Legends of the Old West - ENCORE I DODGE CITY Ep. 3: “Wicked Town”

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

Wyatt Earp meets Doc Holliday while trailing outlaws to Texas. In Dodge, Bat Masterson takes a new law job and his older brother, Ed, becomes town marshal. But Ed’s life is in danger. In the first six months, he finds himself in two gunfights, and the second has tragic consequences. Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The town marshal might have expected the gunshot, but he almost certainly didn't expect the flames. He was grappling with a Texas cowboy for control of a pistol, so on some level of his mind, a gunshot probably wasn't a complete shock. But after the bullet erupted from the gun, his clothes caught on fire, and that must have been a shock. He stumbled backward as the bullet tore through his abdomen, and he probably swatted at the flames. He staggered up the street, away from the cowboy who'd shot him. In his condition, mortally wounded, he might not have recognized his younger brother as the brother

charged down the street with guns blazing. The town marshal, probably clutching his bloody stomach, stayed on his feet for an incredible distance before he finally collapsed. His younger brother rushed to his side to be with him in his final minutes. Dodge City was about to suffer its greatest tragedy since the Earps and the Mastersons came to town. The spring, summer, and fall of 1878 would be the scariest in recent memory. memory. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere.

They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system. So wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With the internet's best converting checkout, 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms, Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers. Shopify has allowed us to share something tangible with the podcast community we've built here, selling our beanies, sweatshirts, and mugs to fans of our shows without taking up too much time from all the other work we do to bring you even more great content. And it's not just us. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S.

Shopify is also the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash realm, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-m now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash realm.

From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. This season, we're telling a five-part story about Dodge City and the duo of Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. This is Episode 3, Wicked Town. Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson were a good team in the cattle seasons of 1876 and 1877. The various lawmen in Dodge City seemed to work well together, but Bat and Wyatt really made names for themselves. Ironically, after the success of the 1876 season, neither returned to Dodge as lawmen in the summer of 1877, but both were back at it before long. Batt had reluctantly returned to law enforcement in the role of deputy county sheriff.

He'd gotten into a scrape with the town marshal, and part of his penance was to pay a fine. The new mayor, who liked Batt, said Batt could skip the fine if he agreed to be deputy sheriff. The county sheriff, Charlie Bassett, was happy to bring on Bat Masterson. Wyatt rejoined the force in July, and now the gang was all back together. And then there was a new man in charge of the town marshal's office, Ed Masterson, the oldest of the Masterson boys. So now Ed was the town marshal, Wyatt was a deputy marshal, and Bat was a deputy sheriff. And that summer was the most successful yet in terms of law and order. There were no violent deaths recorded in the newspapers for the first time in recent memory. Some of it certainly had to do with the growing reputations of the lawmen,

but Bat's sense of style might have had a little to do with it as well. You could certainly forgive a possible troublemaker for following through on his trouble if he ran into a deputy sheriff who was wearing a sombrero, a red neckerchief, a Mexican sash, and two ivory-handled guns. Batmasterson could be quite the dandy when he and Wyatt walked the streets on patrol. And though that season had its share of typical rowdiness, it was like the eye of the storm in some respects. The previous year, 1876, the first year Bat and Wyatt were on the force in Dodge, had seen less deadly violence than previous years,

but it certainly wasn't gone altogether. This year, 1877, was remarkable for the fact that no violent deaths were reported in the newspapers. That didn't mean everyone was as quiet as church mice, but it certainly seemed like the combined efforts of the town marshals and the county sheriffs were paying off. But if Dodge City had weathered the front side of the town marshals and the county sheriffs were paying off. But if Dodge City had weathered the front side of the storm and was now in the relatively calm eye, it meant the back side of the storm was threatening to batter the town in the near future. The second half of the storm would be the cattle season of 1878. But in the off-season between 1877 and 1878, events set in motion another of history's fateful meetings. Six years earlier, in the late fall of 1871, Batmasterson met Wyatt Earp while they were hunting buffalo in western Kansas. Now, almost exactly six years after that meeting,

Wyatt left Dodge City to trail a gang of outlaws who were wanted for stealing horses. In the process, he met Doc Holliday. In October 1877, a gang led by Dirty Dave Rudabaugh stole horses from a construction camp of the Santa Fe Railroad. The camp was in Kansas, and it was assumed the thieves were headed to Texas, so a U.S. marshal was needed to track them down. Wyatt Earp was given the job. For weeks, he tracked the gang across 400 miles of dry country. It was a long, lonely trip, and the weather grew steadily worse.

