Journal Notes

“Chris Enss delivers the goods on Machine Gun Kelly, who moved from the upper middle class and college to become an infamous Prohibition-era gangster with his moll, Kathryn Thorne. Thoroughly researched with exciting new details!” —Meyer Lansky II, grandson of Meyer Lansky and author of The Lansky Legacy: The Life and Letters of Meyer Lansky

Meet the Kellys: The True Story of Machine Gun Kelly and His Moll Kathryn Thorne is published by Citadel a Kensington Publishing imprint and is scheduled for released in May 2025

An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

won the silver medallion in the category of Western Nonfiction

at the Will Rogers Medallion Award Ceremony

Can’t wait to celebrate the win with my sweet friends at Deadwood History, Inc.

It is indeed an honor to learn the story penned for the Tombstone Epitaph about

Sarah Herring Sorin, The Attorney Teacher won the  

DOWNING Journalism Award.

Thanks to editor Mark Boardman for publishing the article,

Linda Wommack who chairs the award,

and Women Writing the West.

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Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

“This engrossing biography-within-a-biography offers well-written looks into the lives of a feared and respected Deputy U.S. Marshal and his wife, a poet and writer, plus a tragic 1924 event that tore them apart. Tilghman is a true story infused with Wild West and early 20^th-century history, several pursuits of justice, details of a happy but challenging marriage, and a widow’s lengthy quest to honor her husband’s legacy.

For decades, Bill Tilghman, an Oklahoma-based federal marshal, had investigated crimes, survived gunfights, and chased down outlaws in several states, including Texas. He had been praised for his long service by many state and local officials and even by President Theodore Roosevelt. Now he was looking forward to retiring and staying home with his family and horses. But on November 1, 1924, the 70-year-old lawman was gunned down in Cromwell, Okla., while trying to disarm a drunken Federal Prohibition Officer.

Tilghman’s death left his wife, Zoe Tilghman, and their three young sons unable to pay their bills. However, the two biographers show how she was able to push her grief aside and find just enough work to keep her household afloat. The duty-minded marshal often had ridden off on crime-fighting assignments that required days or even weeks away from home. In his absence, Zoe had taken up writing again; she had begun writing stories and poems as a teen before she attended the University of Oklahoma. Over time, she had made some sales to magazines, book publishers, and poetry journals. She also had done some writing and editing for Harlow’s Weekly, an Oklahoma City newspaper. This time, she talked her way into a regular job as the publication’s literary editor. She also increased her personal writing output and penned more poems and books that sold.

But, as the two authors note, the work that she most wanted to complete was a biography titled The Marshal of the Last Frontier, a tribute to her husband’s crime-fighting career. As a young adult, Bill Tilghman had floundered and gotten into legal trouble at least twice. However, he had gotten a fresh start and found a new career when Sheriff Bat Masterson hired him to be an undersheriff in 1878 in dangerous Dodge City, Kansas.

Zoe began work on Bill’s biography in 1925 yet did not manage to finish it until twenty-three years later, in 1948. Daily life’s struggles had gotten in the way. Two of her three sons had turned to crime, but the third had joined the Army and would become a decorated officer in Europe during World War II. Also, the late marshal had lived a complex life that left much to document. At various times before or after becoming a lawman, he had been a buffalo hunter, Indian fighter, rancher, horse breeder, saloon keeper, and politician.

“I rewrote the book four times,” she recalled years later. “Once, I threw away a hundred thousand words and began anew. But by 1948, it was done. I had, in the process, learned a good deal about writing. [And] I had hoped that some time Bill’s life would be the object for a moving picture.”

Ironically, Bill Tilghman and several other survivors of America’s Wild West days had previously edged into the early movie-making world and formed their own production companies. In 1915, the marshal and a few friends had made a “patriotic drama” titled The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws. It focused on improving Oklahoma’s image in the world by re-enacting how several big-name bandits had been captured or killed. The making of the movie, who starred in it, and how it was distributed is eye-opening reading.

Meanwhile, Zoe Tilghman’s book was finally published in 1949 and “was well received not only by politicians like President Eisenhower but by critics from coast to coast,” the Tilghman authors note. No movie resulted. Nonetheless, Zoe’s efforts brought her an unexpected consolation prize. She got to write some stories for an early Western TV series, Death Valley Days.

Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss acknowledge that producing this biography-within-a-biography would not have been possible without help from the Tilghmans’ granddaughter, Suzie. She gave them access to boxes full of Zoe’s and Bill Tilghman’s mementos, cards, letters, poems, and journals. “Much of the material used in this book,” the two authors report, “is being seen by the public for the first time.”

Tilghman is rich with historical settings, cultural atmosphere, and real-life characters, seen against a backdrop of rapid change. In the book, the Wild West is fading out and being taken over by new technologies, new settlers, and new expansions of urban areas. But as Oklahoma transitions from a territory to a state, many veterans of the “old days” are not yet ready to let go of the “old ways” that shaped them.” – Lone Star Literary Life

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Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

“I’ve met my fair share of outlaws who couldn’t or wouldn’t change. They were hell-bent on breaking the law no matter how many chances they were given to do the right thing.” Marshal Bill Tilghman, 1896.

