A Bullet for Ringo

A despondent Cow-boy ends it all.

July 12, 1882. The Tombstone Epitaph reports that Cow-boy John Ringo has been drinking heavily in the town of Galeyville. In fact, he’s been on a bender for a couple of weeks, depressed and suicidal. Sometime the next day, Ringo allegedly puts a bullet in his head as he sits in the fork of a tree at West Turkey Creek Canyon. To this day, there are people who believe he was murdered–by Wyatt Earp or Buckskin Frank Leslie or parties unknown. But in any case, the so-called “King of the Cowboys” dies on July 13.