In 1881, the New York Sun published an article about Bat Masterson under a startling headline: "A Mild-Eyed Man Who Killed 26 Persons." For the Wild West, that was an enormous number, and almost unheard of for a man of the law.
There was a good reason the figure was unheard of. It was not true. The article was written by a gullible city reporter eager to describe the rough adventures of the frontier. It was popular, exciting, and reprinted across the country. Just like that, Masterson's reputation was made as one of the most feared gunslingers of the West.
Masterson was no stranger to gunfights. He was involved in shootouts and plenty of other violent episodes. But his body count was far lower. During a libel trial, under oath, he estimated that he had killed three men, and said all of the shootings had been justified.
He was also a man whose ambitions extended past the life of a gunslinger, and he fulfilled them. Once his lawman days were over, he moved to New York City and worked in the boxing world, as a journalist, as a bodyguard to a millionaire, and even as a presidential appointee under Theodore Roosevelt. Masterson was molded by the Wild West, but he was one of the few to outgrow and outlive it.
Bartholomew William Barclay Masterson was born on November 26, 1853, in Henryville, Quebec, Canada. His father, Thomas Masterson, was a Canadian farmer, and his mother, Catherine McGurk, was an Irish immigrant. He had six siblings, including brothers Ed and James, who would also become gunslinging lawmen alongside him. Neither achieved his level of fame.
The origin of his nickname is disputed. According to Wild West folklore, he earned it while serving as a lawman in Dodge City. Wounded in a previous gunfight, he was forced to walk with a cane. He became proficient with it and often used it as a club in fights against rowdy cowboys, and the nickname "Bat" followed.
That story fits his Old West persona, but he appears to have been called Bat before his lawman days and before he was shot. In his own book, "Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier," he said he earned the nickname during his buffalo hunting days from a skilled hunter and trapper named Baptiste Brown, also known as Old Bat. The book, however, was a collection of dramatic newspaper articles, so it is hard to say what was genuine and what was embellished.
A third, more mundane story says his original name, Bartholomew, was shortened to Bart, which then became Bat. He almost always referred to himself as W.B. "Bat" Masterson.
The Masterson family left Canada when Bat was a boy and moved around the United States before settling in Kansas in 1871, on a large farm near Wichita. Bat was 18 and ready to find something to do. Already skilled with guns, he joined his older brother Ed as a buffalo hunter, and James later joined them.
During this time he met other figures who would become part of the legend of the Wild West, including frontiersman Tom Nixon, Billy Dixon, and his soon-to-be close friend Wyatt Earp.
Stories from those days helped build his reputation. On one occasion, he and Ed were stiffed on payment by a contractor named Raymond Ritter, who had hired them to do grading for the Santa Fe Railroad. The story goes that it took nearly a year, but they finally tracked Ritter down as he arrived in town by train. Bat waited for the train to pull into the station, entered Ritter's compartment, drew on him, and made him pay what he owed at gunpoint.
On June 27, 1874, Masterson unwillingly took part in the Second Battle of Adobe Walls, against hundreds of Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kiowa warriors led by the Comanche chief Quanah Parker. Adobe Walls was a trading post in the Texas Panhandle and, a decade earlier, the site of one of the largest conflicts on the Great Plains, when a force of around 400 soldiers and scouts led by Kit Carson fought thousands of Native Americans, most of them Comanche and Apache.
That battle was inconclusive. Ten years later, the southern Plains bands again wanted to destroy Adobe Walls and push back the hunters who were rapidly dwindling the buffalo population. This time the conflict was smaller in scale. On one side were just 28 buffalo hunters trapped inside Adobe Walls, with 20-year-old Bat Masterson the youngest of the bunch. On the other were hundreds of braves, with estimates ranging from 250 to 700.
In his memoir, Billy Dixon described the scene: hundreds of warriors, "the flower of the fighting men of the southwestern plains tribes," mounted on their finest horses, armed with guns and lances and carrying heavy shields of thick buffalo hide. The battle became a prolonged siege, but it ended with one phenomenal shot that became the stuff of legend.
