On Aug. 17, 2021, the village of Calumet adopted Ordinance 159. It is an ordinance for the repeal of ordinances “now antiquated or obsolete or which no longer serve a useful public purpose.” That is sort of inaccurate, at least from the point of view of history.

They still provide a useful public purpose.

The now repealed ordinances provide an incredibly valuable window through which to view a typical frontier mining town of the late 19th century. Many of the ordinances, adopted before the village of Red Jacket became the village of Calumet, were adopted during the same time Southwestern mining towns were becoming famous — more for the behavior of their residents than for mineral production. The ordinances, viewed as historical record and documents, show many similarities with towns like Bisbee and Tombstone, Arizona, and also reveal some stark contrasts, but still allow historians to study mining settlements both in the Old Northwest and in the Southwest.

These ordinances, when studied against towns of mining regions or mining camps in the “Wild West” demonstrate that the Lake Superior copper region was no less plagued by bad behavior, illicit or outright illegal activates, and just plain hucksters, than the areas made famous in old dime store westerns and Hollywood movies.

For instance, we can look at the village of Red Jacket’s Ordinance No. 3, which states, in part, that “any person who shall keep or assist in keeping a gaming house, room or establishment, faro bank or any other place, instrument or device for gaming, or where money shall in any manner be played or gambled for, shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not more than twenty-five ($25.00) dollars, together with the costs of prosecution…”

With Ordinance No. 3 in mind, we can then look west to Tombstone. Tombstone was founded in Cochise County in1877, two years after Red Jacket was incorporated. Tombstone, like Red Jacket, was founded by a prospector. By 1881, the population had grown to some 7,500 registered male voters, but if women and children are considered, the population is estimated to have stood at approximately 15,000. It was in Tombstone that the famous Oriental Saloon was opened in 1880 by Milton Joyce, and included gaming run by a man named Lou Rickengaugh. It was the gaming tables that Wyatt Earp bought into, including faro.

Earp was efficient at anything he did and he felt comfortable operating on either side of the law. In 1875-76, he was employed as a police officer in Wichita, according to the Kansas Historical Society, before moving to the rail head town of Dodge City. He served as assistant marshal there until 1879, when he was more or less fired for beating an election candidate silly. He left Wichita for Arizona. When Earp arrived in Tombstone a year later, he had already acquired something of a reputation as a gunman, gambler and saloon-owner. There are aslo accounts of his having run prostitutes, but there is no conclusive evidence to substantiate them, other than his having been arrested in a police raid of a brothel in Illinois in 1872, for which he was convicted and fined.

According to history.com, Earp was elected as town constable in Lamar, Missouri in 1870 and records show that he did a good job. But, as so often happened on the frontier, in that year Earp’s wife died of typhoid. If is his subsequent behavior and actions are an indication, his wife’s death had an enormous impact on him. He wandered west that year and was arrested in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) for stealing horses. Released on bail, Earp fled across the border to Kansas to escape prosecution. In 1873, he was hired by Wichita Marshal Michael Meagher as a policeman.

Two years later, Wichita held an election for city marshal, and William Smith opposed Meagher. Smith made several disparaging remarks about Meagher publicly and Earp confronted Smith and beat him pretty badly. Over the years, Earp’s reputation and his behavior became increasingly violent, which eventually drove him from Arizona.

While Earp was running the gaming section at the Oriental, at 25% of the income, he gave no apparent thought of his ability to keep the peace. In 1882, in broad daylight, a shooting occurred in the street immediately in front of the Oriental in which one man shot and killed another in self defense. The shooting was over gambling.

Red Jacket’s ordinance against gaming of any sort within its boundaries was statement of fact that the village was not going to tolerate the kind of lawless violence so common-place in Tombstone.

The likes of Wyatt Earp, his common-law wife, Mattie (who was a prostitute); his friend, Doc Holliday (whose companion, Big Nosed Kate, was a prostitute); as well as several of their friends and partners in Tombstone, did themselves quite well by passing Red Jacket for Arizona. All of them almost certainly would have faced a judge for violations of Red Jacket’s Ordinance No 6, which addressed “disorderly persons.” These, the ordinances stated, included: fortune tellers, prostitutes, pimps, anyone operating a blind pig (a place selling alcohol illegally without a license), anyone having no visible calling or business to maintain themselves by “or who do for the most part support themselves by gaming or other disorderly practices” (that provision would have gotten Al Capone tossed in jail). Disorderly persons even included jugglers, tightrope walkers — it is an impressively long list.

Ordinance No. 20, “Disturbing Services of Divine Worship and Loitering on Streets,” is probably strongly linked to Ordinance No. 4, which addressed dancing on Sunday.

This is in no way meant to cast a negative light on the village of Calumet. On the contrary, it is to the village government’s credit that it has maintained a record of its early life, invaluable documents to assist in reconstructing mid-19th century life on the western frontier. Ordinances against dancing on Sunday, disturbing church services and loitering on the streets, was in no way unique to the village of Red Jacket. Mining engineer and historian John Forster stated in his “Life in the Lake Superior Region,” published in 1888, stated:

“There is one peculiarity in towns and cities of the mining regions that strikes an observer from the land of steady habits unfavorably, namely, the festive character of Sunday.”

Forster described unnamed villages and towns: “saloons are wide open on that sacred day and well patronized.” He went on to state that “bands of music and parades of firemen and guilds enliven the morning hours as the pious are wending their way to church. The sound of church bells is drowned in the blare of trombones.” He went on to complain that public opinion sanctioned “these open violations of the law,” and that juries would not convict offenders.

“And it is pleasant to be able to say,” Forster elated, “that more than one city in the mines has had strength enough to close the saloons on Sunday.”

The early ordinances of Red Jacket, taken now as historical documents, are, in the end, very valuable, because among other things, they clearly demonstrate that the village’s government was determined that the town would not become anything remotely resembling a Tombstone. That may be why men like Wyatt Earp, left Illinois for the mining districts out west, rather than Wisconsin or Upper Michigan.

Graham Jaehnig has a BA of Social Science/History from Michigan Technological University, and an MA in English/Creative Nonfiction Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. He is internationally known for his writing on Cornish immigration to the United States mining districts.