THREE GUARDSMEN Ep. 5 | Bill Tilghman: “Dodge City Deputy”

Legends of the Old West

Black Barrel Media

Arts, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bill Tilghman grew up idolizing Wild Bill Hickok. When Tilghman was 24, he became a full-time lawman in Dodge City during the peak of its wild years as one of the wickedest towns in the West. He worked with the Earp brothers and the Masterson brothers, and occasionally, Doc Holliday. And he lured Wyatt into a political fiasco known as the Gray County War before moving to Oklahoma and accepting a Deputy U.S. Marshal’s badge. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join To advertise on this podcast, please email: [email protected] For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the very early morning hours of October 4, 1878, a man crept up to a cabin in Dodge City.
0:24.6	He fired four shots into the bedroom and then fled into the darkness on horseback.
0:29.8	The shooter was a 23-year-old Texas cowboy named James Spike Kennedy, and he didn't know
0:35.7	it at the time, but he had just killed the woman he loved.
0:40.2	Kennedy thought he was shooting at his rival, the Mayor of Dodge City.
0:44.2	The mayor was the unofficial sponsor and graded mayorer of 34-year-old singer Dora Hand.
0:50.9	The mayor was out of town, and he let Dora and another female entertainer use his house
0:55.8	while he left for a short trip.
0:58.3	Dora had been sleeping exactly where the mayor would have been if he had been home.
1:03.5	One of Kennedy's bullets killed Dora Hand instantly.
1:06.9	Shortly thereafter, Deputy Bill Tillman formed a posse with his colleagues, Batmasterson,
1:12.3	Wyatt Earp, Charlie Bassett, and Bill Duffy.
1:15.5	He assumed the killer was the young and entitled Kennedy.
1:19.3	Kennedy had loudly argued with the mayor a couple weeks earlier, and he was the son of
1:23.7	a wealthy Texas rancher who was used to getting what he wanted.
1:28.3	Bill Tillman figured that Kennedy was now hustling toward the safety of his father's
1:31.8	ranch in Texas.
1:33.6	Sure enough, the posse found Kennedy near the Simaron River along the border between Kansas
1:39.7	and the present-day state of Oklahoma.
1:42.8	Kennedy didn't know his shots had killed the wrong person until the posse informed him.
1:47.8	They urged the young man to surrender, but instead, he fired on the lawmen and then tried
1:52.9	to run.
	...

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