People pour into camp, starting to build cabins, and it looks like a sure-enough boom!
ROBERT WRIGHT:
...long before the depot could be built business began; and such a business!!!
TOPEKA REPORTER:
Everyone in town, nearly, sold whiskey ...a perfect paradise for gamblers, cutthroats and girls.
NARRATOR:
THESE WERE THE WILD WEST DAYS. THE DAYS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR WHEN YOUNG AMERICANS, FULL OF SPIRIT, CRAVED ADVENTURE. THEY JOINED A GREAT MIGRATION AS IT THUNDERED WESTWARD AND WHEN THE DUST SETTLED THE PEOPLE SET TO WORK. THE WIDE OPEN SPACES SOON RANG WITH THE SOUNDS OF CHANGE.
THE WEST WAS NOT A COMPLETELY BARREN PLACE. RIGHT FROM THE VERY BEGINNING TOWNS AND CITIES SPRANG UP. SOME DIED, OTHERS WERE MOVED AND REBUILT IN BETTER LOCATIONS. BUT THERE WAS ONE THING THEY ALL HAD IN COMMON. WILD WEST TOWNS WERE VIVID REFLECTIONS OF THE RESTLESS MEN AND WOMEN WHO BUILT THEM.
HEAVEN AND HELL. THEY WERE PLACES FOR GOD AND THE DEVIL! BUFFALO HUNTERS NEEDED GUNS, MULE SKINNERS GROCERIES. COWBOYS CAME FOR FUN, LONELY PROSPECTORS FOR SOME COMPANY. GOOD GIRLS LOOKED FOR HUSBANDS, BAD GIRLS JUST FOR MEN! DOCTORS, LAWYERS, MERCHANTS AND INDIAN CHIEFS ALL CAME TOGETHER TO MAKE SOMEWHERE OUT OF NOWHERE.
ROBERT WRIGHT:
...they were at the edge of the last great frontier or the jumping-off- place, the beginning and the end--the end of civilization, and the beginning of the badness and the lawlessness of the frontier!
-Robert Wright, frontier town builder.
NARRATOR:
ROBERT M. WRIGHT WAS KNOWN AS THE "MERCHANT PRINCE" OF THE GREAT AMERICAN PLAINS. HE LEFT HIS HOME IN BLADENSBURG, MARYLAND AND HEADED WEST AT THE RIPE OLD AGE OF 16. WRIGHT MADE HIS LIVING AS A BULLWHACKER, TAKING WAGONS LOADED WITH SUPPLIES ACROSS THE FRONTIER.
ELLIOTT WEST:
In American popular culture, Dodge City is often seen as a classic Western town. One of the articles written on it called it the most Western town of all.
NARRATOR:
BUILDING BEGAN IN WESTERN KANSAS ALONG THE ARKANSAS RIVER NEAR THE U.S. ARMY'S FORT DODGE. IN 1872 THIS WAS THE HEART OF BUFFALO COUNTRY. ROBERT WRIGHT AND HIS PARTNERS SOON MADE A FORTUNE AS MIDDLEMEN, SHIPPING BUFFALO HIDES BACK EAST. ADDITIONAL PROFITS CAME FROM SUPPLYING BUFFALO HUNTERS WITH THE BULLETS NEEDED TO KEEP UP WITH THE DEMAND.
ROBERT WRIGHT:
The streets of Dodge were lined with wagons, bringing in hides and meat and getting supplies from early morning to late at night.
-Robert Wright
ROBERT HAYWOOD:
Bob Wright and Charlie Rath got in on the ground floor. They estimated that they shipped out 850,000 buffalo hides. But that was only the beginning.
NARRATOR:
BUFFALO BONES WERE SHIPPED EAST BY THE TON FOR FERTILIZER, BONE CHINA AND BUTTONS.
ROBERT WRIGHT:
Buffalo bones were legal tender in Dodge City. There were great stacks of bones, piled up by the railroad track, hundreds of tons of them. Dodge excelled in bones, like she did in buffalo hides.
NARRATOR:
BUT BY 1874 ROBERT M. WRIGHT'S DREAM WAS ABOUT TO FALL VICTIM TO A SHORTAGE. THE BUFFALO HERDS WERE DISAPPEARING. HUNTERS HAD KILLED MORE THAN THREE MILLION NEAR DODGE CITY ALONE.
OLD TIMERS SAID A TOWN IN THE WILD WEST COULDN'T LAST WITHOUT LUCK AND PLUCK. WHILE MOST PLACES HAD THE PLUCK, DODGE CITY DEFINITELY HAD THE LUCK. THE SANTA FE RAILROAD DECIDED TO MAKE THE TOWN A MAJOR SHIPPING CENTER FOR CATTLE. BEFORE THE LAST BUFFALO WAS GONE DODGE CITY HAD ITSELF A NEW CASH COW. THE TEXAS LONGHORN HAD ARRIVED. AND THAT'S WHEN THE FUN REALLY BEGAN IN THE WILD WEST.
