Bat Masterson’s Femmes Fatales

Bat Masterson’s Femmes Fatales

Bob Wright, one of the earliest residents of Dodge, who stayed on to become the town’s most prominent businessman and political figure, related this first story in his book Dodge City, The Cowboy Capital, published in 1913. Bat Masterson was admired by men for his...
A Deadly Game

A Deadly Game

WARNING: This excerpt from the recently released Wild Bill Hickok: Deadwood City—End of Trail uses a fictional treatment of the facts derived from the testimony of Carl Mann at the Yankton trial of Jack McCall, and Harry Young’s 1915 Hard Knocks—Life Story of the...
From Troy Grove to the Tin Star

From Troy Grove to the Tin Star

Long before he became acting sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas, and later marshal of Abilene, also Kansas, James Butler Hickok had served in several law enforcement capacities. His first appointment was as one of four constables elected early in 1858 by the citizens of...
Aunt Sally

Aunt Sally

AUNT SALLY—FIRST WOMAN IN THE BLACK HILLS. That’s all it says on her simple, rough wood headboard that now hangs in the Adams Museum in Deadwood. A new marker was erected in 1934 at her grave in the old Vinegar Hill Cemetery, high on the wooded hill above the once...
Buffalo Bill’s First Scalp for Custer

Buffalo Bill’s First Scalp for Custer

Cody, Carr, Collins and Townsend could hardly contain themselves. On a hot afternoon at Fort Laramie, Buffalo Bill was his customary dashing and exuberant self, straight and slender and wearing a scarlet shirt as he paraded in front of John Collins’ post-traders...