“Gunsmoke” was one of the longest-running American TV shows, airing from 1955 to 1975. Stories of the West were, and still are, popular. There is something about the elements of adventure and the independence of frontier life that continues to captivate audiences.
Marshal Dillon, Doc, and Miss Kitty were fictional characters, but they were inspired by composites of real people. Meeker had its own version of a Gunsmoke-style frontier town in 1885. The area was full of cattlemen and saloons.
The Meeker Herald reported in its Sept. 5, 1885, issue the arrival of Dr. C.F. Gardiner, a physician and surgeon from the mining town of Crested Butte. Gardiner’s new medical practice was big news for Meeker, which was only two years old at the time and still part of Garfield County. Even more remarkable was that Gardiner was both a physician and a surgeon—two separate fields of study at that time.
A New York City native, Gardiner was educated at Bellevue Medical College and served as a surgeon at Charity Hospital in New York. In the 1880s, the mountains of Colorado were a magnet for Easterners seeking fortune and adventure. Suffering from health issues in New York, Gardiner bought a railroad ticket to Colorado and contracted as a physician for the Colorado Coal and Iron Co. in Crested Butte, hoping for both better health and adventure.
Before railroads reached mining camps and cow towns, isolation often led to the casual use of guns and liquor—a dangerous combination. Frontier doctors were called upon to treat a wide range of ailments, from dental issues to broken bones, gunshot wounds, and mysterious illnesses. Sometimes, they even tended to livestock. Those who were willing to set up a practice under such conditions were a special breed.
Meeker’s library has a book written by Dr. Charles Fox Gardiner, Doctor at Timberline, which is located in the Colorado history section. However, it could be classified more as historical fiction, as place names, events, and people have been altered and dramatized. There’s little doubt that the doctor in the story is a composite of Gardiner himself and other frontier doctors he knew.
One character in the book, described as a friend of the doctor, follows him to a wild mining camp—also for health reasons. This character, supposedly from a circus family, is a skilled trick shooter on horseback, which earns him a job as marshal in the rough camp. His negotiating skills are minimal, but his gun-handling abilities are highly valued.
Gardiner’s fictional marshal may have been an exaggerated version of his real-life friend, John L. Armit, who served as Meeker’s marshal for two months in 1886. This would make Gardiner and Armit Meeker’s own Gunsmoke pair of Marshal and Doc. If casting a Miss Kitty, perhaps Mrs. Susan Wright would fit the role—though she ran a hotel, not a saloon.
Dr. Gardiner did treat gunshot wounds in Meeker and Rangely—twice for the same patient. John J. McKee, foreman of the “4” outfit, admitted to becoming uncontrollable when drunk. In both cases, he fought with men who believed they had the right to shoot him. McKee was wounded but survived. Whether he ever resolved his anger issues remains unknown.
Gardiner and Armit would have stood out among Meeker’s residents. Gardiner was the son of Montieth Gardiner, a wealthy professor in New York City. Armit, born in Scotland, was a former British Army captain and later worked as a lawyer in Colorado Springs.
The two had a third friend, “Ted” Sheffield Phelps, a lawyer in Colorado Springs who visited Meeker at least once in 1887 for a hunting trip. Phelps was the son of William Walter Phelps, a former U.S. minister to Austria and a multiple-term congressman. Ted’s sister was the Countess Von Rottenberg.
Later, Dr. Gardiner practiced medicine in Colorado Springs, becoming known for his work with tuberculosis patients. Armit and Phelps became law partners there. Dr. Charles Fox Gardiner died in 1947.
Sources:
• Article suggested by Larry Knowles
• Doctor at Timberline by Charles F. Gardiner (610.69 GAR)
• ColoradoHistoricalNewspapers.org
