USA Old West lawman hierarchy

by spikeesdean

Hi there historians

Before the question, just want to give a little background. Me and a group of friends are creating a roleplay community in a game called Red dead redemption 2. That game, if you never heard of it, goes on around 1899 and the map includes some small towns in which every town has its own sheriffs office. To have a “realistic” roleplay, we gonna need lawman. My question is:

  • what’s the sheriff hierarchy in the USA back then? Both town hierarchy and federal hierarchy pls. I made some search and there’s a lot of different stuff. From Marshall’s, to deputy Marshall’s to US Marshall’s. Its hard to keep up with all the information around when some conflicts
itsallfolklore

There were three (or sometimes four) levels of law enforcement available in the nineteenth-century West:

If a town had an incorporated local government (making it a "city"), it would likely have its own police department, with a chief of police: this would be the law enforcement within city limits.

The county would have a sheriff. The sheriff and his deputies would provide law enforcement outside of any incorporated cities. The sheriff was located in the seat of government, typically with an office and jail within the county courthouse. So he would often operate within an incorporated city, but his reach only began outside the city.

The federal government provided U.S. marshals who would provide law enforcement in territories (areas that were not yet organized as states) and region-wide. They functioned something like the modern FBI, adding resources to regional, interstate problems. Sometimes there would be a state marshal, but these were rarer.