In the spring of 1880, a man wearing the badge of Las Vegas City Marshal shot a freighter named Mike Kelleher three times in a saloon, killing him over a reported $1,900. The dead man had been marked by a criminal gang that controlled the town, and the marshal who pulled the trigger was John Joshua Webb, formerly a respected lawman of Dodge City. The killing led to Webb’s conviction for murder and a sentence of death by hanging, a punishment that would later be commuted to life in prison. It was a startling fall for a man who had spent most of his adult life on the side of the law.

Webb was born on February 14, 1847, in Keokuk County, Iowa, the seventh of twelve children. In 1862 his family moved to Nebraska and later to Osage City, Kansas. As a young man, Webb traveled west and worked as a buffalo hunter, then as a surveyor in Colorado. He drifted through Deadwood, Cheyenne, and Dodge City, taking work where he could find it.

The 1875 census of Ford County listed him as a twenty-eight-year-old teamster. Over time, he became a business owner and a peace officer, and he earned a reputation as a solid member of the Dodge City community. Newspapers there took note of him, and he was repeatedly deputized to ride in posses. In September 1877, he rode with Ford County Sheriff Charlie Bassett and Undersheriff Bat Masterson to Lakin, Kansas, in pursuit of Sam Bass and his gang.

Bass had robbed the Union Pacific Railroad of sixty thousand dollars at Big Springs, Nebraska, and the posse expected the outlaws to pass through southwest Kansas on their way south to Texas. The search came up empty. Bass eluded lawmen for nearly another year before he was killed in July 1878 after an attempted bank robbery in Round Rock, Texas. By January 1878, Bat Masterson had become the new Ford County sheriff.

On January 29, he deputized Webb along with two other men, Kinch Riley and Dave Prairie Dog Morrow, to track down six outlaws who had robbed a westbound train at Kinsley, Kansas, two days earlier. Two gang members, Edgar West and Dirty Dave Rudabaugh, were caught within days. During the arrest, Rudabaugh reached for his gun, and Webb stopped him and forced him to surrender. The other four accomplices were arrested later.

Rudabaugh informed on his partners and promised to go straight, but he was soon released and drifted to New Mexico, where he returned to a life of crime. In September 1878, settlers in southwest Kansas grew fearful as word spread that Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife and his band had fled their reservation in Oklahoma and were heading toward the Black Hills. Exaggerated reports of killing and thievery circulated in Dodge City. Most soldiers at nearby Fort Dodge had been sent out to corral the Cheyenne, leaving only about nineteen troops to protect the area.

Frightened citizens wired the governor for arms and ammunition, which arrived within days. Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Lewis, the Fort Dodge commander, selected Webb, A. J. Anthony, Bill Tilghman, Robert Wright, and other experienced plainsmen to scout the area.

They brought back word that some two hundred warriors were nearby, and headlines screamed that not a child or woman in Kansas or Nebraska was safe. In truth, Dull Knife’s band only sought to return to their ancestral home, and they soon withdrew. Conditions returned to normal. In 1879, Webb worked as a hired gun for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in its fight against the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad for the right of way through the Royal Gorge in Colorado.

When that dispute was settled, Webb moved to Las Vegas, New Mexico. There he found many acquaintances from Dodge City, including Doc Holliday, Mysterious Dave Mather, Wyatt Earp, and his old foe Dave Rudabaugh. Webb partnered with Holliday to run a saloon, where Holliday spent most of his time gambling. On July 19, 1879, the two were seated at a card table when a former army scout and bully named Mike Gordon began yelling at one of the saloon girls, his former girlfriend.

She had rejected his demands that she leave town with him. Furious, Gordon stormed out, shouting obscenities. When Holliday followed him outside, a shot from Gordon’s gun whizzed past. Holliday calmly drew his revolver and fired once, leaving Gordon in the dusty street.

Gordon died the next day. When word spread that Holliday would be arrested for the killing, he fled back to Dodge City. In 1880, Webb accepted the position of Las Vegas City Marshal. In that role, he joined the Dodge City gang, led by Justice of the Peace Hyman Neill, known as Hoodoo Brown.

The gang controlled a criminal enterprise that defied the law, taking part in stagecoach and train robberies, organized cattle rustling, and, according to the accounts of the time, multiple murders and lynchings. On March 2, 1880, Hoodoo Brown learned that a freighter named Mike Kelleher was carrying around nineteen hundred dollars. The gang decided to take the money. According to a report reprinted from the Las Vegas Daily Optic in the Ford County Globe, Kelleher entered a saloon early that morning with two companions and called for drinks.

He appeared to be the leader of the party and, in violation of the law, carried a pistol. Officers noticed the weapon and came through a rear door, requesting that Kelleher lay aside his revolver. He refused, saying, “I won’t be disarmed. Everything goes.

” He reached for his pistol, apparently intending to shoot, but Webb was faster. Kelleher was shot three times, once in each breast and once in the head. He still had the money on him when he died. Despite being the city marshal, Webb was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.

On April 30, Rudabaugh and a man named John Allen forced their way into the sheriff’s office to free Webb. The jailbreak failed, but Rudabaugh murdered the jailer, Antonio Lino. Webb’s sentence was appealed and commuted to life in prison. Rudabaugh soon fled Las Vegas with another member of the gang and joined Billy the Kid and his outlaws, but both Rudabaugh and Billy the Kid were captured on December 23, 1880.

After Rudabaugh’s conviction, he was held in jail alongside Webb. On September 19, 1881, the two men, along with Thomas Duffy and H. S. Wilson, tried to shoot their way out.

The attempt failed, and Duffy was mortally wounded. But Webb, facing life in prison, and Rudabaugh, facing the threat of hanging, were determined to try again. Two months later, Webb, Rudabaugh, and five other men chipped a stone out of the jail wall and escaped through a hole seven inches by nineteen inches. Rudabaugh and Webb raced to Texas and then to Mexico, where Webb disappeared from the historical record.

Rudabaugh was later killed, but Webb made his way back to Kansas, where he took the name Samuel King and worked as a teamster. He later moved to Winslow, Arkansas, where he worked for the railroad. In 1882, he died of smallpox.

John Joshua Webb never married.