In the first half of November, Wyatt trailed the gang to a raw frontier outpost called Fort Griffin, which was about 100 miles west of Fort Worth. In the Beehive Saloon, Wyatt learned that the gang had been there several days earlier but was gone now. The owner of the saloon advised Wyatt to talk to a man who sat by himself in the corner. The man had played cards with Dirty Dave Rudabaugh. Wyatt sat down at the table and had his first conversation with John Henry Holiday.

Holiday was 26 years old, three years younger than Wyatt. But unlike Wyatt, Holliday was skinny, sickly, and warmed by whiskey. Holliday dressed well and tried to make a good appearance, despite his sallow complexion and the persistent cough that betrayed his worsening tuberculosis. He'd grown up in Georgia, gone to dentistry school in Pennsylvania, and then practiced dentistry on and off as he drifted west. By the winter of 1877, he was playing cards far more than he was fixing teeth, and he informed Wyatt that he thought Dirty Dave's gang had doubled back toward Kansas.

Wyatt sent a telegram to Dodge to tell the new sheriff of Ford County that the sheriff would have a better chance of catching the gang. That sheriff was Bat Masterson. Bat's boss, Charlie Bassett, had just finished his second term as county sheriff, and the maximum was two. Bat ran for the office and narrowly defeated the former town marshal, who was out of a job because Ed Masterson had taken his place. So in November of 1877, Ed Masterson was the town marshal and Batt Masterson was the county sheriff, and Batt's first order of business was to appoint Charlie Bassett under sheriff.

and Batt's first order of business was to appoint Charlie Bassett undersheriff. It was another classic example of the lawmen of Dodge City just trading positions when the time was right. Batt received Wyatt's telegram and immediately gathered a posse, despite the onset of winter. The posse scoured the area between Dodge City and Texas, and bad weather eventually forced them to seek shelter at the ranch of a well-known cattleman. Just a day before the posse was going to call it quits and head back to Dodge, Dirty Dave Rudabaugh and three other outlaws rode into the ranch. They were desperate for shelter from a winter storm, and they were welcomed by Sheriff Masterson and his posse, with guns drawn. The posse took the thieves to Dodge and then put them on a train to eastern Kansas to stand trial.

But anyone who heard our series on Billy the Kid knows that Dirty Dave didn't spend the rest of his days behind bars. He turned on his outlaw friends. They took most of the blame and went to prison. Dirty Dave swore he'd go straight, and he went free. But of course, he didn't go straight. He went to New Mexico, and within two years, he joined Billy the Kid's gang for their last hurrah. But that outcome was not the responsibility of the lawmen in Dodge. They had done their jobs.

And as the winter of 1878 thawed and the spring arrived, the cattle drives began. The collected lawmen were back on patrol, but it would be the worst season since they'd joined the force. There was a foreboding moment in November 1877, right around the time Bat Masterson was elected county sheriff and Wyatt Earp was meeting Doc Holliday. In Dodge City, Ed Masterson was the town marshal and he was urgently summoned to the Lone Star Dance Hall and Saloon. Two men were drinking on a Monday afternoon. One accused the other of stealing $40. The situation escalated as they traded threats. An employee ran to get a lawman. The first officer he found was town

marshal Ed Masterson. When Ed ran into the saloon, he found a scene that could rapidly produce a gunfight. One of the two men was bleeding from the head, as if the other had hit him with something. The man who was bleeding held his gun on the other man and was ready to shoot. Ed intervened and told the man with the gun to hand it over. The man refused, and when he turned from Ed to his assailant, Ed yanked out his own pistol and cracked the man on the head with it. Against the odds, the man didn't fall. It was a rare cowboy who could get hit over the head twice and not drop to his knees. Now Ed was in trouble. The man with the gun spun toward Ed and pulled the

