1882
year of the gunmen
SOME OF THE MOST FEARSOME GUN SLINGERS IN THE WEST
Final in a Series on LegendaryWestern
Lawman Bat Masterson
By Cosette Henritze
The Chronicle-News
Bat Masterson served as town marshal
in Trinidad during the early 1880’s after
being appointed to the position by mayor
John Conkie. Masterson didn’t prove to
be particularly diligent about his work,
however, and apparently didn’t live up
to the reputation as a lawman that he’d
earned a decade earlier while sheriff in
several cities in Kansas or while woking
along side the Earp brothers in Dodge
City and in Arizona. The stories about
Masterson during 1881-82 in Trinidad
ran more along the lines of complaints of
how he was making money dealing faro
in local saloons instead of rounding up
lawbreakers and tending to the business
he’d been hired to do as marshal. He
took off north to Denver in May, 1882
when summoned by Doc Holliday for
assistance in dealing with Doc’s arrest
and possible extradition to face murder
charges in Arizona and was away from
Trinidad for nearly three weeks on that
personal errand and there were plenty of
disgruntled murmurs around town when
he returned.
A brief article appeared in July in the
Daily News reporting “a grand howl on
the part of Commercial Street people
on account of the fact that the ruffians
are holding high carnivals there... three
fights there yesterday afternoon within as
many hours and not a single arrest was
made.”
Although Masterson was very good at
his job when he was at work, the problem
seemed to be that he simply was more
interested in spending time at the gaming
tables, where he reportedly acquired a
tidy sum during his 11 months in office.
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He would face a formidable opponent
when it came time to run for re-election
in the spring of 1883. Louis Kreeger, a
Democrat, had been a sheriff’s deputy,
was one of the best trackers in the region
and was certainly in Masterson’s league
when it came to handling a gun. The
people clearly felt he could handle the
town marshal’s job (which was no longer
an appointed position, but one voted
on by the electorate) because Kreeger
soundly defeated Masterson by a vote of
637-248.
So Masterson departed from
Trinidad, returning to Dodge City for
a time and then traveling in other parts
of the southwest, riding and working
again alongside Wyatt Earp for the next
few years. He headed to Denver in the
early 1890s, where he became involved
in something new - the sporting world.
He developed an interest in boxing and
was soon actively promoting it, as well as
gambling heavily, and he finally began
what would become his new career –
sports writing.
In Denver he’d also married, and
then became a founding member of a
new major sports organization in the
city, The Denver Athletic Club (DAC).
His marriage would survive, but his role
in the DAC did not. He was forced out by
another prominent fight promoter and
and at the beginning of the new century
Masterson and his wife had relocated to
the East Coast.
It was in New York City where
Bat Masterson spent the rest of his
life, becoming a well respected sports
editor and columnist for the Morning
Telegraph.
His years as a frontier lawman were
not forgotten, however, and while he
retained fond memories of the west and
even visited old friends occassionally
during cross-country train trips in later
years (see photo above right) Masterson
did not relish the “tall tales” and
exaggerations that were sometimes told
of his time in earlier days as a sheriff.
In 1913, in fact, he would take particular
offense at something printed in a rival
New York City newspaper, file a lawsuit
for libel, and subsequently face an
interesting courtroom examination by a
lawyer who would go on in life to become
famous in his own right (as a Supreme
Court Justice). His name was Benjamin
N. Cardozo. The court case originated
when Masterson wrote a column
criticizing an upcoming prize fight set
for Madison Square Garden, charging
that it might be “fixed.” In response, the
New legends magazine