Pat Garrett and Wyatt Earp, management experts? Expert management skills were necessary to quickly organize a group of law enforcement officers able to effectively keep the peace and pursue and arrest felons.
The actual work of transforming the frontier into farms and cities was carried on by the stream of settlers, but working with, or sometimes ahead of them were the business people who directed the conquest of the wilderness and law enforcement officials who helped protect their interests.
The business people brought capital and labor together, sent logging crews into the forests; built bridges, canals, and railways; bought, sold, and transported commodities; laid out town sites and planned cities; started industries; developing mines; and nearly always speculating in land. Often times their efforts were thwarted by criminal elements who kept the goods, services, and funds from their appointed destination. Posses were formed to make sure fleeing desperados were brought to justice. In the process civility was brought to the lawless territory as well.
