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Though movies and television would like us to
believe otherwise, it was very rare when gunfights occurred with the two
gunfighters squarely facing each other from a distance in a dusty
street. This romanticized image of the
Old West
gunfight
was born in the dime novels of the late 19th century and perpetuated in
the film era, to such a point that this fictional version is what our
mind’s eye quickly conjures up when we hear the word "gunfight.”
In actuality, the "real”
gunfights
of the
Old West
were rarely that "civilized.”
In fact, there are
several misnomers about these "romanticized”
gunfights,
the first of which is that very rarely, did the
gunfighters actually "plan” a
gunfight
to occur, "calling out” their enemy for dueling action in the street.
Instead, most of these many fights took place in the heat of the moment
when tempers flared, and more often than not, with the aide of a little
bottled courage. They also didn’t occur at a distance of 75 feet, with
each
gunfighter taking one shot, one falling dead to the ground, and the
other standing as a "hero" before a dozen gathered onlookers.
Instead, these fights were usually close-up
and personal, with a number of shots blasted from pistols, often resulting
in innocent bystanders hit by a bullet gone wild. Much of the time, it
would be difficult to tell who had even "won” the
gunfight
for several minutes, as the black powder smoke from the pistols cleared
the air.
This is not to say that
it never happened similar to the movies. One of the rare instances is the
Bill Hickok-David Tutt Shootout in
Springfield,
Missouri. Even then, it wasn’t a "planned"
event, but rather, it occurred when
Wild Bill ran into
Tutt in the street and was insulted.
Always shown bravely
facing each other in the popular westerns, in reality, the opponents were
more often scampering for cover. The
gunfights
were not usually "clean” either, as the fighters were drinking and missing
normally easy shots, continued to shoot until they had emptied their
pistol.
Of those
gunfighters that truly had a
reputation as skilled shootists, they were not usually anxious to match
their skills with another gunman with a similar reputation. Instead, they
tended to avoid confrontation and undue risks whenever possible.
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As to the low hanging
holsters tied to the leg, that is a pure
Hollywood
invention. Most
gunfighters carried their pistols stuck in their waistband, in a
pocket, or a in a simple leather holster slipped on a belt.
There are a number of
gunfighters that whose names were well-known while they were still alive
and are just as quickly recognized today, including
Wyatt Earp,
Billy the Kid,
Bat Masterson,
Bill Hickok,
and Doc
Holliday. Their reputations spread by word of mouth, usually resulting
in a number of exaggerations and inaccuracies. These already exaggerated
tales grew bigger with the retelling, often in the popular dime novels of
the time. Other lesser known
shootists,
that saw just as much, if not more action than their well-known
counterparts were men such as
Ben Thompson,
Tom Horn,
Kid Curry, King Fisher,
Clay
Allison, and Dallas Stroudenmire, just to name a few.
Here, you can read about many of the "real"
gunfights
of the
Old West, where you'll see the difference between television fiction
and the real
Wild West.
See Gunfights
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