Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West by Tom Clavin, read by John Bedford Lloyd
This history looks at more than just Dodge City, Kansas. It looks at the general wild west, including Kansas, Arizona, Texas, and Colorado, among others. It mostly covers the period following the U.S. Civil War through the 1890s, but occasionally takes us further back or forward in time.
It tells us of Wyatt Earp, but also of all his brothers and their lives, and similarly with Bat Masterson, telling us of his brothers escapades as well. We see many other figures of the west including Doc Holliday and his on again, off again woman Big Nose Kate. We see Buffalo Bill, the McLaury brothers, the Clanton Brothers, Mysterious Dave, Belle Starr, Billy the Kid, and many more.
I didn't realize the way many of these people moved back and forth from one side of the law to the other, some breaking the law openly even while enforcing it.
Many of the men who spent time as lawmen also operated brothels, married prostitutes, and ignored the law when it was inconvenient to them. Some spent time for minor crimes, and got no jail time for bigger actions.
Sometimes, killing a man in self defense got them in trouble and other times it got them accolades. This was a time when things were wild indeed, where the men who didn't fit in found a way to live without boundaries. Men would shoot guns off just for fun, and as "western civilization" expanded to the west, wildlife grew scarcer and the relationship with the natives grew worse.
I learned a lot I didn't know.
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