"Dodge boomed with a roar that split the nation’s ears

and still echoes in her memory."

-Stuart N. Lake, author

If Wyatt had learned one thing about marshaling, it was: Lay down the law immediately.

His approach worked in Wichita and he planned to have it work in Dodge City. He didn’t ride innocent-eyed into Dodge...he knew it hadn’t earned the title "The Fabulous Babylon" for nothing. Plunked at the end of the Jones-Plummer Trail, it was, in all respects, the last barrel-fall. In July, cattlemen drove their herds there, got rich overnight, spent it, then tried to get rich again before they returned to Texas and New Mexico. Some tried their luck on faro, on keno, on chuck-a-luck; some on robbery and assorted larceny. Front Street’s plank boards sagged under the weight of pickpockets, prostitutes, con artists, inebriates, tramps, maligners and killers. During cattle season, women and children avoided its back streets. Shopkeepers feared for their lives. If a supply wagon got stuck in the muddy streets after dark, the teamster would often find his cargo hijacked by bullies. Long into the night the walls of the Alhambra and Long Branch saloons rattled with rough words and rough deeds; cold-blooded murder was part of their fare.

In short, Dodge City didn’t seem to want law and order; both seemed unnecessary commodities. And now that the cattlemen had come with their 200,000 heads of cattle, their throats dry, their libidos tingling and their handguns loaded, Marshal Larry Deger felt overwhelmed. He was the last of a long line of officers who had been run out of town or shot in the back. He was overjoyed when Wyatt appeared, for Wyatt wasted no time in "laying down the law".

Sensing Dodge a big job, his first step was to hire four assistant deputies who could be relied on to stand up to Dodge’s worst. These men were Bat Masterson, his old buffalo hunting friend turned lawman; Charlie Basset; Bill Tilghman; and Neal Brown. He also, much to the chagrin of many gun-toters, initiated a "Deadline" north of the railroad yards on Front Street to keep the commercial part of the city quiet; anyone carrying a gun past that mark would be jailed upon sight. These rules were in effect around the clock. Dodge City’s jail cells brimmed.

Clay Allison

As in Wichita, the bad men grumbled at Wyatt’s appointment. Much worse to them was the fact that Wyatt began investing in Dodge property, which indicated his intended longevity. One of their first reactions, therefore, was to "put up a pot" to pay a professional killer to slay the mighty Wyatt Earp. Their choice was ingenious -- the infamous Clay Allison from Las Animas, N.M. Allison was a good-looking 26-year-old devilishly clever quick-trigger who bore a lethal hatred for the law. He recently had been tried for the murder of Las Animas’ marshal, but despite many witnesses he was found innocent by an obviously threatened jury. If there was a demon designed for the job of killing Wyatt, Allison was it.

Dodge City attracted more than just villains. It also attracted journalists come to write not so much about the town as about Wyatt Earp. Dime novel writer Ned Buntline, for one, found Wyatt great pulp material. In gratitude, he presented Wyatt and his deputies with a specially made Colt .45; its barrel was four inches longer than the standard, it had an attachable rifle stock for shoulder aiming and came in its own finely tooled holster. Of this Buntline Special, Wyatt said, "Mine was my favorite over any other gun. I carried it at my right hip throughout my career."

Sometimes traveling theatrical repertoires rolled into town. An amusing incident took place one night when Wyatt was awakened to gunfire in the streets. Outside, he found a shaken comedian, Eddie Foy, huddled in an alley while fellow actor Charles Chapin was taking pot shots at Foy for stealing his girl. Wyatt easily disarmed the drunken thespian and sent the players home to "sleep it off".

His off-duty hours were spent chiefly at the Alhambra Saloon where he and Bat Masterson operated a respectable faro game. They enjoyed it and found faro a pleasant pastime -- as long as it was kept respectable. Both Wyatt and Bat earned extra income and the Alhambra mutually benefited because the lawmen’s presence kept the troublemakers and tinhorns out. As the manager of the most popular game in town, Wyatt befriended many of the sporting politicos and businessmen.

While these men greatly appreciated the huge changes Wyatt had effected in the community -- the streets were much safer -- they expressed their concerns that many of the criminals still roamed the streets freely or, if they were arrested, were out on leniency the following day to cause more havoc. A part of the problem was Wyatt’s superior, Larry Dregnan, who had the authority but not the gumption to enact tighter reform movements.

Celia Blaylock in 1872

A deal was cut. When the Alhambra’s proprietor James H. "Dog" Kelley decided to run for mayor in 1877, he promised to officially name Wyatt the new town marshal. When the results were in and Kelley indeed won, Wyatt took control. He plagued the courts for more severe sentencing, barred certain individuals from town, added his brother Morgan as deputy (Morgan had seen action in other towns), and organized a "citizens’ committee" of reformers to help watchdog the streets.

