Page 68 - All About History - Issue 56-17

Lawmen

of the Frontier

Meet the real-life legends and hired guns that kept

the peace in the farthest reaches of the Old West

Written by Robert Walsh
t was a time of gamblers, people flooded west to seek their fortunes. But and High Noon, the distinction between cops and
gunslingers and legendary with the honest citizens came the criminals. robbers wasn’t always as clear as it might seem.
lawmen. A time when law enforcement was Conmen traded land they didn’t own, mines Some blurred the line between lawman and
simpler and often far more brutal. A time that didn’t exist and cattle bought from rustlers. lawbreaker. Earp was a brothel bouncer before
Iwhen badge-wearing, gun-toting lawmen Gamblers played (and often cheated) wherever becoming a lawman. Deputy US Marshal John
became legends in their own time. Spectacular games were tolerated. Thieves robbed banks, ‘Doc’ Holliday was a dentist in Georgia before
shoot-outs like the OK Corral entered history, trains and stagecoaches almost at will. Freelance tuberculosis and scandal saw him head west.
immortalised in dime novels and Hollywood gunmen, the dreaded gunslingers, killed for Holliday is remembered as Earp’s friend, entering
movies. Outlaws became folk heroes shrouded anybody who paid enough. Enter the lawmen, the OK Corral out of loyalty to him. Before arriving
in myths portraying them as far better (and bringing law to the lawless. in Tombstone, however, Doc was already accused
sometimes far worse) than they really were. Criminals like Jesse James, Billy the Kid and of at least a dozen killings.
Welcome to the Old West. Arizona’s notorious ‘Cowboys’ were overnight The second half of the 19th century saw mass
Extending America’s western frontier was like sensations. Equally legendary were lawmen like migration westward, bringing irrevocable change
opening Pandora’s box. It brought huge advances Wyatt Earp, ‘Bat’ Masterson and Pat Garrett. But, and rich pickings for criminals. Banks, trains,
in technology and enormous social change as far from the clean-cut image of films like Shane payrolls, mines and stagecoaches were all fair
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