Charlie Jennison bristled just a bit after two “school girls” passed him as he stood in the doorway of his hotel/saloon.

The Leavenworth Daily Commonwealth reported a detailed account of the events on the evening of Sept. 22, 1872. The paper explained that the “school girls” passed Jennison’s place on the way to Rowdy Joe’s dance hall where they “were wont to amuse ye noble Texans:’

Jennison opened one of the first businesses in Delano, Kan., a new settlement across the Arkansas River west of Wichita.

His partner, Ike Walker, had come to the Wichita area in 1866. On the west bank of the river Walker built a couple of log buildings and began to farm. He made the pages of the Wichita Vidette when he brought a 12-pound rutabaga to town.

In 1870, Walker was appointed marshal of Wichita. Apparently being a lawman did not agree with him. Walker resigned after 11 weeks on the job.

Charlie Jennison could identify with that. In 1870, he had been appointed sheriff of Greenwood County just west of the Kansas border on the eastern Colorado plains. Kit Carson, Colo., was the county seat and an endof-track “Hell on Wheels” town for the Kansas Pacific Railway.

How the two men came to be partners in the Delano hotel is uncertain. Walker traded his farm for lots in the new town and the two men built the Jennison & Walker Hotel. The business included a “firstclass” saloon, a good stable, and “the best corral in the country for horses and cattle:’

Both men invested in quality stock to serve farmers and stockmen in the area. In May of 1872 Jennison purchased a two thousand-dollar Charles Morgan stallion for breeding purposes. At about the same time, Walker purchased a stallion with celebrated racing bloodlines. A note in the Wichita Eagle advised that Mr. Walker could be found at his stables.

Charlie Jennison couldn’t help but be a little irate at Rowdy Joe’s sudden popularity with “school girls” and Texans alike.

Joe had arrived in Delano a few months before and his new dance hall was taking a great deal of Jennison’s business. With anger growing at every step, Jennison followed the girls into Rowdy Joe’s and proceeded to pour out his discontent to Joe who was behind the bar.

Jackson Davis, a young black-haired Texas drover with Virginia heritage, stepped into the dance hall during the quarrel. According to the newspaper, Davis had a drink with the girls and left. Jennison followed Davis through the door.

When Jennison stepped around the corner of the next-door saloon, Davis met him with pistol in hand. Jennison went for his gun as Davis fired. The shot passed through Jennison’s neck and out his back. Jennison fired his own weapon just before he was hit. The lead ball struck Davis in the body. As Davis went down the young drover fired a second shot that went through Jennison’s lower arm, coming out just above the wrist.

Jennison fled the scene. Davis lived about five minutes before “passing in his chips:’ There were no eyewitnesses. The coroner’s jury relied upon Jennison, who survived, to provide the series of events that led to the death of Jackson Davis.

The story in the Daily Commercial added, “How he and Jennison came to shoot at each other, as no words passed between them in a saloon, is a mystery to everybody. Jennison is quarrelsome, vindictive, and treacherous, and it may be that he thought it would be a good opportunity to kill a Texan and make himself known as a warrior:”

The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict that the deceased came to his death from a pistol shot fired by Jennison. Following the shooting Jennison returned to Colorado where he eventually landed in the mining town of Del Norte.

The Wichita Eagle posted a death notice for Ike Walker two years later on April 21, 1874.”A widow and her little one mourn his death:’ No cause of death was noted.

Charlie Jennison’s story came to an end March 16, 1875.

After a day of horse racing the sporting crowd gathered at “Tom’s Place a saloon run by Tom Davis. Jennison picked a fight with a man named “Buckskin Tom” Chandler over one of the races. Jennison pummeled Chandler before letting him up. But the quarrelsome Jennison wasn’t finished. When he produced a pair of “steel knuckles” Chandler pulled a pistol and shot.

Jennison was dead before he hit the floor. Perhaps it was only coincidence that the last name of the owner of”Tom’s Place” was Davis, or that he also had run a saloon in Delano when Charlie Jennison killed Jackson Davis in 1872 in the enduring frontier saga of life and death on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.