Wild west sheriffs kept law
and order on the frontier, alongside fellow lawmen
and the local citizenry. They've been
dramatized, glamorized, and exaggerated in films and
literature for generations. And yes, the life of a wild
west sheriff was dangerous. But it was also weird. Today, we're going to find
out what life was really like as a wild west sheriff. But before we get started,
this is a good time to subscribe to Weird
History and leave us a comment or your favorite
wild west quote or saying. Now, get your six-shooter,
you lily-livered, land lubber. It's high noon in the wild west. The wild west sheriff had
to be good with their guns. But skill with a firearm
wasn't enough for a man to earn the badge. As elected officials,
sheriffs were voted in by county residents,
either at regular intervals or during special elections. So they had to be good
with people, persuasive. In late summer 1869, James
Butler Hickok, better known as Wild Bill, was
elected sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas, by a
population desperate to stop the ongoing mayhem. Hickok's tactics for
keeping the peace were too aggressive for
the good people of Kansas. After slaying at least
two men, Bill Mulvey and Samuel Strawhun, Hickok
was voted out of office during the regular
election in November. Hickok was defeated by
democratic candidate Peter "Rattlesnake Pete"
Lanihan, his deputy. What a kick in the groin when
the public votes their trust to a guy named Rattlesnake. Though he didn't
win another term, Hickok's brief time as sheriff
was credited by a Kansas newspaper for his
endeavor to rid Hayes City of dangerous characters. When Bat Masterson
campaigned for Sheriff in Dodge City in
1877, he advertised in the local newspaper
that he was earnestly soliciting the suffrages of
the people for the office, while assuring everyone
that he was no politician. Masterson's
campaigning paid off. And he took office as sheriff of
Dodge City in January of 1878. He became known to his
constituents as cool, decisive, and a bad man with a pistol. Sometimes being a sheriff
in an old west town meant you'd experienced
long periods of nothing. There were some days when
the most a sheriff would do was carry out menial tasks,
like picking up trash around the Main Street. And sometimes, when real
danger came into town, a sheriff could gather
up a posse of men and deputize them if necessary. Rounding up a posse, which
comes from the phrase posse comitatus, or made
up of civilians, was one of the most powerful
tools the sheriff had at his disposal. And it still remains
in the law books today. In 1878, the federal
government forbade the military from assisting with
civilian passes, making the role of
civilians that much more essential to maintaining order. Deputized posses, like the
Lincoln County Regulators, known for its inclusion
of Billy the Kid, took part in numerous
shootouts with rival posse led by Sheriff William Brady
during the 1878 Lincoln County War. The conflict which originated
in the New Mexico territory before it became a state
ultimately felled 19 men. Although movies
and TV shows make it seem like guns
and gun violence were unregulated
in the old west, there were many towns
and cities that enforced strict laws prohibiting them. In Tombstone, which was
located in the territory that would eventually become
Arizona, visitors were required to surrender their
weapons when they entered town. Men were supposed to
hand over the weapons at a hotel or the
local law man's office. In 1881, the local lawman was
Town Marshal Virgil Earp in. His struggle to control the
streets of Tombstone, Marshal Earp deputized his two brothers,
Wyatt and Morgan, as well as John Henry "Doc" Holliday,
to help him maintain order. When cowboys Billy Clanton
and Tom and Frank McLaury refused to surrender
their weapons to the Earps and Holliday, it led
to a fight that left the cowboys six feet under. Tombstone made gun
control popular, but it wasn't the only
town or city with gun laws. Deadwood, South Dakota,
Virginia City, Nevada, and Dodge City, Kansas attempted
to regulate arms, albeit with varying degrees of success. Finally, in 1874, Dodge City
banned weapons for anyone other than law enforcement officers. "No person shall fire or
discharge any cannon or gun, fowling piece, pistol, or
firearm of any description, or fire explode, or set
off any squib, cracker, or other thing containing
powder or other combustible or explosive material, without
permission of the mayor." While sheriffs served
entire counties, they didn't have
the final say when it came to the law of the land. Beside town marshals and
other local lawmen, sheriffs interacted with and
sometimes came up against federal marshals. Town marshals could be elected
or appointed officials. Wyatt Earp served as
deputy town marshal through Kansas, while
his brother, Virgil, served as the town
Marshal in Tombstone. The US Marshal service
was created in 1789. And it was tasked
with handling matters that fell under
federal jurisdiction, such as serving warrants,
