May 31, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, to Bat Masterson, gunslingers were hoodlums who killed for fun. He used guns to enforce the law or defend a friend. In the end, he’d achieved a feat almost none of the Old West legends had attained: he lived to see old age. Here to tell the story of Bat Masterson is the best Old West storyteller in the country, Dr. Roger McGrath.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is Lee Habee with our American Stories, and for
the hour, we're going to tell a great story about
our past. Old West lawman Bat Masterson was as well
known in his lifetime as celebrities are today. To Bat
gunslingers were hoodlums who killed for fun. He used guns
to enforce the law or defend a friend. In the end,
he'd achieved defeat. Almost none of the Old West legends
(00:33):
that attained. He lived to see an old age. Here
to tell the story of Bat Masterson is Roger McGrath.
McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Hireman, and Vigilantes. A
US marine and former history professor at UCLA, McGrath is
a regular contributor for US Here at our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Here's McGrath.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
One of the most widely traveled in greatest characters of
the Old West was Bat Masterson. His first taste the
frontier game as a buffalo wunner on the High Plains
in the early eighteen seventies, when he was still a teenager.
He took part in the famous Battle of Adobe Walls.
He served as a scout for the US Army pursuing
(01:15):
Indian War parties. He was sheriff of Ford County, which
included Dodge City. During the heyday of the cattle Town
he was with the IRPs and Tombstone Arizona for a time.
He was a gunfighter and professional gambler, and eventually a
sports promoter and journalist. Here's Texas State historian Bill O'Neill,
(01:38):
also Dodge City historian and narrator of the Wild West
podcast Brad Smalley.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
There was a US postal stamp series that was aptly named.
It was called Legends of the West. Twenty of them
in fact, and one of them was Bat Masterson on
a twenty nine cent stamp. Bat Masterson was a legend
of the West.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
When you mentioned Bat Masterson, at least to the average
person by and large, the image that comes to mind
is really that of Gene Barry from the nineteen fifties
TV show You Know, Puff Tiede Derby Hat, Silver Tip Caine,
just sort of walking the West being Bat Masterson without
really any specifics. Canadian born farmed in New York, Iowa.
(02:30):
He was about seventeen eighteen years old when the family
moved to Kansas. They lived around Wichita, or very near
to Wichita, Kansas, for about a year. Before the two
oldest brothers, Bat and the oldest Masterson. His older brother
Ed headed west really to seek adventure. Ma Ed are.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Proficient with firearms before they start Buffalo money, but they
now become expert marksmen with the sharps rifle, helping in
Buffalo at distances of five hundred yards or more the
town they haul the heights to his Dodge City, which
will be a Buffalo town for a decade before it
becomes a cattle town. Dodge City will be called the
(03:14):
Queen of the cattle towns and have a reputation for
gunfights and rough characters, but it is rougher and more
violent in its Buffalo days. It's in Dodge City that
Bat begins making his name well known.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
At that time. In the summer of eighteen seventy two,
the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad was in western Kansas,
and Ed and Batt were hired by subcontractor Raymond Ritter
to help grade four miles of railroad track between Fort
Dodge and the small settlements, a little boomtown that was
(03:53):
to be known as Dodge City. Well, mister Ritter skipped
out on paying the Masters and brothers and probably the
entire crew.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
The dead is nearly a year old. When word reaches
Dodge City that Ridder is a passenger on a train
they'll be stopping at Dodge. Bat heads to the station
with a dozen or more men following him, who are
eager to watch what unfolds. Those in the crowds say
Bat's pale blue eyes are ice cold. When the train
(04:28):
grinds to a halt, Bat springs aboard enters the passenger car.
Minutes later, he's holding Ritterer at gunpoint on the train's
rear platform. Ridder yells out that he's being robbed.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That tells him to produce the money or he's did.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Ridder pleads that he doesn't have it on his person,
but that it's in his valise back in the car
and he'll lef to go back to retrieve it. That
doesn't fall for the trick, and as Henry Raymond, who
is standing below in the crowd, get the volice. Raymond
quickly returns with the valice, and Bat has Ridder open
(05:07):
it and count out the three hundred dollars owed them
from several thousand dollars in the bag. With that, Bat
allows Ridder to go back into the passenger car that
invites all those in the crowd to follow him to
Kelly's saloon so he can treat them to drinks. Bat
is only nineteen years old, but his coolness and determination
(05:33):
impresses everyone. Here's the owner of Legends of America, Kathy Alexander.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
Bat Masterson and the other buffalo hunters that were working
in the Dodd City area. It didn't take long for
they pretty much killed all of the buffalo in the area.
But they got when the fact that in the Texas
Panhandle they still roamed large and free. To Texas Panhandle
who was ruled by the Comanches in the Kiwa in Dans,
(06:02):
so there was a risk that he and several others
just couldn't resist.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
They set up a camp about one hundred and fifty
miles southwest of Dodge City, near the ruins of an
old trading post known as Adobe Walls. A camp grows
day by day. A big kraal is built with a
storehouse made of sod. Jim Hanrahan, a big, genial Irish immigrant,
builds a saloon out of sod and logs. Tom O'Keefe,
(06:33):
another irishman, fashions a crude blacksmith's shop, Charlie Rath builds
a general.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Store out of sod and logs.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Bill Owles and his wife, Hannah, the only woman in
the camp, opened a restaurant in the rear of Wrath's store.
They are entirely unaware that on the Comanche Reservation in
western Oklahoma, Ishatai, a medicine man is calling for a
war were of extermination against the whites. He says he
(07:03):
talks with the Great Spirit, and the great Spirit tells
him he wire a store dead warriors to life, and
that all warriors will now have magical protection against the
bullets of the whites.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath. The story bat
Masterson's continues here on our American Stories. Folks, if you
love the stories we tell about this great country, and
especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all
of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
(07:39):
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more. And we continue with our American stories
(08:11):
and the story of bat Masterson. Let's return to Roger McGrath.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Ishataize message spreads to Kaiowa, a Rappo in Cheyenne on
nearby reservations, and soon Ishatai has a large following. During June,
warrior bands of Comanche Kaiowa, a Rappo in Cheyenne both
their reservations and head for the Texas Panandle. Ishutai is
(08:39):
riding along with them. In Texas, they joined forces with
Quana Parker, the chief of the Kuwahati band of Comanche,
which has.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Never been on a reservation.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Quana Parker is the son of a Comanche chief and
a kidnapped White girl, Cynthia Ann Parker. Barker assumes command
of the force of Indian warriors about seven hundred strong.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
In mid June.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Reports begin arriving at Adobe Walls Camp that whites here
and there in the Panandle have been killed and scalped
and their bodies mutilated.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Some of the hunters decide it's.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Time to pack up their wagons and edvardde City but
most decide to stay right. At sunrise in the morning
of June twenty seventh, hundreds of Indian warriors sweep down
on the camp, both the Indians and their horses streaked
in warpaint. Some are firing their rifles, others are leveling
(09:40):
their lances. The Whites race inside, whichever side's structure is nearest.
