Dodge City’s Grand Bullfight

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Several Kansas newspaper reports were equally testy. The Arkansas City Traveler claimed, “The animals showed no spirit,” and the Winfield Courier said the bullfight, “proved a drawing card, but of the fight itself there seems to have been but little disposition on the part of the men or animals to make a respectable showing.” Gallardo and the late red bull might have taken strong exception to such opinions. The Great Bend Tribune opined of bullfighting generally that “at its best it is but poor amusement.” And of Dodge’s exhibition in particular, the paper felt “there was just enough of failure added to vulgar brutality” to urge the state to forbid any more such displays.

No matter—Dodge City had made its point. If its wild era was winding down, the old cowtown had proved she’d go out with a whoop and a holler. While Klaine groused over the “ridicule, burlesque, and odium” heaped upon the bullfight by his fellow newshounds, one Kansas newspaper offered a comment that must have delighted Webster and the town council, and assured them they’d preserved Dodge’s image, if only for a while longer. The Larned Optic informed inquiring minds that, “Quite a number of our boys visited Dodge last week to see the bull fight. Some of them returned looking as though they had a personal encounter with the animals.&rdqo;

A shorter version of this story appears in “Western Enterprise” in the October 2007 issue of Wild West Magazine. California author J.R. Sanders suggest for further reading: Victorian West: Class and Culture in Kansas Cattle Towns, by C. Robert Haywood; and Seeking Pleasure in the West, by David Dary.

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