Dodge City: Queen of Cowtowns: "the Wickedest Little City in America" 1872-1886

In Dodge City a man might break all ten commandments in one night, die with his boots on, and be buried on Boot Hill in the morning. In the 1870s and 1880s the town was known as the wickedest in the American West. But gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort finally lost their bloody battle with vigilantes, troopers, railroad men, and heroic peace officers. Dodge City was as remarkable for the lawmen—Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilgham—as for the killers they finally tamed.