Dodge City & Dave Mather

The “coming soon” section of this website contains the new cover for the Elizabeth Custer book along with a description of the soon-to-be released tome. The launch party for the book will be held on May 20 & 21 in Dodge City, Kansas. I am very much looking forward to returning to the area. Dodge City was listed as one of the top ten Wild West towns to visit by True West Magazine and I can tell you from personal experience it’s well worth the trip. There are many people in Dodge who help to preserve the history of the town, but no one does it better there than Brent Harris. Brent maintains historic Front Street and is the face you see in all the advertisements and billboards touting the benefits of the famous place. Hope all who read this can be at the event in May. I’ll post more details about the book and the celebration in weeks to come. And speaking of Dodge City, on this day in 1880, Mysterious Dave Mather killed Joe Castello in a street brawl in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Mather was a constable in New Mexico and had been a lawmen in Dodge City. He was a frequent associate of Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. The date and circumstances of Mather’s death are not known with any certain facts. However, the most plausible account is that he was shot to death in Dallas, Texas, in 1886 and left on the tracks of a railroad. The body found matched his description, and the bondsman holding a $3,000 bond on him was released of the obligation that same year on the pretense that the client had died.  Not a great deal is known of Mather’s life. The gaps in his life and his taciturn manner may have been what earned him the sobriquet “Mysterious Dave”.