Old West Facts and Trivia

Old West Facts & Trivia

Bodie, California, 1962, courtesy Library of Congress

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

One of the worst hell-holes of the Old West was Bodie, California which boasted numerous gunfights or death threats at all hours of the day. Some of these included a fight that ensued when a pool player took someone else's turn, a mountain man who insisted, at gunpoint, that he receive a drink in payment for a human ear he had recently sliced from and opponent, and a street fight that erupted when a man stepped on a cowboy's toe. Bodie women were not much better. One one such occasion, a school teacher horsewhipped a local doctor for gossiping about her. On another, the notorious female cardsharp, Madame Moustache, fought off two thieves after a night of winning, killing one and wounding the other.

In Deer Lodge, Montana a cowboy evangelist angered over a snoring parishioner once fired a bullet over the head of the dozing man.

George Maledon, the official hangman for Judge Isaac Parker of Fort Smith, Arkansas, executed more than eighty outlaws and had no regrets. Upon his retirement, Maledon toured small town America, detailing to open-mouthed citizens how he had gladly "sent damned sinners to hell."

Female bandit, Pearl Hart, was the last person to rob a stagecoach in the Old West in 1899.

Jesse James, the most celebrated bandit in western history reveled in his notoriety and one time he even wrote his own press release about the robbery, which he handed to the engineer of the train before riding away with his men.

In Fort Benton, Montana a cowboy once insisted on riding his horse to his room in the Grand Union Hotel. When the manager objected, they exchanged gunfire. The horseman was killed before reaching the op of the stairs and fourteen .44 slugs were later dug out of his body.

In September, 1857, 140 immigrants of a pioneer wagon train were massacred by renegade Morman bishop John D. Lee and his followers. Known as the Mountain Meadow Massacre in Utah , Lee promised the travelers that if they surrendered to him, giving up their gold and property, they would be spared. However, after doing so, they were killed anyway. It took twenty years before Lee was identified as the instigator of the massacre. He was shot by a firing squad at Salt Lake City, Utah on March 23, 1877.

Topeka, Kansas was the scene of many a gun battle, but the most bizarre incident occurred in the Kansas House of Representatives where Boston Corbett, the reported killer of John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin, ran amuck. Corbett threatened to kill several state congressmen for stalling legislation; he finally surrendered his weapon without shooting anyone and was sent to an insane asylum.

Outlaws, who were afraid of little else, were curiously superstitious about one thing - dying with their boots on. They dying request of countless outlaws was to remove their boots before they died. If this request was denied, many pleaded with authorities not to forward the news to their mothers that they had died with their boots on.

In Colorado City, Colorado Paris-born Eleanor Dumont, a celebrated cardsmith also known as Minnie the Gambler, tolerated no quick deals. At one time she took a horsewhip to a dealer whom she caught slipping a cold deck to her sweetheart and fellow gambler, Charlie Utter.

Though Judge Isaac Parker sentenced 156 men and four women to death on the Fort Smith, Arkansas gallows, no women actually died by the hangman's noose. All four of the women convicted of murder and sentenced to die were eventually spared through presidential commutations or Supreme Court reversals. Of the men, 79 were actually hanged.

A cowboy once made the mistake of arguing with a trapper over whether wildcats had long tails or not. The trapper settled the argument by displaying his skills with a Colt .45 revolver. The coroner's decision was that any Hombre who was crazy enough to call a long-haired, whisky-drinking trapper a liar had died of ignorance.

On August 21, 1863, William Clark Quantrill and his band of ruthless raiders attacked Lawrence, Kansas in the ongoing Kansas/Missouri Border War the began six years before the start of the Civil War. Burning Lawrence to the ground and killing more than 180 men and boys, the men fled at the sound of approaching Union troops. Frank and Jesse James learned their methods of gunmanship and murder under the command of William Quantrill.

A Statement for the Coroner and Sheriff signed by 14 witnesses implied the cause of Johnny Ringo's death was suicide. Contemporary newspaper accounts reflected belief in the suicide finding, although there was some talk amongst the citizenry of possible murder. Historians debate the issues surrounding his death to this day.

Crazy Horse had several battle rituals including painting his body with lightning bolts and white spots to denote hailstones. He would either tie the body of a hawk against the side of his head, or wear a war lbonnet with buffalo horns and a dozen eagle feathers. Sometimes he wore a red blanket like a cape.

Abilene Kansas

Vintage Abilene, Kansas courtesy Wichita State University

In the days of Wild Bill Hickok, Abilene, Kansas saw shootings almost daily, such as the wild gunfight in a local bar when one gunman refused the drink of another. Another gunfight occurred when one drunken cowboy rode his horse atop a pool table.

On the cattle drives, when the chuck wagon cook was finished with his work for the day and before hitting the sack, he would always place the tongue of the chuck wagon facing north. When the trail master started in the morning he would look at the tongue and then know what direction he would be moving the herd.

When Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on their journey of the West, he believed that prehistoric animals still lived in the unexplored regions.

Barbed wire, a fencing material made of twisted wire with spaced coiled barbs, turned the open plains of the West into enclosed pastures and forever changed the society and economy of the region. It was the invention of Illinois farmer Joseph Farwell Glidden who received his patent in November 24, 1874. Ranchers could now isolate their cattle and control breeding.

When John Wesley Hardin was awakened by snoring in an adjacent hotel room, he fired his six-gun through the wall in the direction of the snores, thus curing the man of snoring, and everything else, for that matter.

From 1789 to 1850, the U.S. Government acquired over 450 million acres of Indian land for 190 million dollars. This averages out to about 42 cents per acre.

The term "gang" wasn't utilized by Americans to mean a group of criminals until sometime around 1870. The word was first used in America to mean a herd of animals in the 1650's, then by 1823, it was applied to a pack of dishonest politicians.

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