It was during his Dodge City days that, around 1877, Wyatt met Celia Anne Blaylock, whom he affectionately called "Mattie". She was probably a saloon girl. Not much is known about her, but it appears she may have come from Fort Scott, Kansas. Seemingly, they never married, but kept company as husband and wife under the strict Victorian moral code. At first, the couple was happy, but Mattie’s deepening dependency on laudanum -- acquired because of an illness -- would soon put a strain on their relationship. They would remain together over the next three years and-a-half years.

DOC HOLLIDAY

"Doc had but three redeeming traits. One was his courage...The second was his sterling loyalty

...The third was his affection for Wyatt Earp."

Bat Masterson, lawman

When Dave Rudabaugh robbed a Santa Fe Railroad construction camp in November,1877, Wyatt was issued an acting commission as U.S. Deputy Marshal to pursue the outlaw out of state. He followed Rudabaugh’s trail for 400 miles through antelope grass and vegas to Fort Griffin, Texas, where the weather turned hot but the trail ice cold.

Figuring the cowboy had probably stopped for a drink on the lam, Wyatt visited the largest saloon in town, Shanssey’s. Owner John Shanssey said Rudabaugh had been there earlier in the week, but didn’t know where he was bound. He directed Wyatt to a gambler named Doc Holliday who had played cards with his prey; perhaps he could tell him something.

Doc Holliday

Wyatt at first scoffed at the idea of even bothering to hunt out Holliday, who had a self-advertised hatred for lawmen. John Henry Holliday was a character born from an overdone dime novel, a scowling cynic whose life in the West consisted of one gunfight after another. A one-time dentist from Georgia (thus the name "Doc"), Holliday had come West to cure a tuberculous cough. Instead, he surrendered his practice for the card game. An ace gambler, he couldn’t be bested. He drank several quarts of whisky a day and it was said that the more he drank the better he played -- and the better he shot, even as he coughed his lungs up. He didn’t cheat; he didn’t have to; but he was constantly being accused of it. And guns usually finished the arguments.

When Wyatt found him that evening at Shanssey’s, however, he was remarkably surprised at Doc’s verbosity. As far as he knew, Doc believed that Rudabaugh had back-trailed to Kansas. This information, which Wyatt wired back to Bat Masterson (now sheriff of Ford County), was instrumental in apprehending Rudabaugh.

Thus began a friendship that lasted until Doc’s death a decade later. At that time, Wyatt would write, "I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew."

After meeting Wyatt in Fort Griffin, Doc showed up in Dodge City with his female shadow, a Cyprian bearing the unglamorous moniker "Big Nose Kate" Fisher (real name Mary Katherine Harony). They resided at Deacon Cox’s Boarding House as "Mr. and Mrs. J. Holliday". The gambler frequented the Alhambra and was a regular at Wyatt’s faro tables. People thought it strange that their marshal was pal to a lowlife like Doc Holliday, but Wyatt let them whisper. As long as Holliday respected Wyatt’s position and kept the law in Dodge City, there was no reason to disregard him.

One night, Doc saved Wyatt’s life.

As ever, being marshal meant stepping on toes. Occasionally, owners of those toes "got likkered up" and tried to step back. Such as when someone shot at Wyatt while he was watching Eddie Foy’s vaudeville act at the Comique Theatre in July ‘78; a bullet narrowly missed him. Another time, a bullet whizzed past his face from a dark alley off First Avenue.

A few weeks after these incidences, Ed Morrison, whom Wyatt humiliated in Wichita, rode into Dodge with a desperado named Tobe Driskill and about 50 Texans to rush the town. They shot the Deadline sign to pieces and galloped down Front Street, hooting, guns blazing, blowing out shop windows. Entering the Long Branch Saloon, they proceeded to vandalize its trappings and harass its customers. Wyatt, not realizing what was happening, ran through the front door and face to face into a score of awaiting gun barrels. Although his sidearms were in his holster, reaching for them meant certain death.

Morrison stepped forward and sneered. "Pray and jerk your gun!" he growled. "Your time has come, Earp!"

Before Morrison could finish his play, however, another voice rang out from behind him. "No, friend, you draw -- or throw your hands up!" It was Doc, his revolver to Morrison’s temple. He had been in a back room, his card game interrupted by the havoc out front. "Any of you bastards pulls a gun and your leader here loses what’s left of his brains." The Texans’ firearms clattered to the floor.

"If anyone questions my loyalty to Holliday, there’s my answer," Wyatt responded thereafter. "The only way anyone could have appreciated the feeling I had for Doc after the Driskill-Morrison business would have been to have stood in my boots at the time Doc came through the Long Branch doorway."