Ham Bell, Ford County Sheriff, Dodge City Mayor, longest living Old West U.S. Marshal, 1939. Photograph taken on top of Boot Hill, Dodge City.

     Ham Bell says the idea that he never drew a gun on a man when he was sheriff here in the early days is all wrong. He never shot a man, he says, and that was mainly because he was always careful to draw his gun in plenty of time before the other man drew his.

"If I'd never drawn a gun," he says, "I wouldn't have lived a week."