Dodge City, Kansas, sprang out of a barrel of whiskey. For 10 years it thrived on whiskey, and city politics revolved around whiskey. The ‘Wickedest Little City in America’ became its nickname. The so-called Dodge City War of 1883 came toward the end of Dodge’s whiskey era.

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After Colonel Richard I. Dodge assumed command of Fort Dodge in the spring of 1872, he stopped the sale of alcohol at the fort. This order affected not only the soldiers but also the buffalo hunters and traders in western Kansas. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was laying track toward Fort Dodge, bringing hundreds of workers. George M. Hoover, a 24-year-old Canadian, jumped on this golden opportunity. He went to eastern Kansas and brought a wagonload of whiskey back to Fort Dodge. On June 17, 1872, Hoover, destined to become the richest man in Dodge City, measured off five miles to the west and opened for business, charging 25 cents a drink.

Hoover’s competition moved in quickly. By the time the tracks arrived in September 1872, several businesses had been established, some still in tents. Dodge City wasn’t incorporated until November 1875, and Ford County wasn’t organized until 1873, so for its first year there was no law or official government in Dodge. Boot Hill, though, was firmly established.

Dodge immediately became a major shipping point for buffalo hunters. By 1873 some 2,000 hunters roamed western Kansas. In a three-year period, 850,000 hides were shipped east out of Dodge, 754,529 of those in 1873. That same year, 11ž2 million pounds of buffalo meat and 50 carloads of buffalo tongues were also shipped out.

By 1875 the buffalo was virtually gone from the area, but there was another animal waiting to take its place, the Texas Longhorn. The buffalo hunter was replaced by the cowboy in Dodge City. Some of the hunters stayed around, though, and went into the saloon business as owners, part-owners, bartenders or gamblers. Others became lawmen. Several did both. In 1877, with a population of less than 1,000, Dodge had 16 saloons, plus dance halls and brothels. The saloons changed ownership partners and locations so often one almost needed a scorecard to keep track of all the players.

The early city government and law enforcement were controlled by the Dodge City Gang (or just the Gang), a group of merchants, saloonkeepers and gamblers in favor of a wide-open town to accommodate the Texas cowboy. The Gang’s leader was James H. Kelley, an ex-Confederate soldier and an ex-scout for George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry at Fort Hays, Kan. Kelley loved to hunt and race the greyhounds he brought with him to Dodge. Nicknamed ‘Dog,’ Kelley served as mayor of Dodge City from 1877 until 1881. For 26 years he had a saloon, restaurant and opera house on the corner of Front Street and First Avenue.

Some of the Old West’s most famous lawmen worked under the first elected mayor of Dodge, George Hoover, and then under Mayor Dog Kelley. The Canadian-born Masterson brothers–Ed, Bat and Jim–worked for the railroad and then became buffalo hunters. From buffalo hunting they went to working the saloons of Dodge and serving as lawmen. Bat served as undersheriff to Ford County Sheriff Charles E. Bassett in 1877 and then was elected sheriff that November. Older brother Ed served as a policeman and assistant marshal in 1877 before being appointed marshal that December. Bat’s younger brother Jim became a policeman in June 1878 and was deputy sheriff under Bat. On November 4, 1879, he became marshal. Wyatt Earp, also a onetime buffalo hunter who took to gambling, joined the Dodge City police force in May 1876. Two years later he was appointed assistant marshal. These men didn’t tame Dodge, nor was that their aim, but they did keep a lid on it, at least north of the railroad tracks.

In 1878 the city council passed a law against gambling and prostitution in the Dodge City limits. Individuals involved in those popular activities were fined and released. No one minded too much, and the money generated by fines and by taxes on saloons paid the salaries of law officials. In the meantime, cowboys kept spending their money, and that was what the Dodge City Gang wanted.

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