Ellsworth: Ben and Billy Thompson’s Cow Town

During its heyday, Ellsworth was proud of its two fine hotels—the Grover’s Cottage, hauled over from Abilene ; and the posh three-story Grand Central Hotel. The latter bragged of being on the only paved sidewalk in western Kansas. It was 12-feet wide, of fitted limestone slabs instead of the splintery planks of the usual boardwalks.

Most of the 16 saloons, like the gambling dens, stayed open till 3 a.m. The rest never bothered to close their swinging doors. Saloon keepers had to fork over from $100 to $500 a year for licenses. The many brothels, politely known as honky-tonks, were restricted to a red-light district, Nauchville, on the edge of town. Proper citizens tut-tutted its brazen, painted hussies but had no objections to the city receiving $300 a month from prostitution fines.

When an old-timer was asked it if was dangerous to go out at night in the 1870s, he hedged, “If persons kept sober and attended strictly to their business, it was not as dangerous as it appeared.” Still, Kansan newspapers carried phrases like “As we go to press, Hell is still in session in Ellsworth.” No doubt popular writers have exaggerated the violence in all cow towns. Ellsworth probably had as many as five homicides in one year only once, in 1873. Dodge only reached that number in 1878. Of course, stabbings and shootings, probably involving fatalities, usually went unrecorded in nasty Nauchville.

Ellsworth tried to be a peaceful place. After a cowboy seriously wounded a law officer in 1871, the village organized as a city of the third class. The first order of business for the mayor and City Council in 1872 was appointment of a city marshal. A second meeting passed law-enforcement ordinances. Signs reading “The Carrying of Firearms Is Strictly Prohibited” appeared on North and South Main Street, flanking the railroad tracks. Guns were checked at the marshal’s office or in the back rooms of saloons.

When Longhorns jammed the stockyards, the police force was fully staffed. The city marshal, who was also chief of police, earned $150 a month in season; only $100 in winter and spring. His so-called deputies, actually policemen, earning $75 monthly, were added in the summer and discharged in the fall. But the council paid lawmen $2.50 for every arrest made. This bonus, taken from the fines and court costs of law breakers, spread a welcome mat for police corruption.

There was only one serious shooting in 1872 and it was not fatal. A man named Jim Kennedy, sore at cattleman Print Olive over a card game, grabbed a pistol hidden behind the bar at the Billiard Saloon. Kennedy fired five times and three of the slugs hit Olive, but the cattleman recovered. Someone, unnamed, found another unchecked pistol and shot the fleeing Kennedy in the hip. Kennedy was jailed, not hospitalized, but his pals engineered his escape during the night.

A business slump in 1873 led to prolonged stays by Texas cowboys. The summer sun, glaring down at the few patches of 90-degree shade, set nerves on edge. When bored cowboys shot up the town for fun, an annoyed City Council strengthened the police with men who were handy with guns. To afford them, the city fathers passed an ordinance requiring gamblers to pay the same fines as prostitutes.

The story of Wyatt Earp involving himself in the major shooting incident of 1873 is pure poppycock, dreamed up by Earp for his gullible biographer Stuart Lake. Likewise the titillating tale of a dance hall girl, or harlot, Prairie Rose, winning a $50 bet with a cowboy by prancing down Main as naked as a jaybird except for a six-shooter in each hand is almost certainly a myth.

The climate of violence was, in large part, fostered by something akin to police brutality. In their zeal for law and order, councilmen appointed John (‘Brocky Jack”) Norton city marshal. Brocky Jack arrived from Abilene bearing a bad reputation. Also appointed were an ex-Toledo policeman, John (“Long Jack”) DeLong and quick-on the-trigger John (“High-Low Jack”) Branham. The worst of a bad lot was the ironically named John (‘Happy Jack”) Morco, a surly, abusive, foul-mouthed illiterate. Morco was on the run from a murder charge on the Pacific Coast, and he openly bragged of having killed a dozen men there. (His ex-wife set the record straight; he had killed four innocent men who had tried to stop him from beating her up—again.) Joining the Four Jacks, as the gamblers called the quartet, was Edward O. Hogue, who doubled as a deputy sheriff.