Few towns have the reputation, or mythology, of Dodge City, Kansas. It was the "Queen of the Cow Towns," drawing in a who's who of Western icons such as Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp—not to mention Errol Flynn (Dodge City), Joel McCrea (The Gunfight at Dodge City) and James Arness, who played U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon for 20 seasons in the Dodge City–based CBS TV series Gunsmoke. These days, it's hard to separate the myth from the reality.

Yet Wm. B. Shillingberg has managed to do just that in Dodge City: The Early Years, 1872–1886 (The Arthur H. Clark Company, an imprint of the University of Oklahoma Press, $49.95), focusing on the evolution of the town from frontier settlement and buffalo hunters' mecca near Fort Dodge to freighting center on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, to Kansas' longest-lasting and largest shipping point for Texas cattle.

Shillingberg, retired president of a probate research company, is no stranger to town histories. His previous book was Tombstone, A.T.: A History of Early Mining, Milling and Mayhem. Wild West caught up with him at home in Tucson, Ariz., to talk about Dodge City.

'The more you dig into it, the more you realize there's a lot more to the stories of these individuals and these places. It was intriguing, like putting a puzzle together'

What intrigued you about Dodge City?
Back in the '50s, when you couldn't turn on your television without coming across a Western, I got interested in the Old West when I was in the sixth grade. Of course, I didn't know the myth from the reality—it was just entertainment. And The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, with Hugh O'Brian, came on——a big-time show, and I've seen episodes since, and it's not very good, of course, but to a kid in the sixth grade it sounded pretty terrific. Of course, I had never heard of the guy, and so I did like I always did. I went down to the library and rounded up index cards, and there was Stuart Lake's book (Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal). There was a lot on Dodge City and a lot on Tombstone. As time went by, I got so interested, I wanted to know more. The more you dig into it, the more you realize there's a lot more to the stories of these individuals and these places. It was intriguing, like putting a puzzle together. The two towns that stood out for me are personifications of the Wild West——Tombstone and Dodge.

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What's different about researching a town versus researching a person or event?
You've got to use sources you wouldn't use for other things. Property deeds. Towns depend on who owns the property, especially the commercial property. Then you find out where some of the real power is, even though politically it might be behind the scenes. You've got to find court records; you've got to find out who's suing whom and why. You've got to figure out if there's some commercial reason to sue or if there's some political factor involved. Court cases don't get the look-see they should.

What are the similarities between Tombstone and Dodge?
Virtually none. They share some personalities, but the economic base of both towns was entirely different, so the emphasis on what goes on is different. Dodge City is very transient. People moving in and out all the time, whether it's the buffalo hunters, the railroad workers, the military and, later, the freighters and the cattle people; they come at a certain season, and then they're gone. Well, Tombstone's a mining town, so the essence of it, the people who make it work, they're around. And, of course, in Tombstone the economy really doesn't change. It's a one-economy town, whereas in Dodge there are a lot of shifts in the economy that bring changes in the social fabric.

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