It belonged to Dixon, a renowned crack shot. During a break in the fight, the buffalo hunters saw a group of enemy riders gathering on a ridge almost a mile away to survey the situation. Dixon took aim with a .50-90 Sharps rifle and dropped one of the warriors with a single bullet. The Comanche were allegedly so disheartened that they gave up the siege.
Masterson acquitted himself well in the fighting and later enrolled as a civilian scout in the Red River War, which took place on the southern Plains as a direct result of the siege at Adobe Walls.
After his enlistment ended, Masterson spent more time hunting buffalo and gambling in saloons before heading to Dodge City to become a lawman. Before that came the event that left him with a limp and forced him to use a cane.
In January 1876, Masterson was still around the army camp near Adobe Walls. One night during a card game, he argued with Corporal Melvin King of the Fourth U.S. Cavalry, allegedly over a prostitute named Molly Brennan. The argument became a fight, and King pulled out a gun and fired.
During the scuffle, Brennan got between the two men trying to stop the fight. King's bullet accidentally hit her in the stomach, came out the other side, and struck Masterson in the pelvis. Masterson drew his own gun and shot King dead. Brennan also died of her injuries.
Another version of the story says Masterson and King were involved in a fight between multiple buffalo hunters and soldiers. King was the only fatality, and it was not even known whether Masterson shot him. Given Bat's fame, the first story became the popular one.
By May of that year, Masterson had recovered and made his way to Dodge City, Kansas, a city synonymous with the Old West alongside Tombstone and Deadwood. When he rode into town, the man in charge was Charlie Bassett, serving as both city marshal of Dodge City and sheriff of Ford County, Kansas.
By 1877, Bat was made undersheriff for Ford County, while his brother Ed became deputy marshal. Wyatt Earp also served as a lawman in Dodge City during this time before moving on to Tombstone.
By the end of the year, Bassett's term as sheriff was ending, and Kansas law barred him from seeking a third term. He backed Masterson as a candidate for sheriff of Ford County. Local newspapers described Masterson as "a young man of nerve and coolness in cases of danger," noting that he had served on the police force and as undersheriff and knew "just how to gather in the sinners."
Masterson was elected sheriff in November and took office in January 1878. He appointed Bassett as his new undersheriff and his brother Ed as the new city marshal of Dodge City. James joined them a little later.
Three notable events marked his time as sheriff of Ford County. The first was exactly the kind of thing expected from the Wild West. In his second month in office, Masterson and his posse chased down a gang of dangerous train robbers led by a notorious outlaw named Dirty Dave Rudabaugh. They captured two of the criminals in an ambush and arrested them without a shootout. The other two were apprehended soon after.
The second event was considerably more violent and left two men dead. On April 9, 1878, city marshal Ed Masterson approached a drunken cowboy named Jack Wagner, who was causing a ruckus in town. He tried to get Wagner to disarm, but Wagner drew on Ed and shot him. Ed shot back and hit the cowboy in the chest, then stumbled into a nearby saloon, said what had happened, and collapsed. He died about half an hour later, killed in the line of duty. Wagner died the next day.
In different versions of the story, Wagner escaped the altercation unharmed, but once Bat found out what he had done, he tracked down his brother's killer and gunned him down himself.
The third incident was known as the Royal Gorge War, in reality a dispute between two railroads over who had the right to lay track through the Royal Gorge. Such conflicts were common and known as railroad wars, as companies vied for supremacy. This one was between the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.
Such companies often employed gunfighters as an intimidation tactic, with the official reason being to protect their interests. This time the Santa Fe Railroad hired Bat Masterson to look after its interests, which involved assembling a group of about 60 men and even obtaining a cannon should one be needed.
The gunslingers in Masterson's employ were a who's who of the Wild West, including Doc Holliday, Ben Thompson, Mysterious Dave Mather, and even Dirty Dave Rudabaugh, whom he had once arrested. For something called a war, the Royal Gorge conflict was surprisingly tame. Most of it was fought in courtrooms while the hired men kept their guns holstered and relied mainly on threats and intimidation.