Bat Masterson and nine others are in hand or hand saloon.
A dozen more are in the storehouse, and six in
the general store, including the one woman Anna Oles to
Seamsters who are sleeping in their wagons are killed in.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
The initial Indian assault.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Since they outnumber the Whites twenty five to one, the
Indians think they will make quick work of the whites
of the camp. However, the Indians have picked on the
wrong guys. Sharp rifles begin to crack and Indians begin
to fall from the horses at great distances. In the
two hours of fighting, only one more white, Billy Tyler,
(10:30):
is killed. In addition to the two teamsters.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Caught on the wagons.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
In the immediate vicinity of.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The camp are the bodies of fifteen.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Indians, the medicine van Ishatai, wearing nothing but body paint,
watched the battle from a safe distance. The Indians remain
in the area for two more days, but stay out
of rifle range.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
On the third day, a.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Band of a mistationed on a rise about a mile away.
They are just and taunting the Whites.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Billy Dixon decides to.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Take a shot with a sharp strifle. He reckons wind
in elevation and squeezes off around. A brief moment later,
an Indian tumbles from his horse.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
The other end answer so.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Unnerved by the long distance shot, they whirl their horses.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
About and gallop off.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
The distance of the shot is later measured at one thousand,
five hundred and thirty eight yards, about nine tenths of
a mile.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Here again is brad Smally.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
People still talk about that for years years to come.
Really cemented Billy Dixon's fame on the frontier, as if
he wasn't already famous enough by that point.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Dickson becomes famous for the shot, but he himself is
effusive in his praise of the youngest of the buffalo
hunters in the fight. Bat Masterson should be remembered for
the valor that marked his conduct, says Dixon. He was
a good shot and not afraid following in the Battle
(12:19):
of Adobe Walls, Bat serves as US Army scout with
Colonel Nelson Miles, tracking down Indian war parties. Here's Tom Claven,
the author of Dodge City, Wyatt, Bat, Masterson, and the
Wickedest Town in the American West.
Speaker 7 (12:37):
His most famous adventure as a scout later became a basis,
not the only one, but a basis for the famous
film The Searchers, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne,
Jeffrey Hunter, and a young Natalie Wood. There was a
German family that was crossing Kansas heading for Colorado, and
they were attacked by Indians. Of the parents were killed,
(13:01):
there were four daughters who were kidnapped, and soon after
the kidnapping, the Indians divided into two separate bands, each
taking two daughters, and off they went. Bat was one
of the more prominent and eventually was the leader of
a contingent of Army scouts who vowed to get these
girls back. And they tracked down one of the bands
(13:21):
and without too much trouble, found the girls and returned
them to family members. But the other band was really
hard to find. It took months and months and months
of Bat searching and all kinds of weather until he
finally found the Indians, who by then were rather starving
and the girls themselves and almost starved to death. Bat
wrote into camp, he wrote and unarmed, because his goal
(13:42):
was to not put the girls in danger, even though
he himself was in great danger. But he went and
unarmed and told he worked out a deal with the
Indians to provide them food in exchange for the girls,
which was what was negotiated and successfully concluded. Bat retrieved
the girls, turned them to their family, and it was
(14:02):
one of his more well known adventures, and like I say,
it became one basis for the Film's Searches, which is
the story of Heathan Edwards and his search for his
niece who had been kidnapped by Indians after a family
had been killed.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Let's Go Home, debby.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
The army's relentless pursuit of the Indians during the summer
and fall of eighteen seventy four puts an end to
Indian depredations for the time being.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Throughout this time, he learned just about every trail hide
away in the entire southern plains, from the panel of
Texas all the way up through southwest Kansas. He knew
his way around, which would serve him very well in
later years as a lawman, in which he became very
adepts at tracking down horse thieves. He knew all the
(14:48):
heidi holes and places that they could gather, mostly because
of this time.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
That's first recorded gunfight occurs in the Lady Gay dance
Hall in Sweetwater, Texas, on the night late in January
eighteen seventy six. Bat is with Molly Brennan when a
soldier from a nearby post, Corporal Milvin King, confronts them
in a rage.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
King was not only wounded by his loss to Bat
at the poker table, he was severely wounded by his
jealousy when he saw the girl that did he was.
After hanging on to his new found rival, jealousy overtook him.
He's torn through the door, pulled his gun and started firing.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
The bullet goes through Molly and into Bat, lodging in
his pelvis.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
As Beat is.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Falling to the dance hall floor, he draws his six
shooter and fires Bat's bullet, drills King in the hearty
and he collapses dead. Molly soon dies, but Beat hangs
on through the night and then recovers enough to have
(16:03):
the bullet removed.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
His wound was such that it actually punctured his intestine,
and the doctor who examined him said that the only
thing that saved his life was the fact that he
hadn't eaten anything because of that puncture. If any food
was in his tract, he actually would have come to
an infection and most likely killed.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Although he needs a cane to walk. Two months later,
Bett is on the back of a horse riding for
Dodge City. In Dodge Beat joins his younger brother Jim,
as one of the city's deputies. They're both hired by
Wyatt Earp, who is chief Deputy under Marshall Larry Dieger.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Now, in all fairness, you can tell the story of
Dodge City without Wyatt earth It's not nearly as good
of a story, but it can be done. You cannot, however,
tell the story of Dodtch City without Bat Masterson. And
starting in the spring of eighteen seventy six, when Bat
first pinned on a badge in Dodge City, that's where
(17:12):
the story really takes off.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
A three hundred bound Niager, the owner of a saloon.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Was appointed marshall by the city council principally for political reasons,
and most law enforcement is left to IRB, the Masterson's
and other deputies.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And you're listening to the story of Bat Masterson, and
you're listening to Roger McGrath, who's the author of Gunfighters,
High Women and Vigilantes, and what a storyteller he is.
When we come back more of this remarkable story, Bat
Masterson's story here on our American stories, and we continue
(18:09):
with our American stories in the story of Bat Masterson.
Let's pick up where we last left off with Roger McGrath.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
They try to avoid shooting and prefer to use their
heavy revolvers. The club lawbreakers into submission for clubbing. Matt
uses the kene he has relied on while recovering from
his gunshot wound. Here's Bob Boo's Bill, executive editor of
True West magazine, and Tom Claven and.
Speaker 8 (18:39):
The cowboys coming out from Texas who had been on
the trail for three months. They all got paid and
they were going to spend it all in one night,
which they usually did. And so for Bat Masterson and
Wyater to be essentially bouncers in a biker bar, it
was really.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Intense go bump up and sleep it all.
Speaker 7 (18:58):
So Bat's first job was a and it was a
really daunting challenge for white Erp Bat Masterson because Dodge
City had gotten a reputation as the wickedest town in
the American West. I mean, one example of the reputation
it had was there was a story that went around
and a very depressed man was sitting on a train
and a conductor was concerned about it and went over
(19:19):
and said, so, buddy, what's the matter, And morosely, the
man said, I'm going to Hell, And after a pause,
the conductor said, that'll be two dollars and get off
at Dodge City. That's the kind of reputation it had.
