In office for only one day, acting Ellis County Sheriff James “Wild Bill” Hickok is making his rounds in the Kansas cowtown during the height of...
Classic Gunfights: Don’t Look Back
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Classic Gunfights
The Encounter that Dooms Wild Bill
September 1865 George Ward Nichols and Gen. Thomas Church Haskell Smith, the inspector general of the District of Southwest Missouri, arrive in...
“¡No Tire en la Casa!”
May 10, 1871 Tracking a party of rough hombres, Alameda County Sheriff Harry Morse and San Jose Deputy Theodore “Sam” Winchell approach a ranch...
Dressed To Kill
A mere two weeks have passed since the 5th Cavalry learned of George Custer’s devastating defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Some 350...
Trapped!
Patricio Valenzuela, the hacendado (ranch owner) of the Agua Fria hacienda eight miles east of Cucurpe in Sonora, Mexico, is alerted by his vaqueros...
Rock Creek Killfest
David McCanles, his 12-year-old son William and two employees ride up to Rock Creek Station, Nebraska Territory. Leaving his two hired hands at the...
Classic Gunfights: Doc Hits Bottom (but not much else)
August 19, 1884 Broke, sick and usually drunk, Doc Holliday hits rock bottom in Leadville, Colorado. Today, a fellow gambler, Billy Allen, is...
Classic Gunfights: To the Last Man
July 22, 1884 The fuse to one of the West’s most famous feuds is lit a month prior, when Tonto Basin cattleman James Stinson makes a secret pact...
Black Bart’s Bad Day
November 3, 1883 It’s a Saturday as the Sonora-Milton stage rattles along, empty, save for the driver. Reason E. McConnell has been on the road for...
Forewarned & Forearmed
March 11, 1884 Fresh off the train from Austin, Texas, newly minted drinking pards Ben Thompson and John King Fisher, the acting sheriff for Uvalde...
Classic Gunfights: Die Hard
“The Sheriff is on the Warpath” November 1, 1867 Sheriff Harry Morse “is on the warpath....” Or so declares the Oakland Daily News. The sheriff of...
Tragic Fight on the Devil’s Backbone
January 11, 1886 Captain Emmet Crawford is on the brink of victory. Yesterday, his punitive raiding party of three officers, one medic, one...