Marshal Mart Duggan’s Leadville: The Wildest Years, 1878 - 1890

Eddie Foy, the famous vaudevillian who toured the West during the late 1800s, was qouted as saying that compared to Leadville, Colorado, Dodge City resembled a Sunday School. The 10,200 - foot high ＂Magic City＂ was one of the wildest mining camps of the era. This book is a semi-biographical history of Martin ＂Mart＂ Duggan, who was Leadville City marshal for two and nearly three terms before he met his end at the hands of gambling pals. But Leadville was also home to numerous other fascinating characters, not the least of whom was John Henry ＂Doc＂ Holliday, who had his last gunfight in Leadville in 1884. They all came to Leadville: the confidence men, the gamblers, the stage robbers, and the ＂soiled doves＂ though they could have never known it at the time, being primarily concerned with survival, these individuals in their totality combined to create one of the most intriguing camps in the Wild West. And the site of much of the action that made Leadville unique occurred on State Street, the half mile long stretch of gambling dens, saloons, and bawdy houses that rivaled any red light district then in existence. Even today, when State Street has been renamed Second Street, one can imagine Mart Duggan, Doc Holliday, and Tombstone’s Johnny Tyler, to name only a few walking westward from Harrison Avenue to the east-west mecca of State Street. Gazing upward they would see majestic Mount Massive directly in front of them. What a view! What a mining camp! Marshal Mart Duggan’s Leadville - the Wild West at its most fascinating.