trigger. The bullet cut through Ed's side, broke one of his ribs, and exited out the back of his right shoulder. Ed slumped against the bar. His gun hand was disabled. He shoved the gun over to his left hand and fired at the man who shot him. He hit the man in the left arm and the left leg. Then he swiveled the gun toward the other man in the argument and shot him too. When a doctor rushed into the saloon, he found Ed Masterson balancing against the bar, still holding his gun on the two wounded men who were now under arrest. Ed's actions in the saloon that day more than proved his mettle to the people of Dodge, like Wyatt and Bat had done before him. He was the top lawman in town, but he was also sidelined while he recovered. So the lineup shuffled to accommodate his absence.

Charlie Bassett, the outgoing county sheriff, took over as town marshal, and Bat Masterson stepped into his new role as sheriff a couple months early. And that was how Bat Masterson, as de facto sheriff of Ford County, took the assignment to hunt down Dirty Dave Rudabaugh when Wyatt's telegram arrived shortly after the shootout at the Lone Star Saloon. Bat would elevate his reputation further with the capture of Dirty Dave, but when he returned to town, he didn't know he only had a precious few weeks left with his older brother. In April 1878, Ed Masterson found himself in another shootout, and that one ended differently.

ended differently. Ed Masterson was mild-mannered and slow to agitate. His younger brother, Bat, was talkative and outgoing and loved practical jokes. But he also took quick action when needed. He and Wyatt subscribed more heavily to the philosophy of buffaloing a rowdy cowboy to end a situation quickly before it had the chance to escalate into real violence. Despite Ed's brush with death, he still seemed to want to handle a potentially dangerous situation by talking first, and then taking incremental steps to resolve the problem. If Ed had been a little more like Bad and Wyatt, he might have lived longer. The first cattle drive of the season arrived earlier than normal. The herd made it to the stockyards of Dodge City in the second week of April,

and the Texas Cowboys made it to the saloons of Dodge City shortly thereafter. On the night of April 9th, 1878, one of the cowboys, Jack Wagner, was very drunk in the Lady Gay Saloon. More than likely, all the cowboys were drunk, but Jack was becoming particularly unruly. He pulled out his pistol and fired several shots into the ceiling, presumably in some sort of celebration. Newly reinstated Town Marshal Ed Masterson and one of his deputies, Nat Haywood, were on patrol that night. They heard laughing and singing and general rowdiness coming from south of the deadline, as always.

But then they heard gunshots. They ran across the railroad tracks to the entertainment district on the south side of town. They hurried into the Lady Gay Saloon and saw Jack Wagner with a pistol in his hand. Ed instructed Jack to hand over the gun, and Jack did. But instead of taking the gun back to the marshal's office, Ed gave it to the trail boss of the Texas outfit, Alf Walker. He told Walker to give the pistol to the bartender for safekeeping. Walker agreed that he would. The situation had been smoothed over, no one had been hurt, and the revelry returned to the saloon. Ed and Nat Haywood walked outside to resume their patrol. They hadn't gone very far when they heard footsteps coming up behind them.

They turned and saw the drunken cowboy Jack Wagner with his gun back in his shoulder holster. Ed's patience was gone. He'd tried to resolve the problem fairly and politely, but it hadn't worked. Now he'd demanded Jack's gun. lightly, but it hadn't worked. Now he demanded Jack's gun. Jack wouldn't turn it over a second time, and the two men began to fight over the pistol. Assistant Marshal Nat Haywood stepped in to help Ed corral Jack Wagner, but then the cowboys and the Lady Gay heard the scuffle and poured outside. The trail boss, Alf Walker, pulled his gun and leveled it at Nat Haywood. He told Nat to back off, and he was quickly supported by the other cowboys who now had

