Old West Sheriff

Frontier law came in layers. A town marshal kept order inside town limits. A county sheriff, usually elected, covered the whole county. Federal marshals handled federal crimes. The movies blur them together, but on the ground the difference mattered.

A large share of a sheriff's work was paperwork. He served warrants, ran the jail, and in many counties collected taxes and fees, keeping a cut as pay. When Cochise County, Arizona Territory, was created in 1881, its first sheriff, Johnny Behan, kept 10 percent of the license fees and taxes he collected from saloons, gambling halls and theaters.

Gunplay was the exception, and towns worked to keep it that way. Tombstone had an ordinance against carrying weapons inside town. The gunfight near the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881, began as an attempt by the town marshal, Virgil Earp, to disarm men who were breaking it.

This lawman stands on a plank sidewalk under a hanging lantern, in a long dark coat with a star pinned to his vest, a watch chain, a tie, and a revolver holstered at his hip. Gray is coming into his mustache. Behind him the dusty main street runs out past wooden storefronts toward a line of blue mountains.