It may have been the name of a TV Western, but few officials actually used “wanted, dead or alive” rewards to track down criminals. Money was generally paid out only for the capture and conviction of hard cases.
There were exceptions. In 1874, the governor of California put a bounty on the head of famed criminal Tiburcio Vasquez: $6,000 dead or $8,000 alive. In May of that year, a posse ar

True West May/June 2025
In This Issue:
Features
- Historic Hotels of the American West
- A Journey Through Wyoming’s Outlaw History
- A Journey Through Washington’s Wild Frontier
- Blazing The Oregon Trail
- Journey Through Time
- Did Brigham Young Order a Massacre?
- Mountain Meadows Scapegoat John D. Lee VS. A Firing Squad
- Mormons in the Movies
- An Indigenous Consultant Ensures Accuracy
- The Battle Axe And A Raw Deal
- Showdown: Bridger VS. Brigham
- The Mountain Man and the Mormon Moses
- The Ghosts of Mountain Meadows
- The War Before the War
- Mountain Meadows