Gunfights and general lawlessness were common in the frontier cities of the American West.
To combat this lawlessness, in 18.
In his Reminiscences of a Ranger, Horace Bell reports that "midnight raids and open day robbery and assassinations of defenseless or unsuspecting Americans were of almost daily occurrence" in Southern California, a territory newly acquired from Mexico.
But neither saw violence approaching that of Los Angeles in the 1850s.
Tombstone and Dodge City are legendary.
Gunfights and general lawlessness were common in the frontier cities of the American West