Joseph McCoy created the first great cattle town in 1867 when he established his “cattle depot” along the Kansas Pacific Railway tracks at Abilene. The Kansas Pacific dominated the cattle trade until 1871. In that year the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad built tracks to meet the Chisholm Trail 60 miles south of Abilene.

Within weeks, the new town of Newton was a rip-roaring end-of-track town for the Santa Fe Railroad and an end-oftrail town for Texas cattle. The town was too young to employ an organized police force to control the wild mix of railroaders, cowboys, gamblers and adventurers. Treachery flourished at Newton as a continual celebration of iniquity seethed from the business houses. Texas drover L. B. Anderson declared,“Newton was one of the worst towns I ever saw; every element of meanness on earth seemed to be there.”

Newton’s merchants joined together to hire special policemen to patrol the town in an attempt to control the unending reckless cowboy carnival. Railroader Mike McCluskie and Texan William Bailey were hired by the private businesses. Instead of keeping the peace, Bailey swore that he was going to disarm all the “shorthorns” in town (meaning anyone not Texan). McCluskie, known for his own bad temper, did not like Bailey, ultimately leading to an argument between the lawmen.

That evening, Bailey found McCluskie in one of the drinking establishments and demanded he set up a round of drinks for everyone in the house. McCluskie refused and punctuated his displeasure with Bailey by throwing him through the saloon doors. Not content to leave things as they were, McCluskie stepped into the street to finish the job. However, Bailey was waiting in the shadows with a pistol. Shots were fired, but when the smoke cleared, it was Bailey who was dead.

Realizing that Bailey’s Texas friends would kill him on sight, McCluskie quickly saddled up and left town. Newton was once again without officers of the law, but considering the two they had hired, it could be argued they never had any to begin with.

A week later, Aug. 19, McCluskie unexpectedly returned to Newton. Perry Tuttle’s dance house was a favorite resort. In the meantime, friends of the slain William Bailey learned of McCluskie’s return and immediately planned a killing.

According to Allegro, a Topeka Commonwealth correspondent, three Texans entered Tuttle’s place at 2 a.m. Aug. 20, 1871. One of them sat down at a faro table. He made a point to engage McCluskie in friendly conversation. The other two cowboys made their way to the bar. Suddenly, the leader, Hugh Anderson, entered the dance house, walking straight toward McCluskie as he declared at the top of his voice, “I will blow the top of your head off!”

But Anderson was too quick. The pistol exploded on the way up, causing the lead ball to strike McCluskie in the neck. These were the days of cap and ball pistols. The wounded man pulled his pistol, but to his horror the “snap” of a misfired cap echoed through the hall. McCluskie collapsed in front of Anderson and while lying face down on the floor, Anderson shot McCluskie in the back.

To hold the crowd back, Anderson’s friends fired their pistols into the air, but before they could exit, Jim Riley, a young man befriended by McCluskie, blocked the door. No one expected the consumptive Riley to begin shooting wildly across the smoke-filled room. With his pistol blazing, Riley turned the Texan’s revenge killing into a blood bath.

When the smoke cleared, eight men lay suffering from gunshot wounds. Two men were killed outright. Riley disappeared into the night and was never heard from again.

Perry Tuttle’s dance house and the Alamo Saloon next door were turned into hospitals. The floors and walls of both halls were described as “everywhere sprinkled with blood.”

“The dying and wounded have received every care and attention.” Doctor Gaston Boyd and an unnamed physician were untiring in their professional efforts. The dance hall girls pitched in and nursed the wounded “with touching assiduity and tenderness.”

The only law officer available was Deputy U.S. Marshal Harry Nevill, who attempted to serve a warrant on Hugh Anderson as he lay in one of Tuttle’s upstairs rooms. But Nevill was intercepted and told that Anderson’s condition was such that any undue excitement might prove fatal.

Throughout the next week, three more men died, bringing the total to five dead and three wounded. Hugh Anderson was smuggled out of town and was never arrested for McCluskie’s death.

The shootout became legend. Men whispered when they spoke of Newton, Kan., and everywhere the deadly night of the “Newton General Massacre” was known as one of the worst gunfights ever experienced on The Way West.