guns in their hands. Even though he was outnumbered, Nat reached for his gun. Alf Walker pulled the trigger and could easily have killed the assistant marshal, but the pistol misfired. Nat Haywood scrambled away from the scene and ran to get help. Meanwhile, Ed Masterson was still tussling with Jack Wagner for the control of Jack's gun. In the fight, Jack wrenched the gun free and shot Ed at point-blank range. The shot was so close that Ed's clothes caught on fire. Uptown, Nat Haywood sprinted toward the county sheriff's office, screaming for Bat Masterson. Bat stepped out of the office, heard that his brother was in trouble, and ran toward the Lady Gay Saloon. Bat rounded

the corner in time to see Ed stumble backwards from the gunshot. Batmasterson hauled out both pistols and blasted cowboy Jack Wagner and trail boss Alf Walker. Wagner took a bullet to the abdomen and fell to the ground. Walker took three bullets, at least one to the chest. He crashed down next to Wagner. Edmasterson staggered up the street. He was mortally wounded and his clothes were smoking from the gun blast. He somehow made it 200 yards from the site of the attack and crossed over the deadline into the north side of town. He stumbled into Hoover's saloon

and finally collapsed. Bat found him there moments later. Bat sat beside his older brother for 30 minutes and watched him slip away. With his brother dead, Bat Masterson stalked out of the saloon and went in search of the two cowboys he'd shot. Wagner and Walker had stumbled away from the scene and into another saloon. Both men collapsed once again. Bat arrived in time to hear Jack Wagner confess to killing Ed Masterson, and then Wagner died. A doctor worked feverishly to save Alf Walker's life, and he succeeded. The trail boss was bedridden in Dodge for a month, and then his father traveled up from Texas to take him home. Sometime later, it was reported that Walker died

from complications of his chest wound. Ed had been popular with all the townspeople and with both of the town's competing political factions. Dodge City shut down for the lawman's funeral. Afterward, Bat had the unenviable duty of riding back to the family farm to tell his mother of the death of her eldest son. The death of Ed Masterson certainly shocked the town. Violence of this sort, the wanton murder of a town marshal, had been all but eradicated over the past couple years. Dodge needed to rally. It appointed Charlie Bassett to the post of town marshal. Charlie had filled in for Ed for six months after Ed had been shot the

previous fall, and now he was back in charge. At the same time, Charlie was still the undersheriff for Bat, and Bill Tillman was deputy sheriff. So the sheriff's office was stocked, but everyone agreed they needed to bolster Charlie's roster in the town marshal's office. Nat Haywood was so shaken by the death of Ed Masterson that he resigned as assistant marshal. The town needed Wyatt back. A telegram found him in Texas and told him of the murder of Ed Masterson. It requested Wyatt's urgent return.

Wyatt immediately headed for Dodge and arrived in mid-May. As the cattle season kicked into high gear, the ranks of law enforcement in Dodge were about as good as they could get. On the county level, Bat Masterson was the sheriff, Bill Tillman was the deputy sheriff, and Charlie Bassett was part-time undersheriff. On the city level, Charlie was the town marshal, Wyatt Earp was assistant marshal, and Jim Masterson and John Brown were policemen. And the town needed all the lawmen too. The cattle season of 1878 went down as the biggest in the history of Dodge City. It was estimated that well over a thousand cowboys flowed through the town that season. By mid-June, 110,000 cattle had already arrived for shipment back east.

110,000 cattle had already arrived for shipment back east. But the most colorful arrival that spring, and the one that would be the stuff of legends far beyond anonymous cowboys and herds of cattle, was Doc Holliday. He and his sweetheart Kate Elder had beaten a hasty retreat from Texas and landed in the most rollicking town in the area, Dodge City. And it didn't hurt that Doc's new friend Wyatt Earp was on the police force. Bat Masterson never liked Doc, but Doc's presence would come in handy more than once. The cattle season that began with the violent death of Town Marshal Ed Masterson didn't cool off as the days got hotter. In July, the Deputy U.S. Marshal was killed in the Long Branch Saloon.

