HOWEVER, progress

• lawlessness did decrease in most settlement as they began to develop - people needed their businesses and families to be secure, so most people avoided violent business rivalries
• residents voted in town governments who passed laws to ban guns within the town limits - this resulted in most towns being peacful
• people felt safe if they stayed out of saloons and gambling halls
• once lawless frontier towns were now connected to bigger towns and cities by rail and telephone, law officers could keep close contact with their superiors in the state gov, while the federal gov had closer links with its marshals