So with Bat Masterson and white Erp this is where
they really solidified, becoming best friends. Their job was to
(19:40):
try and clean up Dodge City, but do it in
a way that they were peace officers, not out gotten
the bad guys. They had Dodge City. You know, lawmakers
had tried that they'd hired a man as to be
Marshall who just started shooting everything that everybody didn't like,
and they quickly realized that was not a way to
have a civilized town that people could raised their families. So,
(20:02):
with Wyatt and bat Masterson leading the way, they started
to tame Dodge City. They started to arrest people. And
one of the things that they can credit themselves with
is taking the most wicked town in the American West
and turning it into a place that people felt they
could raise their families. What the wide Urb and bat
Masterson generation represented was a peace officer, and they took
(20:26):
the word peace very seriously. And what was happening with
these peace officers. They were forming police departments, They were
forming ways of administering a law and order system that
didn't include shoot first and ask questions later.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
In July eighteen seventy seven, Masterson is appointed under sheriff
of Ford County, Kansas. The county's principal town is Dodge City.
Sheriff Charlie Bassett's second term is up in November, and
the state's constitution prohibits him from running for a third
executive term. Back decides to run for sheriff. His opponent
(21:04):
is Marshall Larry Dieger, who is supported by much of
Dodge City's business community. On November sixth, bat ekes out
of narrow victory to become Sheriff of Ford County. Batt
is only twenty three years old.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Here again is Bill O'Neill.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Goodness see, he was elected by three votes, but he
got after it. He was arresting trained robbers and horse
they using jail escapees and confidence man to sheriff. He
was responsible for the whole county.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
In December, Bat's older brother Ed is appointed Marshal of
Dodge City. The one two Masterson punch is hard on outlaws.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
The country was just rife with horse thieves at this point,
and that became very well known as the bane of
horse thieves across the West.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
In February eighteen seventy eight, Sure's two notorious train robbers,
and in March Bat and Ed together capture two more.
The Mastersons are taming county in city, but in April
Ed is shot and mortally wounded by an inebriated cowboy
(22:17):
he's trying to subdue. Before Ed goes down, He's able
to draw as a revolver and mortally wound the cowboy,
as well as wounding the cowboys trail boss. In October
eighteen seventy eight, Bat leads a posse whose members make
it legendary. It all starts when Jim Kennedy, the wildest
(22:40):
son of powerful Texas cattleman Mifflin Kennedy, makes a nuisance
of himself again and again in Dodge City. After being
roughed up by deputies for the third or fourth time,
Kennedy goes to.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Dodge Mayor Jim Kelly to complain.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Kelly sales Kennedy only what he deserved. Kennedy explodes and
attacks Kelly, but the mayor thoroughly pummels the young cowboy.
Battered and bruised, Kennedy leaves town, swearing vengeance. Several weeks later,
in the middle of the night, Kennedy returns to Dodge
(23:20):
City riding a race horse. He streaks by Mayor Kelly's house,
firing a six shooter into Kelly's bedroom, and the cowboy
gallops out of Dodge. Unbeknownst to Kennedy, Kelly is out
of town and he's allowing two actresses to use his house.
Kennedy's bullets hit Dora Hand, who is sleeping in Kelly's bed.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
She dies instantly.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Words spreads quickly, and dozens of men volunteer for posse duties.
Matt Masterson as County sheriff is responsible for organizing the posse.
He decides the situation calls for quality, not quantity. He
picks former Ford County Sheriff Charlie Bassett and Dodge City
(24:08):
deputies Wheer, Bill Duffy, and Bill Tillman. The local newspaper
calls it as intrepid a posse as ever pulled a trigger.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Here's Brad Smally, Legends of the American West, all of them,
and all of them tracking down one man. I would
not want to be in his shoes with names like
that tracking down after me. I can tell you that.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
By the time the posse leaves Dodge, Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Has a nearly ten hour hit start. Bat reckons that
Kennedy will be racing home to his father's ranch in Texas,
but will be taking a circuitous route to avoid detection.
This means the posse can catch up with Kennedy at
the Cimarron River crossing. That Bat thinks the cowboy will take.
(25:00):
The chase unfolds as Bad anticipates, and the posse is
waiting at the crossing. When Kennedy arrives, Bat shouts at
him to surrender. Instead, Kennedy takes off at a gallop.
A bullet from Bat's sharp shrifle shatters Kennedy's arm, and
(25:20):
the bullets from the posse men slam into the horse.
Horse and rider crashed to the earth. When Bat and
the others reached Kennedy, the first words out of his
mouth are, did I get that best killing?
Speaker 5 (25:35):
When they told him that it was, in fact Dora
that he had killed, his remorse was so great that
he told Bat, you should have just killed me. He
bad then replied, well, I was doing the best that
I could.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
With the days of the buffalo hunt are over and
little need for army scouts, Matt decides to try his
luck at gambling.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
For a living.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
He's successful at his new profession in Dodge City, in
Kansas City, and by eighteen eighty one and Tombstone, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath and a whole
posse of storyteller's talking about an incredible posse. Roger McGrath
and Greg Hengler, who does such great production work here
always give you the best of all the historians in
the time period. And this American Western life, the frontier life.
(26:36):
My goodness, you can paint a picture in your head
it's different than just the movies, right. It's what life
looked like without rule of law, folks, And my goodness,
to have lived like this and to try and turn
a town like this into a place where you can
raise a family, that's no small task. And this was
the commission, this was the purpose, but's actual appearance on
(27:02):
the scene, to make this a place where families could
live as opposed to the stop closest to Hell in America.
When we come back more of this remarkable life story,
bat Masterson's story here on our American stories, and we
(27:37):
continue with our American stories in bat Masterson's story, and
my goodness, what a story it is. Let's return to
Roger McGrath with the final portion.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
That's arrival in Tombstone is celebrated by their brothers, Doc
Holiday and other old friends from Dodge City that immediately
goes to work as a pharaoh dealer at the Oriental Saloon.
Here again are Kathy, Alexander, Bill O'Neill, and Bret.
Speaker 6 (28:07):
Smalley that received a telegram from an unsigned person that
told him that his brother Jim was in great danger.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
At this point, Jim Masterson and AJ Peacock are partners
in the Lady Gay Dance Hall and Saloon in Dodge City,
and they got crossways, particularly over a bartender that was
hired by a Peacock named al Updegraph. And Updegraph well,
he didn't like Masterson either, and they traded shots. And
(28:37):
after that, that's when Jim Masterson telegraphed bat and said, Hey,
come join me, man, I'm having trouble out here.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
That received that telegram immediately hopped on a train and
traveled about eleven hundred miles back to Dodge City. He
had already lost one brother in Dodge City, and despite
the fact that he and Jim were not generally on
the best of terms by this point they were somewhat
estranged from each other, that was not about to lose
(29:07):
another brother.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
He arrived on the noon train April sixteenth, eighteen eighty
one at Dodge City. He stepped off the train and
he immediately spied Peacock and up the Graph walking together.
