Old West Facts and Trivia

Old West Facts & Trivia

Jesse James was shot in the back by Bob Ford on April 3, 1882, in St. Joseph, Missouri. Professed to be a friend of James, Ford was reviled for shooting James from behind and was forever known as a “coward.” Ten years later, he himself was himself shot to death in Creede, Colorado.

The main characters of the Dalton Gang – brothers, Grat, Bob and Emmett all wore badges before moving to the other side of the law.

"Boys, I've found a goldmine." - James W. Marshall whose discovery of gold started the California Gold Rush. The location was a sawmill where Marshall withdrew a gold nugget from the American River.

The famous Goodnight-Loving Trail was established in 1866 between Fort Belknap, Texas and Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Oliver Loving was later killed by Indians on the trail bearing his name. Goodnight, on the other hand, died a wealthy man in his nineties in 1929.

On September 26, 1879 the town of Deadwood, Dakota Territory burned to the ground. Sawmill owner John Hunter supplied enough lumber to rebuild nearly all of Main and Sherman Streets.

Most professional gunfighters died in states or territories where the most shootings occurred: Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, California, Missouri, and Colorado.

On November 24, 1835, the Republic of Texas established a force of frontiersmen called the “Texas Rangers”. The rangers were paid $1.25 per day for their services. The members of The Texas Rangers were said to be able to "ride like a Mexican, shoot like a Kentuckian, and fight like the devil."

Black Jack Ketchum was the only person ever hung in Union County, New Mexico. According the annals of American Jurisprudence, he was the only criminal decapitated during a judicial hanging. The only other recorded example was in England in 1601.

The Pony Express was in operation for only nineteen months from April 1860 through October 1861. The Pony Express carried almost 35,000 pieces of mail over more than 650,000 miles during those nineteen months and lost only one mail sack. The typical Pony Express rider was nineteen years old and made $100-$150 per month plus room and board.

In 1884, the citizens of Montana Territory were fed up with lawlessness and forming a large-scale vigilante force, they executed thirty-five horse and cattle thieves that year.

Black Jack Ketchum hanging in Clayton, New Mexico

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

The famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral only lasted about thirty seconds.

Mattie Earp, Wyatt Earp’s second wife, who was with him in Tombstone during the O.K. Corral gunfight committed suicide with an overdose of laudanum on July 3, 1888 in Pinal, Arizona. She was despondent because Earp had left her for another woman.

Gunslinger Jack Slade's most vicious killing happened in Cold Springs, Colorado in 1869 when Slade tied a man to a post, then used him as target practice. After firing several shots into the man's arms and legs, he then stuck the barrel of his gun into the almost dead cowboy's mouth and pulled the trigger. Slade then cut off the dead man's ears and kept one for his watch fob.

From the end of the Civil War until 1890, some 10 million head of cattle were driven from Texas to Kansas.

During the course of his 21 year tenure at Fort Smith, Judge Isaac Parker sentenced 160 men and women to death for convictions of Rape or Murder; of this total, only 79 men actually were executed on the gallows. The Judge only handed down the death sentences, he did not attend the executions or participate in them in any official capacity.

On September 8, 1883, Sitting Bull, the main chief of the Lakota tribes, delivered a speech at the celebration of the driving of the last spike in the Northern Pacific railroad joining with the transcontinental system. He delivered the speech in his Sioux language, departing from a speech originally prepared by an army translator. Denouncing the U.S. government, settlers, and army, the listeners thought he was welcoming and praising them. While giving the speech, Sitting Bull paused for applause periodically, bowed, smiled, and continued insulting his audience as the translator delivered the original address.

Belle Starr was called the Bandit Queen.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

Belle Starr, the “Outlaw Queen,” a horse thief, outlaw and part-time prostitute was the first woman to be tried for a serious crime by Judge Isaac Parker. She was sentenced to five months in prison for horse theft. In 1889 she was shot in the back and killed by an unknown assailant.

Wild Bill Hickok was killed by an alcoholic drifter named Jack McCall while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, on August 2, 1876. When he was killed he was holding a poker hand of aces and eights, thereafter known as the Dead Man’s Hand.

Despite Hollywood’s depiction to the contrary, Jesse and Frank James were never cowboys. Both were raised on a farm in Missouri, where many of their crimes occurred.

Henry Wells, of the famous Wells Fargo and Company freight line never lived any further West than Buffalo, New York.

The Long Branch Saloon really did exist in Dodge City, Kansas. One of the owners, William Harris, was a former resident of Long Branch, New Jersey and named the saloon after his hometown in the 1880’s. The Long Branch Saloon still exists in Dodge City and can be seen at Dodge City’s Boothill Museum.

Jesse James was called "Dingus" by his friends.

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dodgecity-longbranchsaloon.jpg (300x198 -- 6653 bytes)

Inside the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas.

Courtesy Ford County Historical Society, Dodge City, Kansas.

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