One of your best videos. First rate.

Excellent video, A+

My great grandfather was a blacksmith in Dodge City in this same period of time '70's thru '80's. Partnered with Robert Wright too. Great grandma Julia had a hotel, or boarding house. Im a trucker (now retired) and about 6 yrs ago worked a few months on a big windfarm project south of town. Got shut down during a freezing rain storm & went to the historical society and learned that, indeed, just as my grandma said, Peter Walter Beamer was asked by the mayor to be the sheriff. Had an encounter with Wyatt Erp when he refused to hang up his guns in the saloon (north of the railroad tracks). After decking him to the ground, PW helped him back to his feet & they became friends after that! Old family story, not in the papers btw. By the late '80's PW went west to Arizona and finally to San Diego area where my grandpa & father would be born. I recently aquired a first edition of this book (now very expensive and rare). The original Front Street was razed in the 1970's to widen the state highway. A local restaurant owner told me all the buildings there were derelict anyway. Still... history now gone. Im proud my history is connected to this place & time. If not for your video, I never would have known of the book. Thank you kindly for this presentation. God bless you!

This is the depth of history not found elsewhere~ thanks!

Thanks. I certainly will be buying this book.

Great article! I really enjoyed the total picture, from a small store/saloon inside Fort Dodge up to and through many rough and tumble years into the 1900s. The photos were especially wonderful and especially enjoyable. I've never seen so many photos/sketches in any video of a town/area of the old west with full explanations. Thank you very much for the effort you obviously put into this excellent article!

That was an excellent video. You tell history well. Thank you

That picture of Dr. T.L. McCarty reminded me of something my grandfather, who was born in 1895 had. It was an old-fashioned mustache cup. I don't know how old it was or what happened to it, but I believe he told me his father had it before him. As always, this was a fascinating video. Thank you for keeping the Old West alive.

Great history lesson!

Yet, nobody ever mentions Matt Dillon. 😂 Great video, thank you.

The "Wild West" existed long before Dodge City appeared in 1872, and long before the first cowboys started driving cattle out of Texas North to Kansas rail heads in 1866-67. The American frontier West of the Mississippi began with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, explored by the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-06, entering the Mountain Man era by 1807 immediately after the Expedition return, then followed by the first Wagon Trains on the Oregon Trail in the 1830's. The Mexican War acquired the rest of the American West in 1848. The gold discovery in newly acquired California in 1848 triggered the first of the great frontier mining rushes, and the wild, violent mining towns made the cowtowns like Dodge CIty and Abilene look tame! Mining towns like Hangtown, Virginia City, Deadwood, and Tombstone to name a few of the more well-known mining towns. The introduction of a "Revolving Belt Pistol" of 6-shot .36 caliber by Colt in September 1850, (AKA the 1851 Colt Navy Revolver), initiated the era of the six-gun toting frontiersman. The easily carried, well balanced, superbly accurate, and absolutely deadly Colt Navy .36 was the handgun that created the "Pistoleer" eager to "kill his man" that characterizes the popular image of the "Wild West" as dramatized by movies and TV. Samuel Clemens arrived in Nevada Territory in July 1861, in Carson City aboard the Overland Stage, and eventually worked his way up to Virginia City to write articles in the "Territorial Enterprise" newspaper under the name of "Mark Twain". Twain noted that of the first 38 men buried in the new Virginia City cemetery, none had died a natural death. Every gold or silver strike that created a new mining camp or town drew a determined criminal element eager to get the gold/silver without having to dig it themselves. To survive, the prospectors went armed, vigilante committees were formed, and hangings and shootings were common in the mining rush Territories of California, Nevada, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Arizona and New Mexico, with lawless violence and Indian troubles especially bad during the Civil War years when the Federal Government was too busy with war to worry about "the Territories". When the "Cowboy / Cattle Drive" era arrived just after the Civil War ended, the "Wild West" had already existed for more than 60 years.

I really enjoy your video histories of the old west. I am curious if you realize your speaking habit of adding an S to the end of some names? Wyatt Earp becomes Wyatt's Earp, Wright becomes Wrights, etc. It doesn't always happen but enough to make me curious. As always thank you for your very well presented material.

Welcome back 😅! Good history story

Robert Wright could be Val Kilmers twin! 😁

How many Americans will believe me if I tell you that Wyatt Earp died of old age in Los Angeles as late as 1929

Nice 👍