WITHOUT A STEADY STREAM OF GREENBACKS EVEN THE TOUGHEST WESTERN TOWN COULD WITHER UP AND DIE. TO MAKE MONEY THE TOWNS HAD TO PERSUADE THE ROUGH AND TOUGH MEN OF THE FRONTIER TO COME IN FOR A VISIT. THE BEST WAY TO DO THAT WAS WITH WHISKEY AND WOMEN. WRITER OWEN WHITE REMEMBERED HIS HOMETOWN.
OWEN WHITE:
The town's Christians who peddled groceries, hardware, mowers, plows, coffins and mining machinery...they knew that the thing that brought customers from afar into their stores was El Paso's invitation to step up to the "sinner's bench". And they took advantage of it. They even encouraged it!
-Owen White, El Paso, Texas.
GLENDA RILEY:
Many people in the early Western towns were torn between understanding the economic importance of sin and still on the other hand wanting a respectable town where they could have their families and raise their children. What usually happened is that they compromised by moving the sinful part of town out to the end. They called it the tenderloin district, red light district and they often institutionalized sin.
NARRATOR:
NOWHERE WAS SIN MORE INSTITUTIONALIZED THAN IN THE TOWNS ALONG THE GREAT CATTLE TRAILS FROM TEXAS, WICHITA, ABILENE AND DODGE CITY. SECOND TO NONE, DODGE CITY WAS ACTUALLY PRAISED AS THE "BEAUTIFUL, BIBULOUS BABYLON OF THE FRONTIER".
TEXAS NEWS REPORTER:
May, 1877, Dodge City is boiling over with buyers and drivers!... Everything you hear is about beeves and steers and cows and toddies and cocktails! Bless your soul, what a sight!
-Texas Newspaper Reporter
ROBERT WRIGHT:
The cowboys were hardy and wild...and when they reached Dodge City, they made Rome howl!
NARRATOR:
BY 1877, ROBERT WRIGHT OWNED THE LARGEST GENERAL STORE IN DODGE CITY. THE MORE COWBOYS WHO CAME TO TOWN THE MORE HE'D PROFIT, SO WRIGHT MADE SURE HIS TEXAN COWHANDS FELT RIGHT AT HOME.
ROBERT WRIGHT:
Getting drunk and riding up and down the sidewalks as fast as a horse could go, firing a six-shooter and whooping like a wild Indian, were favorite pastimes. All could be had for a price...There were women, dance halls, music, saloons...every gambling device known at that time was in full blast!
NARRATOR:
WHEN THE SALOONS OPENED, THE SOILED DOVES OF THE FRONTIER, (OTHERWISE KNOWN AS PROSTITUTES), WERE NOT FAR BEHIND. WYOMING'S MADAME ISABELLE KEPT A JOURNAL.
MADAME ISABELLE:
The girls were attired in short, low cut fancy dresses and were bare legged. They wore all the jewelry they could...they used heavy make-up and reeked of cheap perfume. Most of them smoked cigarettes, for at that time, it was the trademark of a fallen woman.
-Madame Isabelle Donnegan, Wyoming.
TEDDY BLUE:
When our outfit came town to Miles City in the fall of '83, there was some new girls there too, fresh from the East, and they was afraid of us wild Texas cowpunchers; they didn't want to have anything to do with us at first. But they got over that. The girls said I was the best-looking cowboy on Powder River.
-Teddy Blue
GLENDA RILEY:
When we think about prostitution we tend to think of it in terms of a moral issue but I think we need to also think of it as an economic enterprise. Prostitution was after all a business and many women chose to go into prostitution because they could make better money being prostitutes than they could working in factories or in any other of the types of employment open to women at the time.
NARRATOR:
ISABELLE DONNEGAN BECAME A PROSTITUTE AFTER HER HUSBAND DIED IN NEW ORLEANS. SOON SHE WENT WEST WITH A NEW GOAL.
MADAME ISABELLE:
My only aim in life now would be to open a house of ill repute. I would be in charge as Madame! I went into prostitution as a way of life. Local miners only averaged three dollars a day and women clerks and waitresses about one dollar and a half, so a dollar paid for a trick was easy money.
GLENDA RILEY:
Prostitution drew women of all races, religions, ethnicities, all backgrounds and social classes and women had a huge variety of reasons for going into prostitution. New England school teachers for example, often came out to the cattle towns and worked the cowboy population, shall we say, in the summer months, made good money for that six months, and then went back for the winter to their New England homes.
