Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City

Praise, Title Page, Copyright

In this personal history, we also learn Western history, from Coronado to Custer to cowboys. We learn how art can be first manifested in an auto body shop, in a boy who shines chrome hubcaps to gold, and in a young man who reads Hardy’s Tess in a grain truck between wheat harvest loads. Rebein is both homeboy and tourist as he visits his past, as well as the future: feedlots, rodeos, and casinos. As he deftly places himself in his ‘home on the range,’ he restores Kansas and the Great Plains to their rightful place in the American story.” —Thomas Fox Averill, author of rode and editor of What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth-Century Writers on the Sunflower State “Robert Rebein’s Dragging Wyatt Earp is a profoundly American story. Rooted in a legendary town and a remarkable family, it is at once Rebein’s unique narrative and one that belongs to all of us. Here are Earp and Custer, cowboys and Indians—the past that at once defies and defines us—alongside the remarkable yet ordinary people who, in our own time, make of everyday endurance a quiet form of heroism. Dragging Wyatt Earp captures the squalor and the splendor that lie at the heart of America as well as the powerful ties of family and community that enable us to live in such a place. Robert Rebein is a wonderful writer and Dragging Wyatt Earp is a beautiful book.” —Wayne Fields, author of What the River Knows Dragging Wyatt Earp Swallow Press Ohio University Press Athens D r agging A P e r s o n a l History of Dodge City W Y ATT EARP Robert Rebein Swallow Press An imprint of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701 www.ohioswallow.com© 2013 by Ohio University Press All rights reserved To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Swallow Press / Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax). Printed in the United States of America Swallow Press / Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ƒ ™ 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rebein, Robert, 1964– Dragging Wyatt Earp : a personal history of Dodge City / Robert Rebein. pages cm ISBN 978-0-8040-1142-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN (invalid) 978-0-8040-40525 (electronic) 1. Rebein, Robert, 1964–—Homes and haunts—Kansas—Dodge City. 2. Dodge City (Kan.)—Social life and customs. 3. Rebein, Robert, 1964–— Childhood and youth. 4. Dodge City (Kan.)—History. I. Title. F689.D64R43 2013 978.1’76—dc23 2012044512 To my parents, Bill and Patricia Rebein ...