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...
Rock Creek Killfest
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Classic Gunfights
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...
Kid Curry’s Last Gunfight
June 9, 1904 Two days earlier, the westbound San Francisco Express—train no. 5—was robbed near a shipping station in Colorado known as Parachute....
High Doom in the Andes
November 6, 1908 Two Mules for Aramayo Two heavily armed “Americanos on jaded mules” ride into the high mountain village of San Vicente, Bolivia. As...
Sieber Goes Down
June 1, 1887 Absent from duty for five days, the Apache Kid, along with four other Apache scouts under his command, rides single file into the...
Cathouse Melee
April 5, 1894 Bass Outlaw is drunk. This isn’t news. He’s been described by fellow Texas Ranger Alonzo Oden as “so kind . . . more sympathetic, more...
O.K. Aftermath
October 26, 1881 First of all, it didn’t happen in the O.K. Corral. The fight happened down the street from the rear entrance to the O.K. Corral, in...