Dodge City began near Henry L. Sitler's three-room sod house by the Santa Fe Trail, which served as headquarters for his ranch and cattle operations and as a stop for buffalo hunters and traders. In the summer of 1872, George Hoover followed railroad survey stakes to the west side of the Fort Dodge Military Reservation, set up a buffalo-grass sod saloon on June 17, 1872, and established the new town's first business. Other proprietors soon followed, and by the time the first train arrived in September, nine businesses were operating. A town company organized on August 15, 1872, by leaders, businessmen, and military men from Forts Dodge, Riley, and Leavenworth began planning the town site, and the settlement's name changed from Buffalo City to Dodge City because another Kansas town already used the earlier name. Trade south of the Arkansas River was aided by a bridge built in 1874 that operated as a tollbridge until county purchase in 1885. The town developed along the railroad, with more respectable businesses generally north of the tracks and rougher activity south of the "dead line," where weapons ordinances were hard to enforce. By 1877, Dodge City had a population of 1,000 and seventeen saloons, including Ham Bell's Varieties and the Lady Gay, where entertainment, dancing, and brawling reflected the town's lively reputation. In November 1877, the Dodge City Times reported a street fight involving "Stock Yards Shorty" and a cowboy. On April 9, 1878, city marshal Edward Masterson was shot after disarming a drunken cowboy, then crossed the tracks to Hoover's saloon, where he collapsed and died; the town's businesses closed for his funeral, and he was buried at Fort Dodge. During the cowtown era from 1875 to 1885, large Texas herds arrived each spring and summer, grazed south of town, were sold to buyers, driven to stockyards east of town, and shipped by rail to eastern packing plants. After receiving about $90 to $120 for nearly three months of work, cowboys often entered Dodge City to buy clothes, clean up, gamble, drink, and celebrate, sometimes spending most or all of their wages before returning to Texas.