Two legendary Old West names came together in 1900. In 1900, sixteen-year-old Frank Hamer—later a Texas Ranger legend--was severely wounded by Dan...
Ketchum and Hamer
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Lawman
The Myth of Frank Hamer
The legendary lawman’s first killing never happened. The story goes that legendary Texas Ranger Frank Hamer killed his first man when he was just...
Picking the Wrong Horse
Bill Tilghman lost the job of his dreams by backing the wrong candidate Bill Tilghman may have been a great lawman, but as a politician he left much...
Bounties
How was reward money collected in the Old West? Was it paid out by local law enforcement, banks, the court system, or did it come from some other...
Burt Mossman and the Arizona Rangers Part 2
Read Part 1 HERE During that year the Rangers put 125 outlaws behind bars, killing only one in the process. They also lost one Ranger, Carlos...
Burt Mossman’s Rangers Part 1
Burt Mossman was Governor Murphy's choice to be the first captain of the Arizona Rangers. The rawhide-tough cowman had made quite a reputation for...
Birth of the Arizona Rangers
Arizona greeted the 20th Century as a frontier Jekyll and Hyde. On one hand, communities like Phoenix, Prescott and Tucson were becoming modern...
Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton
In his autobiography, Pistol Pete: Veteran of the Old West, Frank Eaton spins a bigger-than-life tale of his life as a Deputy United States Marshal,...
Revenge Begets Revenge
Or, one good bullet deserves another. Mike Meagher (right in photo, next to twin brother John) was a great lawman in Kansas and the Indian...
Bringing a Bike to a Gunfight?
A hard lesson for a lawman—leave the cyclist alone. Douglas (Arizona Territory) Constable Ed Scarborough must have been in a bad mood. It was March...
Crossing the Line
Johnny Owens used trickery to arrest an outlaw. Johnny Owens was the sheriff of Weston County, based out of Newcastle, Wyoming (photo) in the early...
Roy Bean The Law West of the Pecos
Movies have tried paint Judge Roy Bean, the so-called, "Law West of the Pecos," as a hanging judge. Bean was more of a blowhard with an uncanny...