Old West / Wild West Part 4 (Edited from Wikipedia)

LAW AND ORDER

When criminals were convicted, punishment was severe. Aside from the occasional Western sheriff and Marshal, there were other various law enforcement agencies throughout the American frontier, such as the Texas Rangers and the North-West Mounted Police. These lawmen were not just instrumental in keeping peace, but also in protecting the locals from Indian and Mexican threats at the border.

Law enforcement tended to be more stringent in towns than in rural areas. Law enforcement emphasized maintaining stability more than armed combat, focusing on drunkenness, disarming cowboys who violated gun-control edicts and dealing with flagrant breaches of gambling and prostitution ordinances.

One historian argues that the violent image of the cattle towns in film and fiction is largely myth. The real Dodge City, he says, was the headquarters for the buffalo-hide trade of the Southern Plains and one of the West's principal cattle towns, a sale and shipping point for cattle arriving from Texas. He states there is a "second Dodge City" that belongs to the popular imagination and thrives as a cultural metaphor for violence, chaos, and depravity. For the cowboy arriving with money in hand after two months on the trail, the town was exciting.

Tombstone, Arizona was a turbulent mining town that flourished longer than most, from 1877 to 1929. Silver was discovered in 1877, and by 1881 the town had a population of over 10,000. In 1879 the newly arrived Earp brothers bought shares in the Vizina mine, water rights, and gambling concessions, but Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan Earp obtained positions at different times as federal and local lawmen.

After more than a year of threats and feuding, they killed three outlaws in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most famous gunfight of the Old West. In the aftermath, Virgil Earp was maimed in an ambush and Morgan Earp was assassinated while playing billiards. Wyatt and others, including his brothers James Earp and Warren Earp, pursued those they believed responsible in an extra-legal vendetta. Warrants were issued for their arrest in the murder of Frank Stilwell. The Cochise County Cowboys were one of the first organized crime syndicates in the United States, and their demise came in the hands of Wyatt Earp.

1 Western story tellers and film makers featured the gunfight in many Western productions. Walter Noble Burns's novel Tombstone (1927) made Earp famous. Hollywood celebrated Earp's Tombstone days with John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), John Sturges's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and Hour of the Gun (1967), Frank Perry's Doc (1971), George Cosmatos's Tombstone (1993), and Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp (1994). They solidified Earp's modern reputation as the Old West's deadliest gunman.

GUNFIGHTS

The names and exploits of Western gunslingers took a major role in American folklore, fiction and film. Their guns and costumes became children's toys for make-believe shootouts. The stories became immensely popular in Germany and other European countries, which produced their own novels and films about the American frontier. The image of a Wild West filled with countless gunfights was a myth based on repeated exaggerations.

The most notable and well-known took place in Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Actual gunfights in the Old West were more episodic than being a common thing, but when gunfights did occur, the cause for each varied. Some were simply the result of the heat of the moment, while others were longstanding feuds, or between bandits and lawmen. Although mostly romanticized, there were instances of "quick draw" that did occur though rarely, such as the Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout and Luke Short-Jim Courtright Duel. Fatal duels were fought to uphold personal honor in the West. To prevent gunfights, towns such as Dodge City and Tombstone prohibited firearms in town.

Range wars were infamous armed conflicts that took place in the "open range" of the American frontier. The subject of these conflicts was the control of lands freely used for farming and cattle grazing which gave the conflict its name. Range wars became more common by the end of the American Civil War, and numerous conflicts were fought.

During a range war in Montana, a vigilante group called Stuart's Stranglers, which were made up of cattlemen and cowboys, killed up to 20 criminals and range squatters in 1884 alone. In Nebraska, stock grower Isom Olive led a range war in 1878 that killed a number of homesteaders from lynchings and shootouts before eventually leading to his own murder. Another infamous type of open range conflict were the Sheep Wars, which were fought between sheep ranchers and cattle ranchers over grazing rights and mainly occurred in Texas, Arizona and the border region of Wyoming and Colorado.

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In most cases, formal military involvement were used to quickly put an end to these conflicts. Other conflicts over land and territory were also fought such as the Regulator–Moderator War, Cortina Troubles, Las Cuevas War and the Bandit War.

INDIAN WARS

Indian warriors in the West, using their traditional style of limited, battle-oriented warfare, confronted the U.S. Army. The Indians emphasized bravery in combat while the Army put its emphasis not so much on individual combat as on building networks of forts, developing a logistics system, and using the telegraph and railroads to coordinate and concentrate its forces.

Plains Indian intertribal warfare bore no resemblance to the "modern" warfare practiced by the Americans along European lines, using its vast advantages in population and resources. Many tribes avoided warfare and others supported the U.S. Army. The tribes hostile to the government continued to pursue their traditional brand of fighting and, therefore, were unable to have any permanent success against the Army.

Indian wars were fought throughout the western regions, with more conflicts in the states bordering Mexico than in the interior states. Arizona ranked highest, with 310 known battles fought within the state's boundaries between Americans and the natives. Arizona ranked highest in war deaths, with 4,340 killed, including soldiers, civilians and Native Americans. That was more than twice as many as occurred in Texas, the second highest ranking state. Most of the deaths in Arizona were caused by the Apache.

Indian warriors in the West, using their traditional style of limited, battle-oriented warfare, confronted the U.S. Army. The Indians emphasized bravery in combat while the Army put its emphasis not so much on individual combat as on building networks of forts, developing a logistics system, and using the telegraph and railroads to coordinate and concentrate its forces.

Plains Indian intertribal warfare bore no resemblance to the "modern" warfare practiced by the Americans along European lines, using its vast advantages in population and resources. Many tribes avoided warfare and others supported the U.S. Army. The tribes hostile to the government continued to pursue their traditional brand of fighting and, therefore, were unable to have any permanent success against the Army.

Indian wars were fought throughout the western regions, with more conflicts in the states bordering Mexico than in the interior states. Arizona ranked highest, with 310

3 known battles fought within the state's boundaries between Americans and the natives. Arizona ranked highest in war deaths, with 4,340 killed, including soldiers, civilians and Native Americans. That was more than twice as many as occurred in Texas, the second highest ranking state. Most of the deaths in Arizona were caused by the Apache. Michno also says that fifty-one percent of the Indian war battles between 1850 and 1890 took place in Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, as well as thirty-seven percent of the casualties in the county west of the Mississippi River.

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