The State - News from Aug. 7, 1988

Fortuna Police Chief James Dawson was only doing his job when he took in about 40 rowdy, hard-drinking rodeo cowboys and their fans for disturbing the peace, according to his supporters. But the recent crackdown on visitors to the the town’s money-making annual rodeo celebration cost Dawson his job. The mayor accused Dawson of “polarizing” the Northern California community of 9,000 with his “style of law enforcement.” But Dawson’s supporters claim the chief was a victim of “good-old-boy politics” and point out that the rodeo, in town last month, annually draws about 15,000 fans and fills merchants’ cash registers with an estimated $500,000 from cowhands crowding the planks at the town’s three bars.