Bill Tilghman - Early Life

Early Life

Bill Tilghman was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on 4 July 1854. He became a buffalo hunter at age 15 and claimed he killed over 1,000 bison over his five years of activity. During this time he may have become acquainted with Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Mysterious Dave Mather, who hunted buffalo. Tilghman's older brother, Richard, hunted with him, and at one point during the mid-1870s when the hunting team was attacked by a war party of American Indians, his brother was killed.

Following his hunting career, Tilghman moved to Dodge City, Kansas, where he used the money he had saved to open a saloon in 1875. Tilghman was a teetotaler but, like so many of the famous figures of the Old West, he saw owning a saloon as a financial opportunity. He left Dodge City following other opportunities three years later. However, he returned briefly and he was present with Wyatt Earp, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, and others during the Dodge City War, and was pictured in one of a series of three photographs taken of those considered to be the "Dodge City Peace Commission", although only one of the photos was widely publicized. In the most famous and well circulated photo taken that day, little known businessman and small time gunman W. F. Petillon is pictured with the group, whereas in another photo Petillon is absent and Tilghman is pictured with the group.