Of the street was crowded, but bat Boy, he went
Batlan bat He said, I have come over a thousand.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Miles to settle this.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I know you're healed. Now fight well. All three men
drew guns and opened fire and everybody scattered, and in fact,
one bystanderd caught a bullet ricochet in the back. Bat
hides out on that rail bed, uses that for a
kind of a trench, and the two opponents they took
cover behind the jail and then joining in the fight
(29:56):
or two guys on Bat's site, Jim Masterson and then
a friend of his, and they opened fire too, and
Aldgraph caught a bullet in the right lung and he
did not die. But nobody knows who, if Bat shot
him or what, but he did survive. After three or
four minutes of this firefight, mayor, the mayor of God's
(30:18):
City and the county sheriff marched onto the scene brandishing
shotguns that stopped the fight. Bat paid a fine of
HS altering the peace for carrying weapon, and he caught
training left town and that was his last. That was
his last gun fight.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
Jim I said, it's about the time when we get
the hell out of Dodge.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
Bat take that very hard because of his code of conduct.
It was important to him that people that respected him,
and they respected him for the right reasons, not so
much because he was a good gunfighter, but because he
was not honest.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Men that spends most through the next decade as a
professional gambler in Denver.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's in Denver in eighteen eighty.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Eight that Bat buys the Palace Theater, which features a
variety of acts in high stakes gambling. Well. The performers
at the Palace is singer and dancer Emma Walters. After
many girlfriends, Bat ties the knot with Emma and remains married.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
To her for the rest of his life. Here's Bill O'Neill.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
About a decade or so later, he's getting his reputation
has become unsavory in Denver, and he decides in nineteen
two to move to New York City. He had already
visited there time or two, long enough to get arrested
for Canada can see a Weapon. You know, he was
looked on with a sharp eye by law enforcement officials.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
That's almost fifty years old, and the Old.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
West is gone.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
He goes to work writing a column called Masterson's Views
on Timely Topics for the New York Morning teleg Here.
Speaker 7 (32:01):
Again it is Tom Cleven hearing the rest of Bat
Masterson's story. Many people wonder how in the world did
he end up in New York City as a reporter
of the last fifteen years of his life. What happened
was during the eighteen eighties, while Bat was a Federal marshal,
he had encountered a young man named Theodore Roosevelt who
was trying to be a cowboy in the Dakotas, and
(32:23):
during the two years that Roosevelt was there, unsuccessfully being
a rancher, he and Bat Masterson became friends. Years later,
Bat Masson was turning fifty and Theodore Roosevelt was in
the White House as President of the United States, and
Masterson wrote to Roosevelt expressing his concerns that somebody might
come along who's only half his age and with a
(32:44):
gun and decide I'm going to make my reputation as
a gun fighter by killing one of the most legendary
figures of the Wild West. So Bat said, basically, I've
got to find a new line of work. Roosevelt suggested,
why don't you come to New York. I'll make you
the deputy US Marshal for men.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Bat packed up his.
Speaker 7 (33:02):
Wife and his other belongings, got on a train, and
off they went to New York City, where he was
a gun toting federal marshall. In New York While Bat
was in New York as a US Deputy Marshall, he
was contributing to some of the local newspapers there, and
one publisher of the New York Tribune came to Bat
and said, you're so good at this, why don't you
write for me on a regular basis. So Bat Masterson
(33:25):
became a New York City journalist, a newspaper reporter and columnist.
He wrote about the three things he cared about the
most in New York, boxing, baseball, and Broadway. He wrote
his columns that became very popular. I mean, Bat Masterson
had a whole second life of fame as a newspaper
columnist in New York City. And he was quite the
(33:45):
ball vivant man about town too, because he liked to
go to the ballgames New York Giants baseball, see a
Broadway play, go to the horse track, cover a boxing match,
and then he would bang out his column and then
hold court one of his favorite saloons, which was on
forty fourth Street and Broadway. And by holding court, I
(34:06):
mean people enjoyed asking him questions, buying him drinks. He
would tell stories. Now, of course, by this point in
his life, now we're talking about the period essentially nineteen
six seven to nineteen twenty one, and by that point
in his life, many of the stories about Bat had
been fictionalized, embellished, exaggerated. For example, the gun he carries
(34:27):
supposedly had somewhere between twenty two and twenty six notches
on it, each one representing an outlaw he had dispatched. Inevitably,
every so often, when Bat was holding court at his
favorite saloon, some out of town rube would show up.
He'd encounter Oh, my goodness, it's the famous legendary Bat
Masters and from the wild West anyway, asks, can I
(34:48):
see your gun? And Bat would reluctantly produce the gun.
Sure enough, there's a whole bunch of notches in it,
and almost without fail, the topic would turn to can
I buy the gun, mister Masterson. If I headed back
to where I came from in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, wherever,
and I had the gun that helped tame the West,
(35:08):
I would become the big man in my town. I
would become famous. And Bat would say, no, no, of course,
not this gun. You know, obviously, it's a very important gun.
I can't just give it away, even for a few dollars,
but negotiations would take place, and eventually the price got
to one that Bat would approve of, and he would
sell the gun. But he would tell the guy, listen,
(35:30):
you have to leave town right away. Whatever the first
train is out of New York, you take it and
go home, because it would get me in a lot
of trouble if you're staying around here telling people you
bought my gun. All right, I wouldn't sell it to
anybody else I sold it to you. Be happy, leave town.
And the guy would leave town and then back the
next day would go to his favorite pawn shop, buy
a similar gun, cut some notches in it, put it
(35:51):
back in his holster, and he's ready for the next
fellow from out of town to come to a saloon.
He became a father figure to some of the young
reporter some of the up and coming people. Damon Runyon,
he was a young man who was a reporter for
the New York Tribune, and he really worshiped Bat Masterson.
And years later he paid homage to Bat when he
(36:14):
wrote a series of stories about New York life and
characters and show business and Broadway and gamblers, and eventually
became guys and dolls. And some people might recall that
of the two main characters, one of them is called
Sky Masterson, and that was a direct tribute to his mentor,
(36:35):
Bat Masterson.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Late in October nineteen twenty one, that.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Is at his desk writing his newspaper column when he
dies of a heart attack. He's a month shy of
his sixtieth birthday.
Speaker 7 (36:49):
He died a journalist's death, or what maybe a kind
of death many journalist would like to have. It was
in nineteen twenty one and he was sitting at his
desk at the New York Tribune building. He just banged
out his last column and he typed thirty at the bottom, which,
for those not in the journalism business, thirty means you're done.
That's it, and he was indeed done. Bet had a
sudden massive heart attack, slumped over his typewriter and died
(37:12):
at his desk.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
More than five hundred people attend his funeral. One of
those eulogizing Bat is Damon Runyon, who says.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
He was a one twenty two curate real man. Bet
was a good hater and a wonderful friend.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
He was always stretching out his hand to some down
an outer and was one of the most entertaining companions
we have ever known. There are only two few men
in the world like Bat Masterson, and his death is
a genuine loss.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
And a special thanks to Greg Hangler for the production
on that piece, and I think always to Roger McGrath
of the unique and excellent work he does for us
the remarkable story of Bat Masterson, the man who forever
changed the American West. Here on our American Story.
