Written in Blood: The History of Fort Worth's Fallen Lawmen, Volume 1, 1861-1909

Part I. The Frontier Years (1861-1888) and Introduction

Part฀I H The฀Frontier฀Years฀ (1861–1888) This page intentionally left blank. 15 Introduction Before the first cattle drive came through, before there was even a town worthy of the name, Fort Worth marked the frontier where civilization ended and “the West began.” There was a community around the fort as early as 1853, but law and order was slow in coming . For the next twenty years, the peace was kept by a sheriff who could call on a trio of constables in a pinch. Since there was no town to speak of, there was no need for a municipal law officer, specifically , a marshal. The county lawman (the sheriff) and the precinct lawman (the constable) could easily get the job done. For Tarrant County’s first twelve sheriffs, it was a part-time job; the rest of the time they were farmers or cattlemen or shopkeepers. Fort Worth finally got its own law enforcement in 1873 when it was chartered by the state legislature, making it the first town between Dallas and El Paso to have its own marshal. The sheriff, however, remained the principal local law officer even after Fort Worth had a marshal. His domain was mostly empty prairie plus a handful of settlements such as Birdville and Johnson’s Station that dotted the 848 square miles comprising Tarrant County. He had an office in the courthouse, but spent most of his time out of the office rounding up rustlers and horse thieves and chasing stagecoach robbers. He was aided by two or three deputies. The marshal was not much of a lawman in those early years. Five of the first nine Fort Worth marshals did not finish their terms, either quitting or being driven from office in disgrace. The first to serve his full term was Timothy Isaiah “Longhair Jim” Courtright (1876–79). According to the city charter, the marshal’s domain ended at the corporate limits of the city. When he needed backup, the marshal could call on the sheriff and vice versa. The same went for constables. During the time when Fort Worth was a rowdy cow town, marshals really earned their pay during the annual cattledriving season, roughly from April through October. During those seven months they had to carefully balance their responsibilities, on the one hand keeping the peace while on the other hand not 16 WRITTEN IN BLOOD running off the cowboys who filled the city’s coffers when they weren’t shooting out the lights. After the railroad came to town in 1876, the population exploded, and there was no longer an offseason for the marshal and his men. The marshal had an office in the city hall that doubled as “police headquarters.” He was aided in performance of his duties by a deputy marshal and a handful of policemen (as few as two men or as many as six). Policemen worked twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, with no sick days and no vacations. They were accountable to both their immediate boss, the marshal, and to the city council, and those two were sometimes at odds. Both the sheriff and marshal had non-law-enforcement duties. The sheriff sometimes had to conduct foreclosure sales on the steps of the courthouse, and the earliest sheriffs were also the county’s tax collectors. The marshal was also the city’s chief sanitation officer, responsible for keeping the streets clean of refuse and dead animals. He was also the city’s chief dogcatcher, in charge of getting stray animals off the streets. Sheriffs and marshals and all of their men supplemented meager salaries by collecting fees for performing certain duties, such as serving papers and picking up or delivering “wanted” men to other jurisdictions. Those fees could equal or even exceed their regular salaries so they were a very important part of the job. So was the occasional reward money that came from bringing in a wanted man. The most junior member of local law enforcement was the constable , whose jurisdiction was the precinct and whose immediate boss was the justice of the peace. When Tarrant County was organized in 1850 it was carved into three voting precincts: Fort Worth, Birdville, and Johnson’s Station. Later, additional precincts were created as the county filled up. Before 1876 constables were appointed by the JPs of their precinct; after that date they were elected just like other county officials. Usually...