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 arres