arresting criminals, and transporting prisoners. During the mid and
late 19th century, US marshals and deputy
marshals traveled the wild west visiting towns with little to
no law enforcement in place. When US marshals came across a
county sheriff or town marshal, they might work with
the local lawmen. Or they could just as easily be
at odds with them, for example, Deputy Marshal Robert Widenmann,
and apprehended several local deputies of sheriff and fellow
Deputy Marshal Wiliam J. Brady, only to be apprehended
by Brady in return. Of course, you have to
remember that there were always more jurisdictions at play. The military had enforcement
officers of their own on the frontier. And in places like
Texas, the rangers patrolled the
border with Mexico. While a Sheriff had the
power to form a posse, they also needed the
judgment and balance to know when the posse went bad. For example, a posse
could very easily turn into a vigilante
group and take matters into their own hands while
acting under the law. Usually, these vigilante
groups would form in response to common crimes, like
property violations, especially horse thievery. Sometimes, they'd
form and target individuals who they thought
didn't fit into the community. These vigilante
groups were known to lynch, banish, or harass
minorities and loose females. To be a sheriff in
the American West meant finding a balance
between the two. On one hand, vigilante
groups could wreak havoc. But they also rooted out
the crooks in your town. In Montana, Sheriff
Henry Plummer headed a group
called the Innocents. Innocents swindled, looted, and
slew their way across Bannock. When the citizenry
of Bannock found out, they put together their
own posse of vigilantes to apprehend and lynch more than
20 members of the Innocents, including the Sheriff Plummer. As a sheriff in
an old west town, one would never know
when trouble might arise. Sheriff Tom Logan of
Nye County, Nevada found this out the hard way. In 1906, Sheriff
Logan lost his life while fighting an ill-tempered
professional gambler. Logan was wearing
only as nightshirt when he arrived at
the mining town's house of ill fame, Jewel House. Sheriff Logan found a man
named Walter Barieau fighting with Mae Biggs, the owner
of the establishment. Barieau drew his weapon
on the unarmed sheriff and fired at Logan five times. According to witness accounts,
even after being struck, Logan was seen holding
Barieau down on the ground, having hold of his hands,
in which the latter grasped a revolver. Sheriff Logan
eventually succumbed to his gunshot wounds. The front page of the
Sun's evening edition wrote of the lawman, "when
the most dangerous men were in the act of committing
their misdeeds, instead of girding himself with
weapons for a street parade and doing what some sheriffs
do to attract attention, Tom Logan was one of the
quietest men in the whole camp and always did his
duty quietly and well. "He would look down the
barrel of a loaded gun without a quiver. And he never thought
anything of it. A model sheriff, a good
citizen, Sheriff Logan was a man who was a benefit to
the world in which he lived. Barieau was put on trial
for Logan's slaying, but was found not guilty
when the jury decided he acted in self-defense. One of the many unromantic
tasks sheriffs took on throughout the work
week was collecting taxes, something
their predecessors, English Shire Reeves
had done as well. Collecting taxes
allowed sheriffs to not only pay themselves, but
to compensate their deputies and any other staff that
worked alongside them. As you may have guessed, not
every sheriff was honest. Some sheriffs in
the wild west were outlaws, either in
their previous roles or concurrently with
serving the law. For example, Wider was an
outlaw for a time in his youth, while Sheriff David Updyke
in Ada County, Idaho is believed to have been so
unlawful that he extorted and Stole thousands of dollars,
including several bars of gold. Dave Updyke was born
in New York but moved to Boise, Idaho in 1864. He was elected the first sheriff
of Ada County that same year. Soon, however,
Updyke had organized a group of men that was accused
of a series of robberies and slayings. At the Portneuf Canyon
stagecoach robbery of 1865, it was becoming
clear that Updyke was involved in crooked activities. He supplied the
criminals with weapons for the crime that
resulted in an alleged five murders and $75,000
of gold going missing. Updyke was later indicted
for embezzling public funds and resigned his
position as sheriff. He was executed by a vigilante
group in April of 1866. To date, the gold has
never been located. While everything we've seen
in movies tells us otherwise, the life of a wild
west sheriff was often messy and unglamorous. And one gets the sense that
this was a high stress gig. Despite the pay and
fringe benefits, their days were as
stressful as people who enforce the laws of
our cities and towns today. What type of sheriff
would you be? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other stories from our Weird History.