This is Lee Habee with our American Stories, and for
the hour, we're going to tell a great story about
our past. Old West lawman Bat Masterson was as well
known in his lifetime as celebrities are today. To Bat
gunslingers were hoodlums who killed for fun. He used guns
to enforce the law or defend a friend. In the end,
he'd achieved defeat. Almost none of the Old West legends
(00:33):
that attained. He lived to see an old age. Here
to tell the story of Bat Masterson is Roger McGrath.
McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Hireman, and Vigilantes. A
US marine and former history professor at UCLA, McGrath is
a regular contributor for US Here at our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Here's McGrath.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
One of the most widely traveled in greatest characters of
the Old West was Bat Masterson. His first taste the
frontier game as a buffalo wunner on the High Plains
in the early eighteen seventies, when he was still a teenager.
He took part in the famous Battle of Adobe Walls.
He served as a scout for the US Army pursuing
(01:15):
Indian War parties. He was sheriff of Ford County, which
included Dodge City. During the heyday of the cattle Town
he was with the IRPs and Tombstone Arizona for a time.
He was a gunfighter and professional gambler, and eventually a
sports promoter and journalist. Here's Texas State historian Bill O'Neill,
(01:38):
also Dodge City historian and narrator of the Wild West
podcast Brad Smalley.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
There was a US postal stamp series that was aptly named.
It was called Legends of the West. Twenty of them
in fact, and one of them was Bat Masterson on
a twenty nine cent stamp. Bat Masterson was a legend
of the West.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
When you mentioned Bat Masterson, at least to the average
person by and large, the image that comes to mind
is really that of Gene Barry from the nineteen fifties
TV show You Know, Puff Tiede Derby Hat, Silver Tip Caine,
just sort of walking the West being Bat Masterson without
really any specifics. Canadian born farmed in New York, Iowa.
(02:30):
He was about seventeen eighteen years old when the family
moved to Kansas. They lived around Wichita, or very near
to Wichita, Kansas, for about a year. Before the two
oldest brothers, Bat and the oldest Masterson. His older brother
Ed headed west really to seek adventure. Ma Ed are.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Proficient with firearms before they start Buffalo money, but they
now become expert marksmen with the sharps rifle, helping in
Buffalo at distances of five hundred yards or more the
town they haul the heights to his Dodge City, which
will be a Buffalo town for a decade before it
becomes a cattle town. Dodge City will be called the
(03:14):
Queen of the cattle towns and have a reputation for
gunfights and rough characters, but it is rougher and more
violent in its Buffalo days. It's in Dodge City that
Bat begins making his name well known.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
At that time. In the summer of eighteen seventy two,
the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad was in western Kansas,
and Ed and Batt were hired by subcontractor Raymond Ritter
to help grade four miles of railroad track between Fort
Dodge and the small settlements, a little boomtown that was
(03:53):
to be known as Dodge City. Well, mister Ritter skipped
out on paying the Masters and brothers and probably the
entire crew.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
The dead is nearly a year old. When word reaches
Dodge City that Ridder is a passenger on a train
they'll be stopping at Dodge. Bat heads to the station
with a dozen or more men following him, who are
eager to watch what unfolds. Those in the crowds say
Bat's pale blue eyes are ice cold. When the train
(04:28):
grinds to a halt, Bat springs aboard enters the passenger car.
Minutes later, he's holding Ritterer at gunpoint on the train's
rear platform. Ridder yells out that he's being robbed.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That tells him to produce the money or he's did.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Ridder pleads that he doesn't have it on his person,
but that it's in his valise back in the car
and he'll lef to go back to retrieve it. That
doesn't fall for the trick, and as Henry Raymond, who
is standing below in the crowd, get the volice. Raymond
quickly returns with the valice, and Bat has Ridder open
(05:07):
it and count out the three hundred dollars owed them
from several thousand dollars in the bag. With that, Bat
allows Ridder to go back into the passenger car that
invites all those in the crowd to follow him to
Kelly's saloon so he can treat them to drinks. Bat
is only nineteen years old, but his coolness and determination
(05:33):
impresses everyone. Here's the owner of Legends of America, Kathy Alexander.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
Bat Masterson and the other buffalo hunters that were working
in the Dodd City area. It didn't take long for
they pretty much killed all of the buffalo in the area.
But they got when the fact that in the Texas
Panhandle they still roamed large and free. To Texas Panhandle
who was ruled by the Comanches in the Kiwa in Dans,
(06:02):
so there was a risk that he and several others
just couldn't resist.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
They set up a camp about one hundred and fifty
miles southwest of Dodge City, near the ruins of an
old trading post known as Adobe Walls. A camp grows
day by day. A big kraal is built with a
storehouse made of sod. Jim Hanrahan, a big, genial Irish immigrant,
builds a saloon out of sod and logs. Tom O'Keefe,
(06:33):
another irishman, fashions a crude blacksmith's shop, Charlie Rath builds
a general.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Store out of sod and logs.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Bill Owles and his wife, Hannah, the only woman in
the camp, opened a restaurant in the rear of Wrath's store.
They are entirely unaware that on the Comanche Reservation in
western Oklahoma, Ishatai, a medicine man is calling for a
war were of extermination against the whites. He says he
(07:03):
talks with the Great Spirit, and the great Spirit tells
him he wire a store dead warriors to life, and
that all warriors will now have magical protection against the
bullets of the whites.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath. The story bat
Masterson's continues here on our American Stories. Folks, if you
love the stories we tell about this great country, and
especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all
of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
(07:39):
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more. And we continue with our American stories
(08:11):
and the story of bat Masterson. Let's return to Roger McGrath.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Ishataize message spreads to Kaiowa, a Rappo in Cheyenne on
nearby reservations, and soon Ishatai has a large following. During June,
warrior bands of Comanche Kaiowa, a Rappo in Cheyenne both
their reservations and head for the Texas Panandle. Ishutai is
(08:39):
riding along with them. In Texas, they joined forces with
Quana Parker, the chief of the Kuwahati band of Comanche,
which has.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Never been on a reservation.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Quana Parker is the son of a Comanche chief and
a kidnapped White girl, Cynthia Ann Parker. Barker assumes command
of the force of Indian warriors about seven hundred strong.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
In mid June.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Reports begin arriving at Adobe Walls Camp that whites here
and there in the Panandle have been killed and scalped
and their bodies mutilated.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Some of the hunters decide it's.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Time to pack up their wagons and edvardde City but
most decide to stay right. At sunrise in the morning
of June twenty seventh, hundreds of Indian warriors sweep down
on the camp, both the Indians and their horses streaked
in warpaint. Some are firing their rifles, others are leveling
(09:40):
their lances. The Whites race inside, whichever side's structure is nearest.
Bat Masterson and nine others are in hand or hand saloon.
