The Men That Tamed the Cowtowns

French chivalry never smacked more of adventure than did the little Western towns that were founded on the devious trail of the longhorn Texas steer to the Northern market during the decade following the Civil War.

Abilene, Dodge City, Ellsworth, Hays City, Newton — these and more were names that spelled romance in the early days when Kansas was the great clearinghouse for Western cattle, and these small but strenuous places equaled their mining rivals, Deadwood, South Dakota; Tombstone, Arizona; and Leadville, Colorado in their daily clashes of armed men. The streets of the cowtowns were thronged with the hardiest of adventurers. Paris held no more bold-eyed swaggerers and rufflers than the typical cowtown of Abilene when the brief flame of its strangely brought prosperity was at its highest.

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