The Hand of Frontier Justice

One model for “Gunsmoke’s” Kitty Russell was Dora Hand, Dodge City’s most respected dance hall performer and, probably, a lady of the evening.

The Dodge City of 1878 had muted, if any, moralistic objections to prostitutes. The notably beautiful Hand attended the First Methodist Church and balanced the rowdiness of her evenings with the benevolence of her days.

A clichéd prostitute with a heart of gold, Hand — who earned a heady salary of $75 a week as a soprano soloist at the Lady Gay saloon — helped out Dodge’s unfortunates. 

Dodge City dance hall queen Dora Hand

“If some raw boy from Texas who had never even seen a train before lost his pile at faro or drank too much redeye and was rolled south of the Deadline, she could be counted on to grubstake him or redeem his saddle so that he could ride home,” wrote Stanley Vestal in “Dodge City: Queen of the Cowtowns.” “She asked no security or even the names of the men she helped. When someone fell sick, she was willing to play the part of a practical nurse.”

“She was often observed setting out in the morning, modestly dressed, with a market basket bulging with groceries on her arm,” wrote Harry Sinclair Drago in his “Notorious Ladies of the Frontier.” “Somewhere in its depths there was likely to be found a toy or a bit of candy she had promised to an ailing child — white, black or Mexican.”

The 34-year-old Hand was well respected even by Dodge City Mayor Dog Kelley, who loaned her the use of his house while he was at Fort Dodge for medical treatment.

Tragically, however, the mayor had offended Spike Kenedy, the arrogant 23-year-old son of a wealthy Texas cattle baron. On July 19, Kenedy was arrested by Wyatt Earp for carrying a pistol in Dodge. After other run-ins with the law, Kenedy complained to Kelley, who cut him no slack and told him he’d better behave himself in Dodge. Kenedy — who may also have been jealous of the mayor’s relationship with Hand — was enraged.

So, at 4 a.m. on Oct. 4, Kenedy fired four shots into the mayor’s house, instantly killing Dora Hand in her sleep.

The town was outraged, and Assistant Marshal Earp, Deputy Sheriff Bill Tilghman and Sheriff Bat Masterson formed a posse to ride Kenedy down. They caught up with him after a long chase, Masterson shooting Kenedy in the arm as Earp brought down Kenedy’s racehorse. “I hated to do it,” Earp said. “Kenedy’s horse was a beauty.”

Badly wounded, Kenedy had a question for the lawmen: “Did I kill him?” Kenedy went into a tortured rage when they told him he’d instead killed Dora Hand. “You ought to have made a better shot than you did!” Kenedy told Masterson, who replied, “I did the best I could.”

In the end, Kenedy walked away as free as a Wall Street banker, his father apparently spending as much as $25,000 to bribe his way to an “insufficient evidence” verdict.

That outcome — coupled with a pay cut for the lawmen the next month, and a near-fatal street fight the next spring — contributed to Earp’s growing bitterness with frontier justice.

“There was no one to champion the cause of the victim, who was without money and influence,” Earp recalled.

Sources: “Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends," Allen Barra; “Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend,” Casey Tefertiller; “The Killing of Dora Hand” Susan L. Silva and Lee A. Silva.