Foreword: It did not happen very often but upon occasion a saloonkeeper or liquor dealer would also pursue a career as a lawman. Those instances generally were confined to the Old West where social and community ties were less rigid and a whiskey man could be seen as an effective keeper of the peace and nemesis to lawbreakers. Here below are the stories of three such men.
For decades the men of the Schwethelm (pronounced “Sweet-helm”) family were virtually synonymous with the Texas Rangers. A background as lawman subsequently gave Ernest Schwethelm important credentials for running saloons in the wild and violent Texas Hill Country. Even a fellow Texas Ranger might find his demise, however, in one of Schwethelm’s drinking establishments. 
Ernest’s father, Henry Schwethelm, shown here, was born in Dusseldorf, Germany but at an early age with his family emigrated to Texas. At 17 Henry joined Captain L. H. Nelson’s Texas Ranger Company stationed in San Antonio. He moved on to serve with Capt. John W. Sansom’s company, headquartered in Kerrville, Texas. Later two of Henry’s sons would be recorded as Texas Rangers, including Ernest shown above at a San Antonio reunion of the Capt. J. H. Callahan Rangers. During the late 1800s Ernest with a partner came to own and operate saloons in Kerrville. Among his drinking establishments was The Ranch Saloon, shown below still standing. 
The Ranch Saloon had a reputation for being a rowdy place and reputedly was the site of the murder of a Texas Ranger. He was Tom Carson, a tough, bad-tempered, and somewhat mysterious character. About 1880, he was recorded as part of a small Ranger scouting party in the Fort Davis area looking for the perpetrators of a series of robberies. Near del Norte they came across a gang of thieves carrying their loot toward Mexico. In the firefight that ensued, a shot cut Carson’s hat brim and another passed under his leg, cutting his stirrup and wounding his horse. Unfazed, he wounded one of the robbers and aided the killing and capturing of the band. Carson reportedly was shot and killed in the Ranch Saloon in April 1893. Details about the event and Carson’s assailant are sketchy. 
Dodge City, Kansas, above, was known as the roughest, toughest, most lawless town in the West. It was, that is, until Chalk Beeson, shown here, came to Dodge as a saloonkeeper and stayed to help bring law and order. Leaving his native Ohio, by the mid-1870s Beeson had moved near the town, purchased a ranch, and rapidly became wealthy in the cattle business. With a partner in 1878 Chalk bought what would become one of America’s most famous Western saloons, The Long Branch. 
The Long Branch is where Chalk became acquainted with noted lawmen and gunslingers of the time, men like Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Bill Hickok, and Bat Masterson. Throughout this period Beeson’s reputation as an outstanding citizen — and perhaps a steady gun — had been rising. He was asked to run for sheriff of Ford County, was elected and served two terms from 1892 to 1896. Among his accomplishments while serving as sheriff was killing a member of the notorious Doolin gang after it had robbed the Spearville Ford County Bank in broad daylight and escaped into Oklahoma Territory. Without waiting for a posse and almost singlehandedly Chalk tracked one of the bandits to his hideout and in the ensuing melee shot him fatally. For that act, Beeson collected the rewards offered by the state, banks, the railroads, and the insurance company for apprehending, dead or alive, a member of the Doolin Gang.
The newspapers of his time were high in their praise of Sheriff Beeson They described him as “a quiet, almost noiseless man” who believed in stopping trouble before it began and yet someone who “always got his man.” “He came to Dodge City when every man carried a gun and the fittest survived, Beeson survived. But he is not fierce.” After his stint as sheriff his fellow citizens elected Chalk to two terms in the Kansas State Legislature where he developed a reputation for avoiding bombastic speeches and working quietly among his colleagues to get things done.
During a highly energetic lifetime James R. “Jim” Hogg managed to juggle the responsibilities for making and selling a popular brand of whiskey while serving four terms as County Sheriff. He ran numerous enterprises, with his distillery as the largest money-maker as he expanded beyond a local market for his whiskey to regional and even national recognition.
His enterprises were not sufficient to absorb Hogg’s high octane energies. Reportedly at the insistence of his friends, he ran for the office of sheriff of Butler County on the Republican ticket in 1892 and was elected. During that first term he became highly popular for his kindly acts. One of them later was reported in a Popular Bluff publication called the Ozark Beacon. The story told of a $200 license fee charged to every circus that came to Poplar Bluff, a cost that one circus manager was unable to meet. The publication reported: “Although Mr. Hogg was not particularly fond of the early day circus people who came to the city, he had a soft spot in his heart for the many children who would be unable to witness their first circus unless the necessary license fee was paid. Mr. Hogg never discussed the incident but friends confided in later years, the beloved sheriff paid the $200 circus fee to the city and the children were not disappointed.”
Unable to succeed himself as sheriff by Missouri law, Hogg ran to become the third elected mayor of Poplar Bluff and won a two year term. But his true love apparently was being sheriff of Butler County. In 1902 he was again elected to that office and served through 1906. Once again he was prohibited from succeeding himself and he retired to private life at the expiration of that term but ran for the office again in 1920. He was elected and served through 1924.
Hailed for his thoughtfulness and diligence in solving crimes, Hogg also had difficult moments as sheriff. In 1903 he accompanied two convicted murderers to the gallows, the first public hangings in twelve years in Butler County. The first hanging went badly. Although the condemned man’s neck was broken by the fall, according to press accounts, he was able to speak for a while and his body twitched and contorted for almost fifteen minutes before he died. Jim Hogg’s reaction to this scene has not been recorded.
Note: Elsewere on this blog are longer biographies of each of these whiskey men who also served as lawmen. The reference is: Ernest Schwethelm, November 15, 2013; Chalk Beeson, August 17, 2014; and Jim Hogg, November 29, 2013.
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