The deputy had been told by his boss to help local law enforcement keep the peace during the peak of the summer, and he'd been doing a pre-dawn turn through town. the peak of the summer, and he'd been doing a pre-dawn turn through town. At about 4 a.m., the deputy was shot and killed by the cook of a Texas cattle outfit. The cook was drunk and erratic, and the shot may not have been intentional, but the deputy was dead nonetheless. Town Marshal Charlie Bassett, Assistant Marshal Wyatt Earp, County Sheriff Bat Masterson, and Deputy Sheriff Bill Tillman had their hands full later that morning. The cook was in jail, but the townspeople wanted him. Angry citizens gathered outside the jail and threatened a lynching. Wyatt brought in more help by deputizing Doc Holliday.

Wyatt brought in more help by deputizing Doc Holliday. Doc wasn't the logical choice, and he generally had no interest in donning a badge, but he was loyal to his friend Wyatt. The group held off the lynch mob, and the cook eventually pled guilty to manslaughter and was sent to prison for 12 years. Later that month, at the end of July, Wyatt, Bat, and Doc were involved, to varying degrees, in another shooting. Bat and Doc were playing cards in the Theater Comique. Wyatt and Jim Masterson were on patrol outside. A group of cowboys left a saloon and saddled up for a good hurrahing.

They turned their horses into the streets, spurred them into a gallop, and fired their guns into the air. Then as they rode past Wyatt and Jim in front of the theater, one of the cowboys turned his gun on the lawman. He fired three shots at the marshals. The shots missed Wyatt and Jim, but the.45 caliber slugs bored through the walls of the theater and caused everyone inside to hit the floor. Bat and Doc peeled themselves off the floor and ran outside. Wyatt and Jim were already responding to the gunfire with their own pistols. A bullet hit one of the cowboys, George Hoy, and he toppled from his horse. The other cowboys raced out of town and the shooting stopped.

The bullet did terrible damage to Hoy's arm and it was amputated by the army surgeon at Fort Dodge, but the procedure didn't save Hoy's life. He died about a month later. No one knows for sure whose bullet hit George Hoy, but Wyatt was pretty confident it was his. If so, George Hoy was the only man Wyatt Earp killed during his days on patrol in Dodge City. Wyatt was on the force for the better part of four cattle seasons. He'd arrested countless lawbreakers. He'd fought who knows how many men. He'd probably buffaloed more drunken cowboys than he could remember. But he only killed one man.

The shooting earned Wyatt his first mention in the National Police Gazette, and it began to build his image for the general public. Four years from now, the publication would help make him a household name and a legend. As the summer of 1878 wound down, there was one more event of note that involved Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. It's shrouded in mystery. Wyatt always maintained that Doc saved his life, but Wyatt never went into detail about the event. The traditional story holds that one night, Doc was in a saloon gambling. As in all the saloons that summer, Texas Cowboys were getting drunk. Two of them convinced the others to take over the bar and assume control of all the whiskey.

Wyatt and another policeman, possibly Jim Masterson, ran in to stop the Cowboys from ransacking the joint. As they buffaloed the offenders, one of the cowboys behind Wyatt pulled his gun and pointed it at Wyatt's back. Doc shouted from his table, look out, Wyatt, and he drew his gun and fired at the cowboy. Doc didn't hit the Texan, but he scared the man off and saved Wyatt's life in the process. Whether the story happened or not, or the details are accurate or not, the friendship between Wyatt and Doc did solidify over the course of that summer. So much so that they would meet again in the future, on the road to Tombstone.

But the cattle season wasn't done yet. Dodge City had one more tragedy in store before the year was out. The season that began with the murder of Marshall Ed Masterson would end with the murder of an innocent young woman. Next time on Legends of the Old West, a murder rocks Dodge City, and Bat Masterson assembles an all-star posse to find the killer. And then after one more season, Bat and Wyatt drift away from Dodge City and end up in the last great boomtown in the West,

Tombstone. But Bat hurries back to Dodge at the urgent request of his brother Jim, and he misses the most iconic shootout in American history. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. This season was researched by Aaron Aylsworth and written by Aaron and myself. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. Original music by Rob Valliere. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer.

If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Thanks for listening. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal. The highest cash back.

The most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Sephora, Old Navy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.