James C. Dahlman: The Texas Cowboy Who Became Mayor of Omaha

Who was James C. Dahlman?

James Dahlman is the rare cowboy who ended up running a big city. Known as Cowboy Jim, he spent about twenty years as mayor of Omaha across eight elected terms, after earlier years as a Texas rider, a Nebraska range boss, a brand inspector and a county sheriff. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum inducted him into its Hall of Great Westerners in 1964, and the museum's profile of Dahlman summarizes that unusual career.

A Texas riding champion on the run

Dahlman was born December 15, 1856, in Yorktown, Texas, to German-American parents and grew up on a ranch. He rode from early childhood and, according to Wikipedia and the Nebraska Life profile, won a statewide riding contest at 17. In 1878, shortly after turning 22, he shot his former brother-in-law in an argument. Nebraska Life says the man had abandoned Dahlman's sister and child. Dahlman left Texas under the name Jim Murray and later learned that a judge had ruled the killing self-defense.

Riding for the N-Bar and the 1882 drive

He reached Omaha with a companion in March 1879 and found work at the N-Bar Ranch near Gordon. In April 1879 he was one of twelve N-Bar cowboys sent into the Sandhills to find cattle scattered by a March blizzard. Over about five weeks, the crew reportedly gathered some 7,000 N-Bar cattle and 1,000 mavericks, as the Nebraska Life profile of Dahlman tells it.

In spring 1882 rancher E. S. Newman made him a foreman on a drive of roughly 20,000 cattle and 500 horses from Baker City, Oregon, toward Montana Territory and the Pine Ridge Reservation. Accounts of the herd's size vary. The drive ran from mid-April to October 15. Dahlman reportedly carried cash for the cattle purchase, which Nebraska Life estimates at $200,000 to $300,000.

Sheriff, brand inspector and Chadron mayor

He worked as a brand inspector for the Wyoming Stock Association at Valentine, then was elected sheriff of Dawes County and served as mayor of Chadron, a post Wikipedia places in 1885 for two terms while other tables in the same article give different dates, so the years are uncertain. In Chadron he raised money for William Jennings Bryan, the Nebraska Democrat, and he served as a Democratic convention delegate in 1892 and 1896. The Union Stock Yards Company of Omaha hired him in 1899, and the move to Omaha put a livestock man in the middle of the nation's growing packing center.

Omaha's cowboy mayor

Dahlman first won the Omaha mayoralty in 1906. According to Wikipedia's article on Dahlman he served until 1918, lost to Edward Parsons Smith, worked as a U.S. Marshal in 1920 and 1921, and returned as mayor in 1921, serving until his death. He lost the 1910 governor's race to Chester H. Aldrich. In 1905 Nebraska Life says he helped recruit cowboys for Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade.

His administration has a mixed record. The museum credits him with acquiring the Florence Waterworks and helping create the Metropolitan Utilities District, which increased the city's control over its own utilities. Critics called him the wettest mayor in America because saloons roughly doubled during his first decade in office and because he opposed Prohibition. He kept an open alliance with Tom Dennison, a political boss tied to Omaha's underworld, and the museum notes criticism over his response to the 1913 tornado and an alleged role in the climate before the 1919 Omaha race riot.

Death and legacy

Dahlman died January 21, 1930, aged 73, while still mayor. Nebraska Life says he suffered a stroke at a Missouri resort. Historians still argue over whether to call his style leadership or machine politics, and the term Dahlmanism survives as shorthand for a government that tolerated vice. For more western life, see the ranching pages at farm.FM and a farm.FM story about the Omaha stockyards.