There is still dispute over whether anyone was actually killed. Some sources say no, while others claim a man named Henry Jenkins was shot in the back by a drunken guard. Eventually the Supreme Court settled the matter and sided with the Rio Grande Railroad, forcing Masterson and his posse to surrender their positions.
It is unclear whether his role in the Royal Gorge War tainted his reputation, but Masterson lost his re-election bid for Ford County sheriff in 1880. For the next few years he drifted from town to town, mainly as a gambler and occasional dealer at the faro tables.
There were a couple of instances when he showed he was willing to leave everything behind to help friends in need. Most famous was the so-called Battle of the Plaza in April 1881. At that point Bat was in Tombstone, working in the Oriental Saloon alongside Wyatt Earp, when he received a telegram from his brother James saying he was in danger and needed help in Dodge City.
Bat had already lost one brother and did not want to lose another. He jumped on the first train and arrived in Dodge City on April 16. Because telegrams were usually short, he had little idea of his brother's predicament. He knew James had been arguing with a former business partner named A.J. Peacock and his brother-in-law Al Updegraff, and clearly feared for his life.
As it happened, Bat spotted Peacock and Updegraff as he was getting off the train. It is possible they were waiting for him, knowing James would have sent for help. Bat called out to them, but they were not in the talking mood. They drew their guns and opened fire, and Bat dove for cover and did the same.
During the shootout, a couple of Masterson's old friends exited the Long Branch Saloon and joined the gunfight, as did a few gunmen from Peacock's side. Eventually Updegraff fell to the ground moaning, a bullet having pierced his lungs. Who shot him is unknown, but that ended the fight. Masterson had run out of bullets.
When the mayor approached him with a shotgun in hand, Bat surrendered his guns and asked how his brother was doing. James was fine. Since it could not be proven who shot Updegraff, Masterson was only fined eight dollars for unlawfully discharging his gun on a city street. He and James left Dodge City together and later ended up in Trinidad, Colorado, where they once again served as lawmen.
In 1882, Bat Masterson became city marshal of Trinidad. During his tenure, at the behest of Wyatt Earp, he used his influence to save Doc Holliday, who had been arrested in Denver for a shooting committed in Arizona. Holliday risked deportation to Arizona, where he and the Earps had many enemies eager for revenge.
Masterson helped him in Colorado by filing bogus charges against Holliday to delay proceedings, then convinced the Colorado governor to reject the extradition altogether.
Oddly enough, the most notable event of this era did not happen in Trinidad but back in Dodge City. In April 1883, Masterson received word that his friend Luke Short needed help. Once again he did not hesitate and boarded the train. The timing worked out well, as he had just lost his re-election bid for city marshal in Trinidad.
Luke Short was a partner in the infamous Long Branch Saloon and had clashed with the new mayor, Lawrence Deger. Deger wanted the saloon closed and Short gone. When legal measures failed, Short claimed Deger, along with the police and city marshal, unofficially organized a vigilante group to drive him out of town under threat of violence.
Short petitioned the governor, who sided with him but gave him only a 10-day window to return to Dodge City and sell the saloon. Back in town, it was made clear that if Short was still around after those 10 days, bad things would happen. That is when he sent word to his friends, and quite a few answered the call.
There was Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Charlie Bassett, Shotgun John Collins, and about half a dozen others. This became known as the Dodge City War, though the word "war" was again a bit disingenuous. There was no fighting. Deger's posse knew better than to start a shootout with some of the West's most feared gunmen.
Ultimately it was basic economics that settled the matter. When Short's allies arrived, Mayor Deger ordered all the saloons, bars, and gambling halls closed. This was at the height of the cattle drive season, and business owners complained that the mayor's actions were destroying the city's economy. He eventually relented, and the Dodge City War ended without a single shot fired. Short sold the saloon a few months later.
