Jack Helm is probably best known for being a victim of Texas’ Sutton-Taylor Feud (John Wesley Hardin was one of the gunmen involved in his death—see illustration). But before he was killed in 1873, Helm had racked up quite the death count himself.
In just two months in 1869, The Galveston Daily News reported that Helm and his men killed more than 20 men—and only brought in alive 10 men. Helm was responsible for several other deaths in the next four years as he served as a vigilant

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