Heavy opposition came from the local clergy, whose members deplored this “stench in the nostrils of civilization,” and urged citizens to boycott the bullfight as proof of “a better state of morals.” Their pleas likewise only served to feed the publicity monster. All this hucksterism had one unanticipated effect, though, which at least briefly seemed to put Webster’s plan in peril. Advance word of the bullfight gained the attention, and aroused the considerable ire, of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Founded in 1866, the New York City-based ASPCA had branches in several other states— Kansas not yet among them. Henry Bergh, the society’s founder and president, aimed a crisp volley of letters and telegrams at Kansas Governor George Washington Glick, beseeching him in typically overwrought Victorian prose to put the kibosh on Dodge’s bit of fun. “Let not American soil,” he begged, “be polluted by such atrocities.” Bergh’s pleas were for nothing; Glick’s sympathies stood with the Dodge crowd. He’s reported as having told a friend that had the bullfight been held a day or two later he’d have surely attended (to which report the Dodge City Times tartly responded: “The Governor is to be congratulated. His tardiness saved a disgrace to the State.”). Glick’s nonchalant attitude led crusader Bergh to take his cause up with higher authorities, a strategy that proved equally ineffectual. When Webster (some sources say mayor Bob Wright) reportedly received a telegram from the U.S. Attorney, informing him that the bullfight was in violation of federal laws, he’s said to have replied, “Hell, Dodge City ain’t in the United States!” Whether Webster, or anyone, received such a message, or this was in fact the answer, it certainly seemed to be Dodge’s stance. When the appointed day came, the fight took place exactly as planned.

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Early the week of the Fourth, the town had begun filling up with cowboys, tourists, and journalists—both locals and correspondents from areas as far flung as Chicago, New York City and St. Louis. The celebration officially began on Wednesday with a 300-yard horse race and a roping match in the new arena. On Thursday the fun continued with a 500-yard horse race and a shooting competition. Both days’ events drew respectable crowds, but though exciting these “novelties,” as the Dodge City Times referred to them, were not the big draw and everyone involved knew it. For most spectators, the real festivities wouldn’t start until Friday the Fourth.

At midday Friday, horses stood picketed shoulder-to-shoulder up and down Front Street. An estimated 500 to 700 cowboys were in town to see the fun, and the trains off-loaded carloads of the curious from points east and west. Webster led a jubilant procession down the boulevard, followed by Dodge City’s own Cowboy Band. The bullfighters—four matadors and a picador (mounted bullfighter)—strutted behind. All five were gaudily garbed, no doubt in deference to their host country and the occasion, in patriotic red, white and blue. The group was chiefed by “Captain” Gregorio Gallardo, a veterano billed as a fourth-generation matador descended from one of Spain’s finest. Armed with a Toledo sword said to be 150 years old, Gallardo cut such a swashbuckling figure that few would have suspected he made his day-to-day living as a tailor in Chuhuahua. His “fierce lot” of fellow toreros included Evaristo Rivas, Rodrigo Rivas, Marcos Moyor and Juan Herrera. Painted by the local papers as a band of fearless warriors, each resigned to an eventual death in the bull ring, Gallardo’s intrepid crew was composed of two musicians, an artist, and Chihuahua’s supervisor of public works.

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