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From November 1, 2019
History.com This Day in History
Legendary western lawman is murdered
On November 1, 1924, William Tilghman is murdered by a corrupt prohibition agent
who resented Tilghman’s refusal to ignore local bootlegging operations. Tilghman,
one of the famous marshals who brought law and order to the Wild West, was 71 years
old.
Known to both friends and enemies as “Uncle Billy,” Tilghman was one of the most
honest and effective lawmen of his day. Born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, in 1854, Tilghman
moved west when he was only 16 years old. Once there, he flirted with a life of
crime after falling in with a crowd of disreputable young men who stole horses from
Indians. After several narrow escapes with angry Indians, Tilghman decided that
rustling was too dangerous and settled in Dodge City, Kansas, where he briefly served
as a deputy marshal before opening a saloon. He was arrested twice for alleged train
robbery and rustling, but the charges did not stick.
Despite this shaky start, Tilghman gradually built a reputation as an honest and
respectable young man in Dodge City. He became the deputy sheriff of Ford County,
Kansas, and later, the marshal of Dodge City. Tilghman was one of the first men
into the territory when Oklahoma opened to settlement in 1889, and he became a deputy
U.S. marshal for the region in 1891. In the late 19th century, lawlessness still
plagued Oklahoma, and Tilghman helped restore order by capturing some of the most
notorious bandits of the day.
Over the years, Tilghman earned a well-deserved reputation for treating even the
worst criminals fairly and protecting the rights of the unjustly accused. Any man
in Tilghman’s custody knew he was safe from angry vigilante mobs, because Tilghman
had little tolerance for those who took the law into their own hands. In 1898, a
wild mob lynched two young Indians who were falsely accused of raping and murdering
a white woman. Tilghman arrested and secured prison terms for eight of the mob leaders
and captured the real rapist-murderer.
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