NARRATOR:
SOILED DOVES OFTEN EARNED NICKNAMES AND A CERTAIN LEGENDARY STATUS. DODGE CITY HAD SQUIRREL TOOTH ALICE, MADAME MUSTACHE FANCIED GUNFIGHTERS AND CALAMITY JANE LIKED JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY.
NOT ALL OF A TOWN'S ENTERTAINMENT WAS FOUND IN THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT.
EDDIE FOY:
BELLE LAMONT:
Foy: Why is a dog's tail like the end of the world?
Belle: I am sure I do not know, Mr. Foy. There seems to be no resemblance.
Foy: Because it's fur to the end!
NARRATOR:
FRONTIER TOWNSPEOPLE DIDN'T CARE IF THE JOKES WERE STALE. ENTERTAINMENT WAS HARD TO COME BY IN THE WILD WEST.
MINERS PACKED THE "OPERA HOUSE" FOR ENTERTAINERS SUCH AS LITTLE LOTTA CRABTREE. AND SHAKESPEARE'S TRAGEDIES WERE SO POPULAR AUDIENCES RECITED THE LINES ALONG WITH THE ACTORS. BUT THE MOST SENSATIONAL STAR OF THE WILD FRONTIER WAS ADAH ISAACS MENKEN; FAMOUS FOR BEING DRESSED IN WHAT WAS CONSIDERED A STATE OF UNDRESS. A FORMER MISSISSIPPI RIVERBOAT CAPTAIN TURNED NEWSPAPER REPORTER WROTE THIS FLATTERING ALMOST COSMIC REVIEW OF MENKEN'S PERFORMANCE IN VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA. HIS NAME WAS MARK TWAIN.
MARK TWAIN:
About this time a magnificent spectacle dazzled my vision--the whole constellation of the Great Menken came flaming out of the heavens like a vast spray of gas-jets, and shed a glory abroad over the universe as it fell!
-Mark Twain
NARRATOR:
ADAH MENKEN'S EXTRAVAGANZA WHIPPED THE MINING TOWNS INTO A FRENZY. SPOUTING POETRY AND WEARING FLESH COLORED TIGHTS SHE LASHED HERSELF ACROSS THE BACK OF A STALLION AND GALLOPED THROUGH THE THEATER. AT THE CLOSE OF THE SHOW THE MINERS TOSSED GOLD NUGGETS ON STAGE. ADAH GROSSED AN AVERAGE OF TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS A NIGHT; THE HIGHEST PAID THEATRICAL PERFORMER OF HER TIME.
ENTERTAINMENT IN THE WILD WEST HAD ITS DARK SIDE. A GOOD NECKTIE PARTY WAS A STANDING ROOM ONLY EVENT.
AS DODGE CITY GREW THE TOWN FATHERS EXPERIENCED A SHATTERING INSIGHT. VIOLENT DEATHS WERE NOT CONDUCIVE TO BUSINESS. ROBERT WRIGHT DESCRIBED HOW THEY TOOK THE "BOOM" OUT OF THE BOOM TOWN.
ROBERT WRIGHT:
When a certain party or parties got too obnoxious to the decent part of the community, they would be notified to leave town, and if they did not go the vigilantes or the respectable citizens would raise up in their might and shoot them to death.
-Robert Wright
NARRATOR:
BEFORE LONG THE VIGILANTES WENT OUT OF CONTROL AND YOU COULDN'T TELL THE GOOD GUYS FROM THE BAD. TOWNS SUDDENLY SAW THE VALUE OF A COURT SYSTEM WITH ELECTED LAWMEN.
BAT MASTERSON:
October 13, 1877--At the earnest request of many citizens of Ford county, I have consented to run for the office of Sheriff...I have no pledges to make, as pledges are usually considered before election to be mere clap-trap... Respectfully, W.B. Masterson.
NARRATOR:
WILLIAM BARCLAY "BAT" MASTERSON WON BY THREE VOTES. BAT HAD A REPUTATION AS A DAPPER AND SELF-ASSURED SHOOTIST. HE CAME TO DODGE CITY FOLLOWING THE BUFFALO AND STAYED ON; WORKING SOMETIMES AS A BARTENDER AND MUCH OF THE TIME AS A GAMBLER.
TAMING A TOWN WITH LAW AND ORDER WAS ONE THING; CLEANING UP THE PLACE WAS ANOTHER. BOOM TOWNS WERE UNCOMFORTABLE, UNSIGHTLY, UNSEEMLY, DISEASE RIDDEN, VERMIN-FILLED COMMUNITIES.
ROBERT HAYWOOD:
There was no thought of sanitation on a public level. And consequently trash built up, there were cesspools of trash. It is said that the Dodge City hanger-ons at the saloon watched one day as they knew a man would step off into a hole that would sink up to his waist and no one said a word because they thought that would be fun to watch.