A dozen more are in the storehouse, and six in
the general store, including the one woman Anna Oles to
Seamsters who are sleeping in their wagons are killed in.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
The initial Indian assault.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Since they outnumber the Whites twenty five to one, the
Indians think they will make quick work of the whites
of the camp. However, the Indians have picked on the
wrong guys. Sharp rifles begin to crack and Indians begin
to fall from the horses at great distances. In the
two hours of fighting, only one more white, Billy Tyler,
(10:30):
is killed. In addition to the two teamsters.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Caught on the wagons.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
In the immediate vicinity of.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The camp are the bodies of fifteen.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Indians, the medicine van Ishatai, wearing nothing but body paint,
watched the battle from a safe distance. The Indians remain
in the area for two more days, but stay out
of rifle range.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
On the third day, a.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Band of a mistationed on a rise about a mile away.
They are just and taunting the Whites.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Billy Dixon decides to.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Take a shot with a sharp strifle. He reckons wind
in elevation and squeezes off around. A brief moment later,
an Indian tumbles from his horse.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
The other end answer so.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Unnerved by the long distance shot, they whirl their horses.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
About and gallop off.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
The distance of the shot is later measured at one thousand,
five hundred and thirty eight yards, about nine tenths of
a mile.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Here again is brad Smally.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
People still talk about that for years years to come.
Really cemented Billy Dixon's fame on the frontier, as if
he wasn't already famous enough by that point.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Dickson becomes famous for the shot, but he himself is
effusive in his praise of the youngest of the buffalo
hunters in the fight. Bat Masterson should be remembered for
the valor that marked his conduct, says Dixon. He was
a good shot and not afraid following in the Battle
(12:19):
of Adobe Walls, Bat serves as US Army scout with
Colonel Nelson Miles, tracking down Indian war parties. Here's Tom Claven,
the author of Dodge City, Wyatt, Bat, Masterson, and the
Wickedest Town in the American West.
Speaker 7 (12:37):
His most famous adventure as a scout later became a basis,
not the only one, but a basis for the famous
film The Searchers, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne,
Jeffrey Hunter, and a young Natalie Wood. There was a
German family that was crossing Kansas heading for Colorado, and
they were attacked by Indians. Of the parents were killed,
(13:01):
there were four daughters who were kidnapped, and soon after
the kidnapping, the Indians divided into two separate bands, each
taking two daughters, and off they went. Bat was one
of the more prominent and eventually was the leader of
a contingent of Army scouts who vowed to get these
girls back. And they tracked down one of the bands
(13:21):
and without too much trouble, found the girls and returned
them to family members. But the other band was really
hard to find. It took months and months and months
of Bat searching and all kinds of weather until he
finally found the Indians, who by then were rather starving
and the girls themselves and almost starved to death. Bat
wrote into camp, he wrote and unarmed, because his goal
(13:42):
was to not put the girls in danger, even though
he himself was in great danger. But he went and
unarmed and told he worked out a deal with the
Indians to provide them food in exchange for the girls,
which was what was negotiated and successfully concluded. Bat retrieved
the girls, turned them to their family, and it was
(14:02):
one of his more well known adventures, and like I say,
it became one basis for the Film's Searches, which is
the story of Heathan Edwards and his search for his
niece who had been kidnapped by Indians after a family
had been killed.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Let's Go Home, debby.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
The army's relentless pursuit of the Indians during the summer
and fall of eighteen seventy four puts an end to
Indian depredations for the time being.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Throughout this time, he learned just about every trail hide
away in the entire southern plains, from the panel of
Texas all the way up through southwest Kansas. He knew
his way around, which would serve him very well in
later years as a lawman, in which he became very
adepts at tracking down horse thieves. He knew all the
(14:48):
heidi holes and places that they could gather, mostly because
of this time.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
That's first recorded gunfight occurs in the Lady Gay dance
Hall in Sweetwater, Texas, on the night late in January
eighteen seventy six. Bat is with Molly Brennan when a
soldier from a nearby post, Corporal Milvin King, confronts them
in a rage.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
King was not only wounded by his loss to Bat
at the poker table, he was severely wounded by his
jealousy when he saw the girl that did he was.
After hanging on to his new found rival, jealousy overtook him.
He's torn through the door, pulled his gun and started firing.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
The bullet goes through Molly and into Bat, lodging in
his pelvis.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
As Beat is.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Falling to the dance hall floor, he draws his six
shooter and fires Bat's bullet, drills King in the hearty
and he collapses dead. Molly soon dies, but Beat hangs
on through the night and then recovers enough to have
(16:03):
the bullet removed.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
His wound was such that it actually punctured his intestine,
and the doctor who examined him said that the only
thing that saved his life was the fact that he
hadn't eaten anything because of that puncture. If any food
was in his tract, he actually would have come to
an infection and most likely killed.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Although he needs a cane to walk. Two months later,
Bett is on the back of a horse riding for
Dodge City. In Dodge Beat joins his younger brother Jim,
as one of the city's deputies. They're both hired by
Wyatt Earp, who is chief Deputy under Marshall Larry Dieger.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Now, in all fairness, you can tell the story of
Dodge City without Wyatt earth It's not nearly as good
of a story, but it can be done. You cannot, however,
tell the story of Dodtch City without Bat Masterson. And
starting in the spring of eighteen seventy six, when Bat
first pinned on a badge in Dodge City, that's where
(17:12):
the story really takes off.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
A three hundred bound Niager, the owner of a saloon.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Was appointed marshall by the city council principally for political reasons,
and most law enforcement is left to IRB, the Masterson's
and other deputies.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And you're listening to the story of Bat Masterson, and
you're listening to Roger McGrath, who's the author of Gunfighters,
High Women and Vigilantes, and what a storyteller he is.
When we come back more of this remarkable story, Bat
Masterson's story here on our American stories, and we continue
(18:09):
with our American stories in the story of Bat Masterson.
Let's pick up where we last left off with Roger McGrath.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
They try to avoid shooting and prefer to use their
heavy revolvers. The club lawbreakers into submission for clubbing. Matt
uses the kene he has relied on while recovering from
his gunshot wound. Here's Bob Boo's Bill, executive editor of
True West magazine, and Tom Claven and.
Speaker 8 (18:39):
The cowboys coming out from Texas who had been on
the trail for three months. They all got paid and
they were going to spend it all in one night,
which they usually did. And so for Bat Masterson and
Wyater to be essentially bouncers in a biker bar, it
was really.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Intense go bump up and sleep it all.
Speaker 7 (18:58):
So Bat's first job was a and it was a
really daunting challenge for white Erp Bat Masterson because Dodge
City had gotten a reputation as the wickedest town in
the American West. I mean, one example of the reputation
it had was there was a story that went around
and a very depressed man was sitting on a train
and a conductor was concerned about it and went over
(19:19):
and said, so, buddy, what's the matter, And morosely, the
man said, I'm going to Hell, And after a pause,
the conductor said, that'll be two dollars and get off
at Dodge City. That's the kind of reputation it had.
