Did cowboys really make tenderfeet “dance” by firing their pistols at their feet as is often shown in old Westerns?

Did cowboys really make tenderfeet “dance” by firing their pistols at their feet as is often shown in old Westerns?

Bill Ramsey
Kansas City, Missouri

A 20-year-old hellion, Martha Jane Canary, a.k.a. Calamity Jane, supposedly made cowboy crooner Darling Bob Mackay dance like a tenderfoot in a Dodge City, Kansas, saloon. It seems Mackay had the temerity to say something indelicate about her underwear.

Marshall Trimble is Arizona’s official historian. His books include The Arizona Trilogy and Law of the Gun.

If you have a question, write:

Ask the Marshall

PO Box 8008, Cave Creek, AZ 85327

or e-mail him at marshall.trimble@sccmail.maricopa.edu