Historic Abilene

The first marshal to bring order, as the plaque has it, meant to do it with his fists. Thomas J. Smith, called Bear River after an 1867 riot in that Wyoming railroad town, answered Mayor Theodore Henry's call in late 1869, insisted he could police Abilene with his hands rather than guns, and banned guns inside the town limits, to the anger of Texas cowboys. On November 2, 1870, serving a murder warrant on two farmers about ten miles out, he was shot, then struck down with a rifle butt and an axe. Wild Bill Hickok succeeded him.

What the plaque says

Historic Abilene At the end of the Civil War when millions of longhorns were left on the plains of Texas without a market, the Union Pacific was building west across Kansas. Joseph McCoy, an Illinois stockman, believed these cattle could be herded north for shipment by rail. He built yards at Abilene and sent agents to notify the Texas cattlemen. In 1867 the first drives were made up the Chisholm trail and during the next five years more than a million head were received. Abilene became the first of the wild cattle towns where gambling places, saloons and dance halls competed for the cowboys wages. Gun fights were frequent and several peace officers resigned. The first to bring order was Tom Smith. More famous was "Wild Bill" Hickok who became known as the deadliest "two gun" marshal on the West- ern frontier. President Dwight D. Eisenhower lived in Abilene from 1891 to 1911. The Eisenhower home and museum are open to the public.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home — 0.2 mi
  The six-room house on Southeast Fourth Street where David and Ida Eisenhower raised six sons, and the library, museum and chapel that grew up around it in south Abilene.

More markers nearby

• Historical Kansas — 9.8 mi
• Kansas - The Wheat State — 9.8 mi
• Historical Kansas — 19 mi
• Dwight David Eisenhower — 23 mi