Battle of Cimarron

Battle of Cimarron

Bill Tilghman was standing in front of the Old Gray County Courthouse when the first shot was fired.
Date	January 12, 1889
Location	Old Gray County Courthouse, Cimarron, Kansas, USA
Participants	Bill Tilghman, Jim Masterson, Ben Daniels
Outcome	1 killed 7 wounded

The Battle of Cimarron was a famous gunfight that occurred on January 12, 1889, during the Gray County War, between the people of Cimarron, Kansas, and a group of led by Bill Tilghman. The gunfight, which lasted several hours and resulted in the death of at least one man and the wounding of seven others, began when Tilghman and his raiders attempted to take the county records from the Old Gray County Courthouse back to Ingalls.

In the late 1880s, Cimarron and its neighbor to the west, Ingalls, were locked in a contest to decide which town would become the new county seat. Because towns in the 19th century often relied on their county seat status to survive, the county seat contests often resulted in violence. After an election to decide the contest ended with accusations of fraud and protests from both sides, the matter was sent to the Kansas Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, a man from Ingalls named Newt Watson became the new county clerk, and he demanded that the county records in Cimarron be taken from the courthouse and brought to him. When the citizens of Cimarron refused to turn over the records, the Ingalls faction organized a group of raiders to go into town and take them by force.

The raiding party, led by Bill Tilghman, also included Jim Masterson, brother of the famous Bat Masterson, Ben Daniels, "Neal" Brown, and Fred Singer, who were all former Dodge City peace officers, in addition to some "cowtown mercenaries," George Bolds, Ed Brooks, and Billy Allensworth. To give them "semi-official status," all of the men in the group were deputized by Tilghman, who was appointed temporary Gray County Sheriff by Watson after the current sheriff, Joe Reynolds, was put in a hospital with a gunshot wound to the stomach.

The raid was set to take place on January 12, 1889. That day, Tilghman and the others arrived in Cimarron with a wagon to carry the records. After pulling up to the courthouse, Watson, Masterson, Singer, and Allensworth quickly entered the building to begin loading the documents into the back of the wagon, while the rest of the men waited outside. In the meantime, some armed Cimarron men were moving into position to attack.