This we know: John Selman killed John Wesley Hardin at El Paso’s Acme Saloon on August 19, 1895. Tradition says Selman shot him in the back of the head.
But Hardin biographers Chuck Parsons and Norman Wayne Brown disagree, pointing to some eyewitness accounts saying Hardin spun and went for his gun when he noticed Selman. They also argue that the small wound near Hardin’s left eye matches an entrance hole—the larger wound in the back of the head is more likely the exit wound. A hung j

True West March/April 2025
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Truth Be Known
- What Has Taught Me: Deb Goodrich
- Earp, Cowboy Songs & Prairie Hygiene
- Trails of the Old West
- The Frontier Characters of South Dakota
- The Bowie Knife
- The Kindled Flame 1835
- King of the Scatterguns
- Selling the Mythic West and the Real West
- A Gut Punch Turns into a Miracle Reprieve
- The Beginnings of the Bird Cage
- Frontier Colossus