"For my handling of the situation at Tombstone, I have no regrets. Were it to be done again, I would do it exactly as I did it at the time."  -- Wyatt Earp, lawman

"Where the Indian killed one buffalo, the hide and tongue hunters killed fifty." -- Chief Red Cloud

"We are rough men and used to rough ways."  – Bob Younger to a newspaper reporter following the 1876 Northfield, Minnesota raid.

"Cimarron is in the hands of a mob."  -- The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper commenting on Cimarron, New Mexico during the Colfax County War.  November 9, 1875 

"The adulations heaped on him by a grateful nation for his supposed genius turned his head, which, added to his natural disposition, caused him to bloat his little carcass with debauchery and dissipation which carried him off prematurely."  -- General George Crook delivered this unusual obituary in memory of General Philip Sheridan, who was disliked by many Army officers of the West.

"I have at all times tried to use my influence toward protecting the property holders and substantial men of the country from thieves, outlaws and murderers, among whom I do not care to be classed." -- Clay Allison, in response to a Missouri newspaper which reported him with fifteen killings under his belt.

Comedian Will Rogers was once asked if his ancestors came over on the mayflower. "No," he replied. "But my relatives were here to meet them."

“Carpenter, you have spilled the whiskey!” – Mike Fink, after he killed a friend named Carpenter while attempting to shoot a tin cup of whiskey off the man’s head.

"The Seventh can handle anything it meets." – General George A. Custer while declining reinforcements for the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Clay Allison at 45 years-old.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

"They saw me, those reckless seekers of beauty, and in a night I was famous." -- Lillie Langtry

"The only good Indian is a dead Indian." -- General Phillip Sheridan

“There is no law, no restraint in this seething cauldron of vice and depravity.” – The New York Tribune describing Abilene, Kansas.

Dodge City in 1874, courtesy Ford County Historical Society

"I love it. It is wild with adventure."  – Henry Starr describing the bandit life in the Old West shortly before he was shot to death in a gunfight in Arkansas.

"Dodge City is a wicked little town.  Indeed, its character is so clearly and egregiously bad that one might conclude, were the evidence in these later times positive of its possibility, that it was marked for special Providential punishment."  -- a letter that appeared in the Washington D.C. Evening Star, January 1, 1878.

"Wild Bill was a strange character, add to this figure a costume blending the immaculate neatness of the dandy with the extravagant taste and style of a frontiersman, you have Wild Bill, the most famous scout on the Plains."  - General George Custer, writing about Wild Bill Hickok.

"A jail is just like a nutshell with a worm in it, the worm will always get out."  -- John Dillinger several weeks before he bluffed his way out of the Lake County Jail in Crown Point.

"Never run a bluff with a six-gun." - Bat Masterson

I"'m not afraid. I never liked long last acts." -- Lillie Langtry

In 1883, Sitting Bull was a guest of honor at the opening ceremonies for the Northern Pacific Railroad. When it was his turn to speak, he said in the Lakota language, "I hate all white people. You are thieves and liars. You have taken away our land and made us outcasts." A quick-thinking interpreter told the crowd the chief was happy to be there and that he looked forward to peace and prosperity with the white people. Sitting Bull received a standing ovation.

"There is only one road away from trouble, and this is along the straight and narrow road." - Otto Wood, in his book, The Life of Otto Wood, written in prison in 1926.

"Every one of my hangings was a scientific job." - George Maledon, known as "The Prince of Hangmen."

Sitting Bull, courtesy Library of Congress

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

''I'm not afraid to die like a man fighting, but I would not like to be killed like a dog unarmed.'' - Billy the Kid in a letter to Governor Lew Wallace, March 1879.

"I have vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals. -- Butch Cassidy

"If a man knows anything, he ought to die with it in him." Some of Sam Bass' last words.

Calamity Jane, 1895

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

"Leave me alone and let me go to hell by my own route." – Calamity Jane shortly before her death in Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1903.

A Tombstone lawyer was pleading his case to a jury in Judge Wells Spicer's court when a burro beneath the window started braying loudly. Lawyer Marcus A. Smith arose and said, "If it please the court, I object to the two attorneys speaking at the same time."

''I wasn't the leader of any gang. I was for Billy all the time." - Billy the Kid to a Las Vegas, New Mexico reporter after his capture at Stinking Springs.

Continued Next Page

Also See:

The Code of the West

Evolution of American English

Facts & Trivia of the Old West

Old West Wisdom

Western Slang & Phrases

<< Previous  1 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>

From the Rocky Mountain General Store

Old West Calendars - Utilizing our great vintage photos along with Old West phrases and Native American proverbs, we now have a great line of nostalgic calendars. These come in two designs - one with 12 different pages of designs and phrases for each and other budget priced wall calendars with a one page design. Don't miss an important date ever again!