The launch of the new book Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him will take place at the Western Spirit Museum in Scottsdale on Friday, October 11 at 3 P.M.

Visit visitorservices@westernspirit.org to register to attend the event or call 480-686-9539.

Enter now to win a copy of the book

Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

“Bill Tilghman would charge hell with a bucket of water” – President Theodore Roosevelt.

Read about the last great frontier marshal in the book

Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

Enter now to win a copy of

Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

This unique “story within a story” reveals the challenges and triumphs of being married to one of America’s most prominent western lawmen. The colorful exploits of William “Bill” Tilghman, as told through the equally fascinating story of his wife Zoe, present the reader of this book with an exciting and insightful “edge of you seat” experience! – Wyatt McCrea, Actor and Producer

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Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

“Gritty, violent, magnificent, and noble describes America and the early lawmen who made the frontier safe for expansion. Authors Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian do a masterful job of unpacking the life of revered lawman Bill Tilghman through the words and prose of second wife, Zoe Tilghman a scholar, mother, poet and remarkable woman in her own right. This husband-and-wife team were one of America’s early power couples.” Eileen O’Neill, Former Head of Discovery Channel and TLC

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Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

When Bill Tilghman stepped off the train in Eureka Springs he was dressed as an itinerant preacher complete with a long, black coat and derby hat. As he proceeded down the main thoroughfare clutching a Bible in his hand, he noticed a tall man bent at the waist walking with a cane. The man’s complexion was pale, and he carried himself as though he was in pain, but there was no mistaking he was Bill Doolin. Tilghman followed the fugitive to a barbershop. There Doolin made himself comfortable in front of a warm stove and began reading a paper he had tucked under his arm. The lawman walked into the room, scanning the setting for other patrons.

No one paid any attention to the lawman masquerading as a minister until he pulled a pistol from his suit pocket and pointed it at Doolin. “Put up your hands!” Tilghman ordered. The outlaw jumped to his feet and attempted to go for his six-shooter. The seasoned officer jerked Doolin’s gun arm back before his hand reached the holster. Bystanders scurried out of the business, leaving Tilghman alone with the combative criminal. “Bill, you know who I am?” Tilghman asked Doolin. “Yes, I do,” he replied. “Well, you better get your hands up,” the lawman told him. The desperado complied. After confiscating Doolin’s gun, he handcuffed him and led him out of the barbershop.

“The fact that Doolin knew him accounts for the easy manner in which Tilghman took him,” the January 16, 1896, edition of the Weekly Oklahoma State Capital reported. “There is no other marshal that could have gotten him without a desperate fight. Tilghman is the only man on Marshal Nix’s force who really made Doolin’s capture a study. He was following him incessantly for many months, being very close on his trail several times. …The government and the railroad and express companies had outstanding rewards aggregating $3,500 for the capture of Doolin, which Tilghman will receive.”

To learn more about Marshal Tilghman’s capture of outlaw Bill Doolin read

Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

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Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him

Bill Tilghman, Chris Madsen, and Heck Thomas lay on their stomachs behind a cluster of rocks, their rifles trained on a dugout three hundred yards away. The crude shelter, a rectangular hole carved into a ravine, was rumored to be the spot where the Doolin-Dalton Gang was hiding. The lawmen had sneaked into their position after midnight and were waiting until dawn to overtake the outlaws inside. The pale crescent moon above the trio shone like a silvery claw in the waning night sky. It was mid-March 1894, and it was cold.

The US deputy marshals were dressed for the frigid temperature, but the occasional icy winds left them wanting more than dusters and wool chaps to rely on for warmth. Knowing the outlaws would be in custody by daybreak kept them rooted to their setting despite the elements. Six months prior to Tilghman and the others learning the criminals’ location, a team of lawmen tried to apprehend the gang holed up in Ingalls. The outcome was disastrous for Evett Nix’s federal authorities. Three deputy marshals were killed and most of the outlaws escaped. Law enforcement’s defeat emboldened the desperados.

A month after the incident in Ingalls they attended an oyster supper in Cushing hosted by the women of the church. They were overheard planning bank and train robberies. They also threatened to come after the citizens of Ingalls who had sided with the deputy marshals who raided the area in September 1893. Frustrated with the lack of progress his officers were making to catch the gang, Nix persuaded Tilghman and Heck Thomas to leave their post in Perry and pursue a lead on the whereabouts of the Doolin-Dalton Gang. The pair would later reunite with Chris Madsen.

Madsen had sent his brother-in-law, Deputy Marshal Ed Morris, and two other officers to the Ingalls area to find out if those who championed the outlaws knew where they were hiding. Morris and his coworkers arrived in town on a chuck wagon disguised as cooks traveling to Texas to work on a cattle drive. During a visit to the local saloon, Morris learned that the gang was living in a dugout on the Dunn Ranch.

Rose Dunn’s paramour George Newcomb survived the police raid on Ingalls and was with the rest of the gang on her family’s property. Morris was informed that Rose had been seen taking provisions from the main ranch house to the dugout. Smoke emanating from the chimney of the dugout further confirmed their theory that Doolin, Dalton, and the other members of their group were indeed inside.

To learn how Marshal Tilghman apprehended Bill Doolin read

Tilghman: The Legendary Lawman and the Woman Who Inspired Him