When the end-of-trail cattle towns are recalled, the names of Abilene and Dodge City lead the conversation. Newton, Ellsworth and Wichita were all busy cattle centers, but there were other cattle towns that are rarely recognized. The onslaught of settlement and a westward moving state ban against the open movement of Texas cattle had closed the Ellsworth market. Seventy-seven miles to the west Ellis was selected by the Kansas Pacific Railway to inherit the cattle trade in 1876.

That ever-moving quarantine line, known as “the deadline,” limited Ellis to only two years as a shipping point. Dodge City, Ellis’ main rival, remained beyond the deadline mainly due to political persuasion that the cattle town used to convince the state to move the deadline west of Ellis. The move hindered the town’s efforts to lure the cattle to their stock yards in 1877. Even so, Ellis was able to attract Texas cattle for one more year.

The quarantine was not completely unwarranted. Rapid settlement by farmers coming into the country around Ellis limited drovers access to the Kansas Pacific stockyards. Between January and April 1878, almost 100,000 acres of land had been claimed in Ellsworth, Russell and Ellis counties. Between 1875 and 1878, the population of Ellis County recorded and increased population of 1,500 new residents. However, the cattle business continued to influence commerce on the streets of Ellis.

Farmers were indeed taking up checkerboard squares of land, for the most part selecting the most fertile lands. More than 20 percent of the land in Ellis County was under cultivation in 1878. In reality, that meant that large tracts of open prairie (80 percent) still provided excellent grazing to cattlemen who were willing to accept the new neighbors from the east.

In February 1878, 100 ranchmen gathered in the Ellis library to establish the Western Kansas Stock Association to unite in common interest of preserving grazing rights across the western portion of the state. Their herds wintered on the open range west of Ellis County, enabling Ellis to retain a wild and woolly cowboy reputation.

Dodge City may have had a hand in killing the market at Ellis, but that did not stop Ellis cattlemen from visiting the rival town to buy and sell cattle. One such cattle buying visit resulted in tragedy.

W. C. Oburn had extensive cattle interests near Ellis. Born in Ohio in 1846, William Cummings Oburn was a veteran of the Second Iowa Infantry Regiment. Having enlisted in 1864 as a 17-year-old private, he was wounded but came through the Civil War to find work as a bank clerk in 1870 in Kansas City, Mo.

By 1874, he obtained a position with the meat packing company of J. W. L. Slavens. By the time Ellis opened in 1876 as the recognized cattle market on the Kansas Pacific line, Oburn was driving Texas cattle up to a ranch under his management in Ellis County.

Oburn sent a crew to Dodge City in April 1878 under the supervision of his foreman, a Texas cowboy by the name of Alfred Walker. One of the cowboys in Oburn’s employ, John ( Jack) Wagner, had a desperate reputation in and around Ellis. John Hungate, Thomas Highlander, Thomas Roads and John Reece, all members of the Western Kansas Stock Association, were with the Oburn outfit.

The trouble began at the Lady Gay dance hall when Dodge City Marshal Edward J. Masterson recognized that Wagner was carrying a pistol, contrary to the city’s “no gun ordinance.” Marshal Masterson disarmed Wagner. He turned the gun over to Foreman Walker and directed him to “check” the gun with the bartender in accordance with the law.

As Masterson turned to walk away, Wagner pulled a “hideout” pistol and rushed the marshal. Masterson turned and grabbed Wagner just as the cowboy raised his pistol and fired into the marshal’s abdomen. Even though mortally wounded, Masterson returned fire with four quick shots. George Reighard said that from within the Lady Gay, the shots sounded like a Gatling gun (an early form of machine gun). Wagner was killed and Walker seriously wounded. The Ellis Standard wrote the week after the killing, “Wagner, who shot Masterson, is well-known in this community, he having been engaged in many brawls with parties in this place.”

Masterson walked over the railroad tracks to Hoover’s saloon on Front Street. He fell at the feet of bartender George Hinkle and fainted. Withing 30 minutes, the popular lawman was dead.

In his capacity as Ford County Sheriff, Marshal Masterson’s brother, Bat, arrested the rest of the Oburn crew that had been in the Lady Gay. No evidence was found to tie them to the shooting, and they were released.

Alf Walker, the Oburn foreman, lingered in a hotel bed until May 24, 1878. He boarded a train for Kansas City, still under medical treatment and hoping for a full recovery after his harrowing dance with death beyond the deadline on The Way West.

“The Cowboy” Jim Gray can be reached at 220 21st Rd., Geneseo, KS 67444, (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.