So with Bat Masterson and white Erp this is where
they really solidified, becoming best friends. Their job was to
(19:40):
try and clean up Dodge City, but do it in
a way that they were peace officers, not out gotten
the bad guys. They had Dodge City. You know, lawmakers
had tried that they'd hired a man as to be
Marshall who just started shooting everything that everybody didn't like,
and they quickly realized that was not a way to
have a civilized town that people could raised their families. So,
(20:02):
with Wyatt and bat Masterson leading the way, they started
to tame Dodge City. They started to arrest people. And
one of the things that they can credit themselves with
is taking the most wicked town in the American West
and turning it into a place that people felt they
could raise their families. What the wide Urb and bat
Masterson generation represented was a peace officer, and they took
(20:26):
the word peace very seriously. And what was happening with
these peace officers. They were forming police departments, They were
forming ways of administering a law and order system that
didn't include shoot first and ask questions later.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
In July eighteen seventy seven, Masterson is appointed under sheriff
of Ford County, Kansas. The county's principal town is Dodge City.
Sheriff Charlie Bassett's second term is up in November, and
the state's constitution prohibits him from running for a third
executive term. Back decides to run for sheriff. His opponent
(21:04):
is Marshall Larry Dieger, who is supported by much of
Dodge City's business community. On November sixth, bat ekes out
of narrow victory to become Sheriff of Ford County. Batt
is only twenty three years old.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Here again is Bill O'Neill.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Goodness see, he was elected by three votes, but he
got after it. He was arresting trained robbers and horse
they using jail escapees and confidence man to sheriff. He
was responsible for the whole county.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
In December, Bat's older brother Ed is appointed Marshal of
Dodge City. The one two Masterson punch is hard on outlaws.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
The country was just rife with horse thieves at this point,
and that became very well known as the bane of
horse thieves across the West.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
In February eighteen seventy eight, Sure's two notorious train robbers,
and in March Bat and Ed together capture two more.
The Mastersons are taming county in city, but in April
Ed is shot and mortally wounded by an inebriated cowboy
(22:17):
he's trying to subdue. Before Ed goes down, He's able
to draw as a revolver and mortally wound the cowboy,
as well as wounding the cowboys trail boss. In October
eighteen seventy eight, Bat leads a posse whose members make
it legendary. It all starts when Jim Kennedy, the wildest
(22:40):
son of powerful Texas cattleman Mifflin Kennedy, makes a nuisance
of himself again and again in Dodge City. After being
roughed up by deputies for the third or fourth time,
Kennedy goes to.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Dodge Mayor Jim Kelly to complain.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Kelly sales Kennedy only what he deserved. Kennedy explodes and
attacks Kelly, but the mayor thoroughly pummels the young cowboy.
Battered and bruised, Kennedy leaves town, swearing vengeance. Several weeks later,
in the middle of the night, Kennedy returns to Dodge
(23:20):
City riding a race horse. He streaks by Mayor Kelly's house,
firing a six shooter into Kelly's bedroom, and the cowboy
gallops out of Dodge. Unbeknownst to Kennedy, Kelly is out
of town and he's allowing two actresses to use his house.
Kennedy's bullets hit Dora Hand, who is sleeping in Kelly's bed.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
She dies instantly.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Words spreads quickly, and dozens of men volunteer for posse duties.
Matt Masterson as County sheriff is responsible for organizing the posse.
He decides the situation calls for quality, not quantity. He
picks former Ford County Sheriff Charlie Bassett and Dodge City
(24:08):
deputies Wheer, Bill Duffy, and Bill Tillman. The local newspaper
calls it as intrepid a posse as ever pulled a trigger.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Here's Brad Smally, Legends of the American West, all of them,
and all of them tracking down one man. I would
not want to be in his shoes with names like
that tracking down after me. I can tell you that.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
By the time the posse leaves Dodge, Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Has a nearly ten hour hit start. Bat reckons that
Kennedy will be racing home to his father's ranch in Texas,
but will be taking a circuitous route to avoid detection.
This means the posse can catch up with Kennedy at
the Cimarron River crossing. That Bat thinks the cowboy will take.
(25:00):
The chase unfolds as Bad anticipates, and the posse is
waiting at the crossing. When Kennedy arrives, Bat shouts at
him to surrender. Instead, Kennedy takes off at a gallop.
A bullet from Bat's sharp shrifle shatters Kennedy's arm, and
(25:20):
the bullets from the posse men slam into the horse.
Horse and rider crashed to the earth. When Bat and
the others reached Kennedy, the first words out of his
mouth are, did I get that best killing?
Speaker 5 (25:35):
When they told him that it was, in fact Dora
that he had killed, his remorse was so great that
he told Bat, you should have just killed me. He
bad then replied, well, I was doing the best that
I could.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
With the days of the buffalo hunt are over and
little need for army scouts, Matt decides to try his
luck at gambling.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
For a living.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
He's successful at his new profession in Dodge City, in
Kansas City, and by eighteen eighty one and Tombstone, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath and a whole
posse of storyteller's talking about an incredible posse. Roger McGrath
and Greg Hengler, who does such great production work here
always give you the best of all the historians in
the time period. And this American Western life, the frontier life.
(26:36):
My goodness, you can paint a picture in your head
it's different than just the movies, right. It's what life
looked like without rule of law, folks, And my goodness,
to have lived like this and to try and turn
a town like this into a place where you can
raise a family, that's no small task. And this was
the commission, this was the purpose, but's actual appearance on
(27:02):
the scene, to make this a place where families could
live as opposed to the stop closest to Hell in America.
When we come back more of this remarkable life story,
bat Masterson's story here on our American stories, and we
(27:37):
continue with our American stories in bat Masterson's story, and
my goodness, what a story it is. Let's return to
Roger McGrath with the final portion.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
That's arrival in Tombstone is celebrated by their brothers, Doc
Holiday and other old friends from Dodge City that immediately
goes to work as a pharaoh dealer at the Oriental Saloon.
Here again are Kathy, Alexander, Bill O'Neill, and Bret.
Speaker 6 (28:07):
Smalley that received a telegram from an unsigned person that
told him that his brother Jim was in great danger.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
At this point, Jim Masterson and AJ Peacock are partners
in the Lady Gay Dance Hall and Saloon in Dodge City,
and they got crossways, particularly over a bartender that was
hired by a Peacock named al Updegraph. And Updegraph well,
he didn't like Masterson either, and they traded shots. And
(28:37):
after that, that's when Jim Masterson telegraphed bat and said, Hey,
come join me, man, I'm having trouble out here.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
That received that telegram immediately hopped on a train and
traveled about eleven hundred miles back to Dodge City. He
had already lost one brother in Dodge City, and despite
the fact that he and Jim were not generally on
the best of terms by this point they were somewhat
estranged from each other, that was not about to lose
(29:07):
another brother.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
He arrived on the noon train April sixteenth, eighteen eighty
one at Dodge City. He stepped off the train and
he immediately spied Peacock and up the Graph walking together.
