James Bliss was a loser. Time and time again, he tried and failed to be a noted Old West badman. A gunfighter, rustler, robber, and whatever else he...
A Wannabe Badman
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Marshal Harvey Whitehill
Silver City, New Mexico Marshal, Harvey Whitehill was working to solve a train robbery at Gage Station. The November 1883 heist had netted less than...
The Jaybird-Woodpecker War
The Jaybird-Woodpecker War has the most colorful name in Texas feuds. It supposedly came from a black man who sang songs about those birds. The...
Rock Springs Massacre
Tensions over Chinese immigrant labor came to a head in Rock Springs, Wyoming on September 2, 1885. White workers were upset that the Union Pacific...
Tilghman’s Tall Tale
The story goes that Deputy U.S. Marshal Bill Tilghman was tracking the Doolin Gang in January 1895. He entered a dugout on the Dunn ranch, looking...
A Blundered Billy Legend
The story goes that Catholic nun Sister Blandina Segale had a run-in with Billy the Kid back in the 1870s. He was angry when physicians in Trinidad,...
The Gentleman Train Robber
Eugene Bunch was a gentleman train robber, a former newspaper editor and teacher who turned to crime in 1888. He held up six trains in Texas,...
Jesse James Tastes Blood
Jesse James had just turned 17 when the opportunity for violence first arose—up close and personal. He and his older brother, Frank, were riding...
Andrew “Buckshot” Roberts
Andrew Roberts is one of those legendary characters of the Old West, a tough as nails guy who took on Billy the Kid and some of the Regulators at a...
Blurred Lines
The Lincoln County War in New Mexico was never as cut and dried as it might seem. Numerous men switched sides at various times. Billy the Kid was...
Zanuck’s Disputed Ending
“My Darling Clementine” is considered by many as a classic Western. It’s also not what director John Ford planned. Producer/studio head Darryl F....
Deforest Kelley
Actor DeForest Kelley is best known as Dr. “Bones” McCoy on Star Trek. But he also had a number of connections to Tombstone—at least on film. He...