Chalky learned the law business at the side of Mr. Bassett over the following four years right up until the time Charlie was forced out of the sheriff’s job. There were two factions of citizens in the town – one that wanted Dodge to be wide open with plenty of saloons, prostitutes, and gambling. The other group hoped to transform the boisterous community into a far more Boston-like city.
They put in term limits for the job of sheriff. This forced Bassett out and paved the way for more the more flamboyant ‘lawmen’ that followed – Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and others.
As for Chalky, don’t worry about that young fellow. He took the skills that he learned at the side of Mr. Bassett and became something of a tycoon, with part ownership of the Long Branch, a profitable mining company, two terms as sheriff in his own right, and ownership of one of the largest meat packing plants in the West.
The Dodge City Peace Commission. Standing in the back is W.H. Harris on the left, with Luke Short in the middle and Bat Masterson on the right. Sheriff Charlie Bassett is seated at the left with Wyatt Earp next to him, then Frank McLain and Neal Brown.
Missing from the photo is Chalky Jones as well as a dentist who at various times worked both sides of the law – John Henry Holliday, known in Dodge City and on West as – ‘Doc’ Holliday.
The Peace Commission photo was taken five years after the most famous shootout in U.S. history, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.
Earp, Holliday and Masterson were among the featured players in that legendary episode as well as in a number of shared adventures in Dodge City.
Though almost every other man in the Commission picture was more famous than Charlie Bassett, one thing always strikes me about him when I look at this photograph.
Take a close look at those gunmen and see if you notice what’s different– the thing that separates Dodge’s first sheriff from the rest of those galoots.
It’s the droopy hound-dog mustache. Charlie doesn’t have one! It perhaps means nothing. But to me it makes Mr. Bassett seem like a modern person. The rest of the bunch look like they were born a full century before Sheriff Bassett.
Front Steet in the 2000s