Ballots and Bullets: The Bloody County Seat Wars of Kansas Review

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Ballots and Bullets: The Bloody County Seat Wars of Kansas ReviewThis book is absolutely facinating. I have lived in western Kansas for 12 years and always wondered why there were so many different roads going to absolutely every little one horse town. I realized that there were several towns that are now just footnotes in history that were once bustling places. Many of these towns were in much nicer locations than the towns currently located in the area. There is also some lingering animosity between towns and rivalries are fierce. The unincorporated portions of OK panhandle are still very desolate and isolated. It was eye opening.Ballots and Bullets: The Bloody County Seat Wars of Kansas Overview
"Bleeding Kansas" has earned its name. A state already scarred from the violence wrought by the likes of John Brown and William Quantrill, Kansas witnessed further episodes of wanton bloodshed in the late nineteenth century when settlers poured into a supposedly peaceful frontier.

Focusing on the tumultuous years 1885–1892, Robert K. DeArment's compelling narrative is the first to reveal the complete story of the county seat wars that raged in Kansas-controversial episodes that made national news in the late 1900s but are largely unknown today.

With a story populated by some of the most notorious characters of the West-including Sam Wood, Theodosius Botkin, Bat Masterson, and Bill Tilghman-Ballots and Bullets relives the violence that only avarice can breed. Ordinary, decent citizens were drawn into bitter conflicts to advance their own communities and block the fortunes of other towns, even if it meant using hired gunmen.

Gripping and historically accurate, DeArment's account reveals a shocking chapter in the history of the West.


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Trails South: The Wagon-Road Economy in the Dodge City-Panhandle Region Review

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Trails South: The Wagon-Road Economy in the Dodge City-Panhandle Region ReviewMy mother was born in the Texas Panhandle in 1917 and immigrated as a young woman to San Francisco. I was always interested in family history and remembered all her stories and thought I had a pretty good sense of what life had been like for her growing up. Recently, I started reading about the region and it's been SUCH an eye-opener. My mom has been dead for 11 years now, and reading books like these have just put all the information I had in context -- it's like I had a bunch of loose beads, and they are starting to be strung together into a sensible pattern.
Anyway, just want to say that when I got this book from the SF library, I wasn't sure it would be of much interest to me -- seemed like it focused mostly on Kansas. (But then, I was so ignorant I didn't know at the time how intimately involved Dodge City and W. Texas were with each other!) I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is a serious intelligent book that really paints a clear picture of a critical part of western history -- which is how the goods were moved for trade (bufallo hides, etc) and how they were moved in to the country to supply the ranchers and later the settlers, merchants, farmers. It doesn't SOUND very interseting, I know -- but I guarantee you that it really is -- and it has transformed my understanding of that part of the world before 1900 -- and the world that my mother born into which, though changed significantly, was still populated with people who worked in this trade and who remembered those days. My great-grandfather owned six square miles of land near Ft. Worth where he raised stock to improve herds. SIX SQUARE MILES! I assumed he was a very wealthy man and once said to my mother that I thought this. She looked at me a bit quizzically and replied "It's not like there was anything to BUY, you know..."
Wow -- was she right!
Trails South: The Wagon-Road Economy in the Dodge City-Panhandle Region Overview

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Dodge City: The Early Years, 1872-1886 (Western Lands and Waters) Review

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Dodge City: The Early Years, 1872-1886 (Western Lands and Waters) ReviewFor the western interested reader, this is a good book to pick up and read. It tells the history of Dodge City with the buffalo hunting, Indian troubles, cowboys and gunfights that occurred in this rough and wild town during its heyday.
The stories are there regarding the buffalo hunters, their sad destruction of this animal for their hides, and their run in with the Indians. The depiction of that fight at Adobe Walls (which is actually south of Dodge City) is one of the best that I've read. There was no telling of the "buffalo wallow" fight though (the only time that a civilian won the Medal of Honor).
The stories are also there regarding the day of the cowboys with the shipment of steers from Dodge, and the gunfights that occurred in the town. I was actually surprised at how many gunfights there were in Dodge City. Of course, there were the well known ones: Bat Masterson's gunfight in the Plaza and the gunfight in the Long Branch between Cock-Eyed Frank Loving and Levi Richardson (interesting names, huh?). But the lesser known gunfights including those between Mysterious Dave Mather a couple of individuals in separate instances and the gunfight between Marshall Tilghman and a party of drovers at the Arkansas bridge, and many others are also shared. During the late 1870s and early 1880s, Dodge City was a wild and woolly town with a number of gunfights and murders and dozens of saloons.
There are also stories of the politics and attempts to reform the town which ultimately occurred when the cattle trade essentially stopped in 1886. Also, Bat Masterson is mentioned in this book many times in each chapter. Obviously, besides being the sheriff of the county that Dodge City was located in, he was a key individual in the history of the town.
There are many other individuals who are mentioned as key to the creation and development of the town. So many, in fact, that I couldn't keep up with them.
Again, this book is for the western interested reader and not for the casual reader who may find this somewhat boring.Dodge City: The Early Years, 1872-1886 (Western Lands and Waters) OverviewThe most famous cattle town of the trail-driving era, Dodge City, Kansas, holds a special allure for western historians and enthusiasts alike. Wm. B. Shillingberg now goes beyond the violence for which the town became notorious, more fully documenting its early history by uncovering the economic, political, and social forces that shaped Dodge.


The author cuts through legend and myth to depict a Dodge City that few people really know. He takes readers back to the southwestern Kansas frontier and traces a town's evolution from a military site for protecting Santa Fe commerce, to a wild and lawless buffalo hunters' rendezvous, to a regional freighting center and the primary shipping point for Texas cattle on the central plains. Amid all this activity a community sprang up in 1872 and was still stumbling toward maturity fourteen years later when the great herds no longer came. Shillingberg describes this transformation of place and purpose, along with its attendant political machinations and business fervor, revealing singular personalities, social turmoil, and a local economy in flux. Along the way, the book offers new perspectives on the Battle of Adobe Walls, the constant maneuvering of railroad moguls and cattle barons, and the exploits of such legendary figures as Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp.

Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, from city records to personal papers, Dodge City: The Early Years, 1872–1886 surpasses previous accounts of the town by depicting complex individuals and events in greater depth and detail. It shows us a community concerned with more than brothels, saloons, and gunplay. It will stand as the authoritative history of this quintessential western town.


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