Wild Bill Hickok’s First Job as Sheriff

How did Wild Bill Hickok’s first job as sheriff go for him? Well, on September 27 back in 1869, Ellis County Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok and his deputy responded to a disturbance by a local ruffian named Samuel Strawhun and several of his drunken buddies at John Bitter’s Beer Saloon in Hays City, Kansas. Hickok ordered the men to stop, Strawhun turned to attack him, and Hickok shot and killed him.

This was typical of Wild Bill’s approach to a confrontation. As one cowboy said, Hickok would stand “with his back to the wall, looking at everything and everybody under his eyebrows–just like a mad old bull.”

But some Hays City citizens wondered if their new cure wasn’t worse than the disease.

In September 1869, his first month as sheriff, Hickok killed two men. The first was Bill Mulvey, who was galloping through town on a rampage, drunk, shooting out mirrors and whisky bottles behind bars. Citizens warned Mulvey to behave, because Hickok was sheriff. Mulvey angrily declared that he had come to town to kill Hickok. When he saw Hickok, he leveled his cocked rifle at him. Hickok waved his hand past Mulvey at some supposed onlookers and yelled, “Don’t shoot him in the back; he is drunk.” Mulvey wheeled his horse around to face those who might shoot him from behind, and before he realized he had been fooled, Hickok shot him through the temple.

The second man killed by Hickok was the aforementioned Samuel Strawhun, a cowboy, who was causing a disturbance in a saloon at 1:00 am on September 27, when Hickok and Lanihan went to the scene. Strawhun “made remarks against Hickok”, and Hickok killed him with a shot through the head. Hickok said he had “tried to restore order”. At the coroner’s inquest into Strawhun’s death, despite “very contradictory” evidence from witnesses, the jury found the shooting justifiable.

On July 17, 1870, Hickok was attacked by two troopers from the 7th U.S. Cavalry, Jeremiah Lonergan and John Kyle (sometimes spelled Kile), in a saloon. Lonergan pinned Hickok to the ground, and Kyle put his gun to Hickok’s ear. When Kyle’s weapon misfired, Hickok shot Lonergan, wounding him in the knee, and shot Kyle twice, killing him. Hickok again lost his re-election bid to his deputy.

During the regular November election later that year, the people expressed their displeasure, and Hickok lost to his deputy, 144-89. Though Wild Bill Hickok would later go on to hold other law enforcement positions in the West, his first attempt at being a sheriff had lasted only three months.