshaur’s) face that wasn’t as raw as beefsteak."

Wyatt preferred to keep his enforcement bloodless; he didn’t want to be known as another "Wild Bill" Hickok who kept the peace by resorting to the killers’ own method: killing. For instance, witness the King incident. King was a loudmouth cavalry sergeant who came to Wichita to gun down Wyatt. Spotting him on the street one evening, King stepped up before him, drew two pistols and shoved them into Wyatt’s stomach. Before King could pull the triggers, the lawman reflexed, grabbing both gun barrels and swatting King cold with his own guns.

His reputation from these and other events earned Wyatt the respect of the town government. Attorney Charles Hutton penned, "I met Wyatt the day he joined the marshal’s office...(he) went up against some of the most desperate gunmen in the West...and in action he bore out my highest expectations."

After the 1875 cattle drive to Wichita, the town settled down and its most violent days seemed to have passed. The cattle trade had shifted from the Chisholm Trail to other trails further west, the Great Western and the Jones-Plummer. In spring of ‘76, Wyatt received a telegraph from the mayor of Dodge City pleading for his assistance. Dodge expected a wild and woolly summer and would be willing to pay Wyatt the unheard-of salary of $250 per month.