Tom Bear River Smith arrived in Abilene, Kansas, with nothing but a badge, a banjo, and a pair of balls seemingly as large as the prairie itself.

And within days, he had one of the roughest cow towns in all of the west, eating out the palm of his hand.

And all that without firing a single shot.

Sadly, as effective as Tom was, his story does not end with a quiet retirement or a hero's parade.

It ended with one of the most brutal killings imaginable, one that shook the citizens of Abilene

for the rest of their lives. Who was Bear River Smith? Had a marshal with an aversion to gunplay,

managed to tame such a wild town. What were the events that led to his untimely and very gruesome death?

And what exactly did Smith do to garner the adoration of a future president of the United States?

Stick around and find out.

My name's Josh and this is the Wild West extravaganza.

Okay, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, there's just not much known about Tom Smith's early life.

Hell, even his birth year, is up for debate.

Some sources, including census data, suggests that he was born in

1830, while a letter written decades later by one of his mining partners claimed it was closer to

1845. The location of his birth is likewise shrouded in mystery, but most historians do seem to agree

that he spent time in the Big Apple prior to heading West, possibly as a police officer.

There's even evidence that Smith served with the 69th New York Infantry during the Civil War.

Whatever the case, he would head west at some point in the mid-1860s,

lured to the frontier with promises of gold and adventure, just like thousands of other ambitious young men.

Now, it's worth noting that while Tom never received a classical education, he did have talents

that went beyond book learning. Physically, he was strong and scrappy, quick with his hands.

Fact even made a name for himself back east as a middleweight boxer. But at the same time,

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