Of the street was crowded, but bat Boy, he went
Batlan bat He said, I have come over a thousand.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Miles to settle this.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I know you're healed. Now fight well. All three men
drew guns and opened fire and everybody scattered, and in fact,
one bystanderd caught a bullet ricochet in the back. Bat
hides out on that rail bed, uses that for a
kind of a trench, and the two opponents they took
cover behind the jail and then joining in the fight
(29:56):
or two guys on Bat's site, Jim Masterson and then
a friend of his, and they opened fire too, and
Aldgraph caught a bullet in the right lung and he
did not die. But nobody knows who, if Bat shot
him or what, but he did survive. After three or
four minutes of this firefight, mayor, the mayor of God's
(30:18):
City and the county sheriff marched onto the scene brandishing
shotguns that stopped the fight. Bat paid a fine of
HS altering the peace for carrying weapon, and he caught
training left town and that was his last. That was
his last gun fight.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
Jim I said, it's about the time when we get
the hell out of Dodge.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
Bat take that very hard because of his code of conduct.
It was important to him that people that respected him,
and they respected him for the right reasons, not so
much because he was a good gunfighter, but because he
was not honest.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Men that spends most through the next decade as a
professional gambler in Denver.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's in Denver in eighteen eighty.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Eight that Bat buys the Palace Theater, which features a
variety of acts in high stakes gambling. Well. The performers
at the Palace is singer and dancer Emma Walters. After
many girlfriends, Bat ties the knot with Emma and remains married.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
To her for the rest of his life. Here's Bill O'Neill.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
About a decade or so later, he's getting his reputation
has become unsavory in Denver, and he decides in nineteen
two to move to New York City. He had already
visited there time or two, long enough to get arrested
for Canada can see a Weapon. You know, he was
looked on with a sharp eye by law enforcement officials.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
That's almost fifty years old, and the Old.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
West is gone.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
He goes to work writing a column called Masterson's Views
on Timely Topics for the New York Morning teleg Here.
Speaker 7 (32:01):
Again it is Tom Cleven hearing the rest of Bat
Masterson's story. Many people wonder how in the world did
he end up in New York City as a reporter
of the last fifteen years of his life. What happened
was during the eighteen eighties, while Bat was a Federal marshal,
he had encountered a young man named Theodore Roosevelt who
was trying to be a cowboy in the Dakotas, and
(32:23):
during the two years that Roosevelt was there, unsuccessfully being
a rancher, he and Bat Masterson became friends. Years later,
Bat Masson was turning fifty and Theodore Roosevelt was in
the White House as President of the United States, and
Masterson wrote to Roosevelt expressing his concerns that somebody might
come along who's only half his age and with a
(32:44):
gun and decide I'm going to make my reputation as
a gun fighter by killing one of the most legendary
figures of the Wild West. So Bat said, basically, I've
got to find a new line of work. Roosevelt suggested,
why don't you come to New York. I'll make you
the deputy US Marshal for men.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Bat packed up his.
Speaker 7 (33:02):
Wife and his other belongings, got on a train, and
off they went to New York City, where he was
a gun toting federal marshall. In New York While Bat
was in New York as a US Deputy Marshall, he
was contributing to some of the local newspapers there, and
one publisher of the New York Tribune came to Bat
and said, you're so good at this, why don't you
write for me on a regular basis. So Bat Masterson
(33:25):
became a New York City journalist, a newspaper reporter and columnist.
He wrote about the three things he cared about the
most in New York, boxing, baseball, and Broadway. He wrote
his columns that became very popular. I mean, Bat Masterson
had a whole second life of fame as a newspaper
columnist in New York City. And he was quite the
(33:45):
ball vivant man about town too, because he liked to
go to the ballgames New York Giants baseball, see a
Broadway play, go to the horse track, cover a boxing match,
and then he would bang out his column and then
hold court one of his favorite saloons, which was on
forty fourth Street and Broadway. And by holding court, I
(34:06):
mean people enjoyed asking him questions, buying him drinks. He
would tell stories. Now, of course, by this point in
his life, now we're talking about the period essentially nineteen
six seven to nineteen twenty one, and by that point
in his life, many of the stories about Bat had
been fictionalized, embellished, exaggerated. For example, the gun he carries
(34:27):
supposedly had somewhere between twenty two and twenty six notches
on it, each one representing an outlaw he had dispatched. Inevitably,
every so often, when Bat was holding court at his
favorite saloon, some out of town rube would show up.
He'd encounter Oh, my goodness, it's the famous legendary Bat
Masters and from the wild West anyway, asks, can I
(34:48):
see your gun? And Bat would reluctantly produce the gun.
Sure enough, there's a whole bunch of notches in it,
and almost without fail, the topic would turn to can
I buy the gun, mister Masterson. If I headed back
to where I came from in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, wherever,
and I had the gun that helped tame the West,
(35:08):
I would become the big man in my town. I
would become famous. And Bat would say, no, no, of course,
not this gun. You know, obviously, it's a very important gun.
I can't just give it away, even for a few dollars,
but negotiations would take place, and eventually the price got
to one that Bat would approve of, and he would
sell the gun. But he would tell the guy, listen,
(35:30):
you have to leave town right away. Whatever the first
train is out of New York, you take it and
go home, because it would get me in a lot
of trouble if you're staying around here telling people you
bought my gun. All right, I wouldn't sell it to
anybody else I sold it to you. Be happy, leave town.
And the guy would leave town and then back the
next day would go to his favorite pawn shop, buy
a similar gun, cut some notches in it, put it
(35:51):
back in his holster, and he's ready for the next
fellow from out of town to come to a saloon.
He became a father figure to some of the young
reporter some of the up and coming people. Damon Runyon,
he was a young man who was a reporter for
the New York Tribune, and he really worshiped Bat Masterson.
And years later he paid homage to Bat when he
(36:14):
wrote a series of stories about New York life and
characters and show business and Broadway and gamblers, and eventually
became guys and dolls. And some people might recall that
of the two main characters, one of them is called
Sky Masterson, and that was a direct tribute to his mentor,
(36:35):
Bat Masterson.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Late in October nineteen twenty one, that.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Is at his desk writing his newspaper column when he
dies of a heart attack. He's a month shy of
his sixtieth birthday.
Speaker 7 (36:49):
He died a journalist's death, or what maybe a kind
of death many journalist would like to have. It was
in nineteen twenty one and he was sitting at his
desk at the New York Tribune building. He just banged
out his last column and he typed thirty at the bottom, which,
for those not in the journalism business, thirty means you're done.
That's it, and he was indeed done. Bet had a
sudden massive heart attack, slumped over his typewriter and died
(37:12):
at his desk.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
More than five hundred people attend his funeral. One of
those eulogizing Bat is Damon Runyon, who says.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
He was a one twenty two curate real man. Bet
was a good hater and a wonderful friend.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
He was always stretching out his hand to some down
an outer and was one of the most entertaining companions
we have ever known. There are only two few men
in the world like Bat Masterson, and his death is
a genuine loss.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
And a special thanks to Greg Hangler for the production
on that piece, and I think always to Roger McGrath
of the unique and excellent work he does for us
the remarkable story of Bat Masterson, the man who forever
changed the American West. Here on our American Story.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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