At one point Sheriff Trimble, played by Edgar Buchanan, is musing about leaving his job and says, "Maybe I could go back to dentistry". Prior to becoming an actor, Buchanan had been a dentist.
The town marshal of Abilene in 1870 was Tom "Big Bear" Smith, who was murdered and decapitated on 11/2/1870. He wounded one of his two murderers, who were caught and served a life term. His successor was famed lawman 'Wild Bill' Hickok in 1871.
Although barbed wire was invented in France in 1860 and a double-wire version was invented in and patented by the inventor in 1865, it wan't until 1873, when four large-scale firms in the US began to turn it out, that the wire became widely accessible.
Born on 10/14/1890 in Denison, TX, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of allied forces in western Europe during World War II, considered Abilene, KS, to be his hometown, as he grew up there.
Abilene, KS, began as a stagecoach stop in 1857. In 1867 the Kansas Pacific Railway developed cattle pens there, and between 1867-71 the Chisolm Trail ended there.