W. S. Norton-Killer of Jake Killian

The current issue of Wild West Magazine contains an article of mine about Jake Killian of Granby, Missouri, and his notorious family, and my Ozarks' Gunfights book contains a chapter about the same subject that is similar to the article. I don't have anything else to say about Jake and his family right now, but I would like to add a few words about William S. Norton, the man who ended up killing Jake in the spring of 1878 at Empire City, Kansas (now part of Galena), because Norton was something of a notorious character in his own right.
Norton and Killian were members of the same unit during the Civil War, and the two men got into a violent argument over a card game during the latter part of the war. They grappled over Norton's gun, but Norton managed to turn the gun toward Killian and shot him in the face, blinding him in one eye. Killian swore revenge, a mistake that eventually cost him his life.
After the war, Norton lived in Dallas County, Missouri, awhile but came to Joplin soon after lead was discovered and the town was established in the early 1870s. He served briefly as a constable or deputy constable and became embroiled in an 1874 dispute in Joplin when he was appointed city marshal after the sitting marshal was ousted by the city council. The two men feuded awhile before the incumbent went to court and regained his office. Norton hung around Joplin a few more years and was reported to have killed at least one or two men in cases that were ruled self defense.
Shortly after lead was discovered on Short Creek in southeast Kansas in 1877, Norton moved to the booming new lead town of Empire City. He killed Killian in March of 1878 when the latter came looking for him. Although this killing, like the previous ones, was ruled self defense (primarily because Killian had a notorious reputation and had stalked Norton), it was actually a clear case of murder. Killian was not even armed at the time Norton gunned him down.
Norton later ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Cherokee County. Maybe the good folks of southeast Kansas wanted someone for their chief law enforcement officer who was a little more deliberate in the use of firearms than Bill Norton.

Galena and Empire City

Galena, Kansas, is pretty tame nowadays compared to what it was during its early days. Like several of the towns in the tri-state region of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma that got their start as mining camps, Galena was a rough and rowdy place in its infancy. During the spring of 1877, lead was discovered on Short Creek just across the Missouri state line in southeast Kansas, and miners and other adventurers flocked to the area throughout the spring and summer.
Two towns, Galena and Empire City, sprang up on opposite sides of Short Creek, and a bitter rivalry between the two fledgling communities quickly developed. Empire City resented the fact that Red Hot Street at the north edge of Galena quickly became a center of saloons and other entertainment for the miners, drawing them away from their own town, and, during the summer of 1877, the city fathers began constructing a long, tall wall to separate the two towns, claiming its purpose was to retard the filthy stench emanating from Galena. Violence erupted and the citizens of Galena burned the wall down before things finally began to settle down when the cool weather of fall approached. The rivalry continued with less intensity, though, for several years, until Empire City was finally annexed into Galena during the early 1900s.