Joseph W. Smith, a 47-year-old White male town marshal in Bay Minette, Alabama, met his end on August 17, 1910, in a moment that began like so many small-town duties and spiraled into gunfire. He was trying to take a robbery suspect into custody when the encounter turned violent, and the marshal was shot down before he could finish the arrest.
News of the killing spread with the particular weight that follows the death of a lawman: a familiar figure, suddenly gone, the ordinary routines
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