  We reformulate two dimensional string-inspired gravity with point particles
as a gauge theory of the extended Poincar\'e group. A non-minimal gauge
coupling is necessary for the equivalence of the two descriptions. The
classical one-particle problem is analyzed completely. In addition, we obtain
the many-particle effective action after eliminating the gravity degrees of
freedom. We investigate properties of this effective action, and show how to
recover the geometrical description. Quantization of the gauge-theoretic model
is carried out and the explicit one-particle solution is found. However, we
show that the formulation leads to a quantum mechanical inconsistency in the
two-particle case. Possible cures are discussed.
