Did Big Nose Kate carry a gun?
Jim Ramsey
Portland, Oregon
“Kate did not need a gun. Her wit and cunning words were her best weapon (or worst enemy, depending),” says Anne Collier, curator of Cultural & Natural History Collections, at the University of La Verne in California, and an authority on Mary Katherine Horony, also known as “Big Nose Kate.”
“There are no records of her carrying guns during her years with ‘Doc’ Holliday or after,” she adds. “I suspect, however,

True West September 2018
In This Issue:
Features
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Fire in the Hole!
- Adventures in the Apache Country
- Americas First “Astronauts”
- Bodie, California
- A Not So Heroic End
- Joe Mundy Rides Again
- Cap Mossman: Boss of the Hashknife
- Like Ducks to Water
- Sneak Attack on the James Farm
- Remington’s Last Six-guns
- Riding for the Hashknife
- Bank Robbery at Telluride
- How did Frontier Ladies Curl their Hair?
- Arab Berbers Ride Hard
- I Will Always Be Your Friend
- Viva L’ouest!
- A Hero on his Last Run
- A Dandy of a Man
- John Slaughter and the San Bernardino Ranch
- The Youngers of Missouri: Part Two
- The Youngers of Missouri: First Blood
Departments
- Did Old West Saloons Have Refrigeration?
- What History Has Taught Me: Erik J. Wright
- Fort Smith, Arkansas: Where the Old West Begins
- What was Paladin’s first name on Have Gun-Will Travel?
- Western Events for September 2018
- Mexican Marvels
- Pursuing Outlaw Sam Bass
- How Tough was Longhorn Meat?
- The Youngest Prisoner
- Did “Big Nose Kate” Carry a Gun?
- History in Ink
- Why did Cavalrymen Wear their Pistols with the butts Forward?
- The Mother Lode Spirit
- Upping the Ante