The old days...

Every morning when I arrive at work I pass a photo of the current Sheriff of Stone County Missouri, Richard Hill. It is a pleasure to work for Sheriff Hill, he leads a very efficient Sheriff's Department. We are reputed to be one of the best if not the best Sheriff's Office in southwest Missouri. Across the lobby from his picture hangs the pictures of former Sheriff's of Stone County. The photo's date back to the mid 1800's. By the look of some of these men they were more than capable of taking care of the county. One of them is posed showing his six gun, another supporting a beard to his belt buckle. Compared to the neat clean look presented by Sheriff Hill in his uniform, they just did not look like Sheriff's. These men had to be tough, I wonder if they did not patrol the 505 square miles of Stone County on horseback, or did they keep the county safe by leaning back in a wooden chair on a porch in front of the jail. By Missouri State Law the only "job" a Sheriff has is to maintain the jail. All of the protect and serve stuff
Law Enforcement does after that comes at the discretion of the Sheriff. I realize that once Mr. Ford's invention hit the back woods of the county the Sheriff's job changed. We have all seen enough old westerns to know that some Sheriff's just did not get from in back of the desk. My imagination runs rampant with me. I picture a grizzled older man with more guns that the first infantry division riding away from the small county seat of Galena to investigate an act of cattle rustling on the Arkansas border. I can also see several rustlers hanging from low limbs once he got there.

The Civil War and the reconstruction afterward had a hard impact on southwest Missouri. farming was tough, folks could barely scratch out a vegetable garden from the rocky soil. So most of them lived off the land or what they could raise in the form of cattle and pigs. Wild game all but disappeared due to the need for meat. My guess is that during those times you had to reach way outside the law for the Sheriff to get involved. Your justice most of the time came from the end of your own gun or any other means. Most men were Civil war Veterans or they may have served in the Army against the noble red man therefore most problems were solved with out the Sheriff's involvement. If you read history and forget what you seen on tv growing up, very few gunfights ever happened. I know that it is recorded that Wild Bill Hickcock, shot a man in Springfield, Mo. in a gun fight. Furthermore over in Taney County there is a place called Murder Rock, where an outlaw killed several individuals in robberies and because he could. There is a Golf Course by that name there now. There was a group of Vigilantes called the Bald Knobbers that ran amok in the area and these were all things that I could see would keep a local Sheriff and his Deputies busy. If a lot of people were shot, it sure isn't recorded anywhere.
I know we cannot go back in time, however if I could,I know I would choose to land in that 1860-1910 time period. Yes while I'm there I think the job of Sheriff would be my chosen profession. Life was hard then and a lot simpler I believe after all, back then who cared what some knucklehead in North Korea was up to, you were to busy wondering where the next meal was coming from. Sheriff's and Deputies used the force necessary to get the job done and lawyers were hard to find and seldom listened too. If a Judge told someone to do something he done it and if you got sentenced to 10 years in jail, you done 10 years.
I like to write about that era in time. I am currently working on a project where I will feature short stories of fiction about some of the adventures of Sheriff's and their Deputies here on the blog. Look for them starting next week. In the mean time try to imagine yourself crossing this great nation in a covered wagon where, sometimes, you would work all day and when you stopped that night you could still see the place where you camped the night before.