ALVIN JOSEPHY:
The early pictures of western towns conveyed a sense of something just growing bit by bit, without any overall planning. And then along would come a fire, and wipe out practically the whole town, and they'd start over again with a plan or with some idea of organization. And almost all western towns I used to think really needed a good fire!
NARRATOR:
IF A TOWN WAS REBUILT IT USUALLY MEANT THERE WAS A GOOD ECONOMIC REASON FOR ITS BEING THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. THIS MONETARY CONCEPT OF PERMANENCY OFTEN INSPIRED PEOPLE TO CLEAN UP THEIR ACT WITH SOME REAL TOWN PLANNING.
DODGE NEWS REPORTER:
The wedding feast was royal...the bride indescribably sweet, the bridegroom triumphant, and the whole company, including the minister, very happy!
-Wichita Eagle, August 6, 1876
NARRATOR:
THE MARRIAGE BUSINESS PROSPERED IN THE WILD WEST. DESPITE THEIR ROUGH IMAGE, FRONTIER TOWNSPEOPLE TREASURED THE VICTORIAN CUSTOMS THEY HAD LEFT BEHIND BACK EAST. AND MARRIAGE ALSO HAD A POSITIVE EFFECT ON THE TOWN AS A WHOLE.
GLENDA RILEY:
Marriage indicated permanence, stability, it also opened the way for things like children, schools, churches.
NARRATOR:
NO SYMBOL OF PERMANENCY SURPASSED THE BIRTH OF A CHILD. TOWN BOOSTERS COULD CLAIM A NEW CITIZEN, EVEN THOUGH THE NEWSPAPERS ONLY CONGRATULATED THE FATHERS.
HOWARD LAMAR:
We are just beginning to understand the crucial role of women in the settlement of the West. It was the women who usually founded the first schools, who supported the first churches, who were superintendents of education rather early which in turn led people to give them the vote, however reluctantly because they were already in public life.
CALVINA ANTHONY:
There were no schools, there not being enough children to start one. But we got all we could together (about ten) and formed them into a Sunday school class.
-Calvina Anthony, Dodge City
NARRATOR:
WHEN IT CAME TO RIDDING THE TOWN OF ITS WILD AND WICKED WAYS THE WOMEN LED THE CHARGE; PRESSURING THE PROSTITUTES, GIVING GAMBLERS THE GATE, AND SMASHING THE SALOONS.
GLENDA RILEY:
They see themselves as social housekeepers. They come to a town, they come to an area and they see that its their function to bring morality, to bring, quote, civilization; to bring all of the rules of an established society with them.
NARRATOR:
JUST WHO WOULD SUPPORT WHICH REFORM WAS THE BIG QUESTION. WHEN IT GAVE HIM A POLITICAL ADVANTAGE DODGE CITY LAWMAN (AND FORMER BARTENDER) BAT MASTERSON SUPPORTED PROHIBITION. BUT CITY FATHER, ROBERT WRIGHT BEGGED THE LEGISLATURE TO RESCUE DODGE FROM THE CURSE OF TEMPERANCE.
ROBERT WRIGHT:
If you do this...harmony will again prevail upon the border, the scouts will be called in, and future generations of cowboys will arise and call you blessed!
-Robert Wright
NARRATOR:
BUT THE LEGISLATURE DIDN'T LISTEN TO ROBERT WRIGHT AND PROHIBITION CAME TO KANSAS IN 1885. SALOONS BECAME SODA FOUNTAINS AND GAMBLING JOINTS AND BROTHELS MOVED AWAY. THE CLIENTELE SHIFTED FROM ROWDY COWBOYS TO FARMERS. DODGE CITY LIVED ON BUT THE SUN HAD FINALLY SET ON "THE BEAUTIFUL BIBULOUS BABYLON OF THE FRONTIER."
ROBERT WRIGHT'S FORTUNES DECLINED AS THE OLD DODGE CITY DIED BUT HIS LOVE FOR THE PLACE NEVER WAVERED. WRIGHT DONATED LAND FOR ITS LARGEST PARK THAT CONTINUES TO BARE HIS NAME TODAY.
DODGE CITY SHERIFF, BAT MASTERSON, HUNG UP HIS GUNS AND PICKED UP A PEN. BAT BECAME A SPORTS WRITER AND PROMOTER IN NEW YORK CITY.
AND EVEN MADAME ISABELLE WENT THE WAY OF THE "RESPECTABLE" WEST. SHE ADOPTED A CHILD AND REMARRIED.
ROBERT WRIGHT:
Change, change...everywhere change. Did I say everywhere? I don't quite mean that. There is one place where Dodge City has not changed--her spirit...seems the very manifestation of the western spirit of our dreams.