The most memorable moment of the affair was a photograph of Luke Short, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and the other gunmen, dubbed the Dodge City Peace Commission. It became one of the most widely reproduced images of the Old West.
The Dodge City War was more or less Masterson's last hurrah as a fearsome gunslinger. From then on he tried to live a more docile life, focused on other interests. He started with journalism, publishing his first newspaper, the Vox Populi, in 1884. It lasted only one issue. Although he would eventually find success as a journalist, that time had not yet arrived.
In 1886, Masterson left Dodge City and moved to Denver, where he held various gambling jobs, including faro dealer and gambling hall manager. Around this time he met and befriended a notorious con man named Soapy Smith.
During the 1890s, Masterson pursued two more interests: boxing and mining. He had long been a boxing fan and attended numerous bouts, eventually serving in an official capacity as a timekeeper, promoter, or second. As for mining, he briefly relocated to Creede, Colorado, a silver boom town, where he managed a gambling house called the Denver Exchange and served as an unofficial lawman.
He had no authority, but as one newspaper described it, Masterson was "generally recognized in the camp as the nerviest man of all the fighters here." All the toughs and thugs feared him, the paper said, and all that was necessary to quell a fight was the whisper, "There comes Masterson."
His fearsome reputation still preceded him, and it helped him land his next job, the cushiest he ever had. In 1895, he entered the employ of railroad tycoon George Gould, son of Jay Gould, one of America's most notorious robber barons. George Gould had been receiving threatening letters from an anonymous person and thought it prudent to hire a bodyguard with both the skills and the intimidating presence for the job. On a friend's recommendation, he offered the position to Bat Masterson.
Masterson began traveling around the country with the wealthy elite, always at Gould's side. Life was lush. He wrote to friends in Denver about spending whole days fishing on a yacht, or going to the races where Gould would give him thousands of dollars to bet as he pleased. The job ended after about eight months, when Gould's letter writer was finally arrested.
It was time for Bat to return to Denver, but he had developed a taste for life in the big city. He wanted to move to New York, but the time was not right yet. He went back to Colorado and continued where he left off. Masterson became a partner in a boxing club and began writing a weekly sports column for a Denver newspaper called George's Weekly.
This went on for a few more years until Bat left Colorado permanently and relocated to New York City in 1902. His arrival was not auspicious. Soon afterward he was arrested for allegedly running a crooked faro game, then sued by a Mormon elder from Salt Lake City named George Snow, who claimed he had been hustled out of $16,000.
During this trial, the newspaper article written about Masterson 20 years earlier came back into the spotlight, the highly exaggerated one asserting that the former lawman had killed almost 30 people. It was also at this time that Bat finally set the record straight about his Wild West exploits.
The suit was dismissed when Snow did not show for the hearing. Masterson was only fined $10 for carrying a concealed weapon. He then filed a countersuit against his accuser for damages to his reputation and good name. As it turned out, Snow had never specified Masterson by name in his affidavit. The case was settled out of court, but the blame fell on his arresting officers, whom Masterson claimed took him for a sucker and tried to pin the charges on him.
Once that initial unpleasantness was dealt with, New York City became Bat's home for the last 20 years of his life. His journalistic career flourished. He became a regular columnist for the Morning Telegraph and occasionally wrote for other publications. He mainly covered boxing and was always found ringside at every big bout in the country.
Masterson also struck up a friendship with President Theodore Roosevelt, who admired the rough-and-tough Wild West lawmen and shared a love of boxing. Roosevelt appointed Masterson deputy U.S. marshal for the Southern District of New York. It sounded fancy, but the position mainly involved providing security in the grand jury room while court was in session. It lasted until William Howard Taft became president and abolished the job, as he did not share his predecessor's fondness for the Old West.
On October 25, 1921, the 67-year-old Bat Masterson finished writing his column and then had a heart attack and died at his desk. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, following a service attended by hundreds of friends and admirers. His death was quiet and peaceful, something most other Wild West figures did not get to experience. Masterson is a rare example of someone who managed to escape the Old West and successfully build a new life in the modern era.