History: American Old West, United States

The early years of male-dominated life in cattle towns gave way to a more balanced community of farm families and small businesses as the boom passed. Though lawlessness, prostitution, and gambling were significant in cattle towns, especially early on, the greed factor in the mining towns added an extra element of danger and violence. Since these towns grew rapidly, law and order often took a while to establish itself. Vigilante justice did occur, but in many cases, it subsided when adequate police forces were appointed. While some vigilante committees served the public good fairly and successfully in the absence of law officers and judges, more often than not vigilantism was motivated by bigotry and base emotion and produced imperfect justice directed at those considered socially inferior. Indian hunting and race riots against the Chinese were severe manifestations of vigilantism.
A contemporary eyewitness of Hays City, Kansas paints a vivid image of a cattle town:
"Hays City by lamplight was remarkably lively, but not very moral. The streets blazed with a reflection from saloons, and a glance within showed floors crowded with dancers, the gaily dressed women striving to hide with ribbons and paint the terrible lines which that grim artist, Dissipation, loves to draw upon such faces... To the music of violins and the stamping of feet the dance went on, and we saw in the giddy maze old men who must have been pirouetting on the very edge of their graves."
To control violence, sometimes cowboys were segregated into brothel districts away from the main part of town. Cattle rustling was a serious offense sometimes punished by lynching. However, free-shooting brawls, also known as "hurrahing", were not as frequent as in the movies. In Wichita, handguns were outlawed within city limits and in many towns some form of gun control existed. Also unlike in the movies, marshals rarely shot outlaws, especially in the middle of Main Street in a showdown. Famed lawmen such as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Wild Bill Hickok, and less remembered ones like Michael Meagher, Thomas James Smith, and Bill Tilghman actually averaged only one or two killings in a year.