More than once, while amongst a group of Kansas working folks, I have heard the question arise in the general conversation as to whether or not Kansas is the so-called “wild, wild, West”. In each instance, there seem to be two opposing trains of thought, with one notion being that Kansas isn't far enough west to be such... that the actual location of same is much further west, like in Arizona or New Mexico <or something>. In support of this theory, the fact is advanced that the historical “shootout at the OK Corral” <an event certainly associated with the locale in question> took place in Tombstone, AZ <surely further west than Kansas>. The naysayers go on to point out that the principles in this encounter were on one side Wyatt Earp and his brothers Virgil and Morgan, along with their buddy “Doc” Holiday <in theory the good guys>, and the McClaury and Clanton brothers <generally thought to be the bad guys> on the other. <Maybe the “nays” are onto something then???> But the forces for “Kansas is the wild, wild West” return with, “Yeah...well, Tombstone wasn't the Earp boys first assignment, you know!! They actually got their start in Wichita and then moved to Dodge City, hired to bring law and order to some wide open cow towns. And FYI, Wichita and Dodge City are just down the road apiece from here...both in Kansas!!!” <End of Discussion>
Looking to the early years of Westward expansion following the Revolutionary War, ownership of Midwestern lands east of the Mississippi River in what is now Indiana and Illinois was transferred to the United States under terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and then lands immediately west of the Mississippi from there in what is now Missouri and Kansas by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In this era, Colonials pushed westward into the newly acquired areas, some of the earliest being drovers running cattle, generally Shorthorns, out of West Virginia and into the Ohio River Valley (see the narrative of Cache GC54QA3 for a more detailed discussion of this period).
Many of these individuals continued south and west to Texas in the 1830's, as the Lone Star Republic was formed and that area became settled. There, in the period following the Civil War, wild Spanish breed cattle were rounded up on the open prairies and trailed north to Kansas rail heads for marketing back East. It was the aggregation of lawless cowboys spending their earnings in Kansas railhead towns at the completion of a trail drive that gave the Earp brothers their first job.
At about the same time, pioneers were pushing westward into the newly formed Kansas Territory (established 1854), these “sodbusters” breaking out prairie ground into farmland and pastures. The settlers built fences to protect their crops and forage, making it increasingly difficult for the cattle drovers to bring their cattle to the railroad shipping points and resulting in the so-called Range Wars. These conflicts only added to the already lawless state of the area, which had started on the frontier and then grown with the conflict over slavery a decade or so later. Also, as the result of this clash in land uses, the trail drive termini moved steadily westward in Kansas; and hence why the assignments of Wyatt and his brothers moved in that direction.
As with the early drovers in the Ohio River Valley, it is likely that more than their fair share of the cowboys in Kansas were of Scottish ancestry: cattle had historically been run on rough lands held in common in the Lowlands of Scotland, but ownership of these lands was transferred to wealthy landlords under the various Enclosures Acts, leading the common folks to emigrate to the US where they continued their trade. And so it is not surprising that one often sees amongst a group of Kansas working folks the telltale shock of auburn hair characteristic of this ethnicity, many of them having come with the cattle drives, or alternatively down the Ohio and West into Kansas seeking opportunity in the newly acquired region, and then ending up settling and staying there. But then this is only half of the story: looking up the surname Earp one sees it derives from the English Midlands and is “a nickname for a dark complexioned man”, from the Old English earp: “swarthy”. And thus I'm thinking our story here is more than just an interesting little tale, but instead is one truly representative of the stuff of which our great nation is made!!!