The Way West

The Texas cattle drives stimulated a new era of economic growth across the Kansas plains, especially after Joseph McCoy opened his “cattle depot” at Abilene in 1867.

Chicago and St. Louis were the primary destinations for the cattle loaded into railroad stockcars until the Kansas City Stock Yards opened in 1870.

From the beginning a secondary class of scoundrels and cheats recognized the potential for great reward that could be gleaned from cattlemen with pockets full of money. Cowmen could tell what a wild longhorned bovine was going to do even before she knew it herself. He could trail an outlaw for miles or protect his range from cow thieves. But he was often naïve to the tricks of a city boy’s wily swindle.

The sharks were quick to crowd the carnival-like atmosphere at the endof-the-trail cattle towns of Abilene, Wichita, Ellsworth, and Dodge City, and lots of cowboys went home broke. There were plenty of opportunities among the trail cowboys, but herd owners could yield considerably larger fortune.

As the years passed and the cattle business matured, the big money could always be found in the big cities.

Railroads expanded into the west and southwest and the trail towns diminished in importance or vanished altogether. By the turn of the century cattle were sent directly to the big Union Stock Yards.

Kansas City was welllocated and very popular for cattle, hogs, sheep, and horses of all classes. Sales were completed by check or transmitted through banks by “wire,” but plenty of cash kept cattlemen in the flush while visiting the big city.

Around the stock exchange building the daily exchange of money would have astounded the average person. Conmen, card sharks, pickpockets, prostitutes, and even the friendly bell hop kept eyes open for an easy mark.

By 1909 the plight of the easy mark was an all too familiar story. In mid-October, Texan Mark Dunlap traveled to Kansas City with several cars of cattle representing the Bar CC Ranch.

The Bar CC was one of those big Texas operations carved out of the “Staked Plains” of the Texas panhandle in 1885. The Cresswell Ranch & Cattle Company, like so many western ranches of the 1880s, was a Scottish syndicate with interests in American ranching. Superintendent W. J. Todd managed day to day operations for James McKenzie, a Scot from Kansas City, Mo.

The Bar CC grazed cattle across the windswept Texas counties of Ochiltree, Roberts, and Hemphill, where the big ranching concern made quite a reputation for itself.

One of the legendary tales revolved around the grand Christmas celebration of 1886 at the Bar CC headquarters. Forty cowboys gathered for a dinner and dance attended by neighbors and young ladies from all of the surrounding counties. Cowboys baked cakes and slow roasted wild turkeys frontierstyle. To brighten the occasion others rode out to distant bluffs to gather green evergreen branches.

Mark Dunlap may well have helped prepare the legendary Christmas banquet. He was known to be a cook back in Texas. He had come up from Dalhart, Texas, to Maple Hill, Kan., around the first of October, 1909, to take charge of a set of Bar CC cattle that were ready for market. The fat cattle had grazed the summer away on the boundless Flint Hills grasslands and Dunlap was charged with overseeing their shipment to the Kansas City Stock Yards.

Having finished his job Dunlap headed uptown to see the bright lights of Kansas City. On Monday, Oct. 18, 1909, Dunlap was seen walking and talking with a couple of men near the corner of Sixth and Delaware streets not far from the City National Bank. Today the location has been swallowed up by the modern interstate highway system.

The three men seemed to be deep in conversation as they walked along Delaware toward the corner of Sixth Street. Several bystanders noticed that the conversation “drifted into an argument,” and just as they reached the corner the largest of the two men “struck Dunlap a terrific blow.” Dunlap stumbled. The assailant and his companion turned away as Dunlap fell to the sidewalk.

A half-dozen men hurried to Dunlap’s aid. He was bleeding from a head injury, supposedly from his fall to the sidewalk, but police were inclined to believe he had been struck by a pair of “knuckles.” The impact proved to be lethal. The Kansas City Journal reported the incident under the byline, “Slugger Walks Away As Cattleman Dies.” An ambulance arrived 15 minutes after the attack. Dr. George Ringle pronounced the man dead and notified the county coroner.

Dunlap’s pockets were empty except for a receipt for a three-car shipment of cattle signed by the Fowler-Todd Commission Company. A search was made for the “Slugger” who was dressed in gray trousers, dark hat, and a slouch hat. He was last seen melting into the crowd a block away on Fifth Street. Mark Dunlap was just one more country-boy “chump” caught up in an apparent swindle that cost him his life 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.