The West was immense, and frontier law enforcement sparse. Wise individuals carried firearms and knew how to use them. Some men and women became...
Wild Bill
Wild Bill Hickok was very likely a good marksman with a handgun, which was something of a rarity on the frontier; he also was supposedly a very...
Aces and Eights
The question about what hand Wild Bill Hickok was holding has come up a number of times here's how the late Joe Rosa, Hickok's biographer explains...
More Favorite Smoke Wagons
Reading the pulp westerns one would conclude that the Colt revolver was the only pistol used in the Old West. Remington built a fine six-shooter and...
The Pistoleer
Wild Bill Hickok's reputation as a gunfighter may be blown out of proportion but there's no doubt, he was an excellent shot. He put a bullet in the...
LIVE EVENT: Wild Bill Hickok The Skinny on the First Gunfight
If you love Westerns and classic gunfight in the street face offs, you can thank one guy: Wild Bill Hickock, the first gunfighter and the founder of...
Following Phil Coe’s Trail to Death
Have fun trailing the Lone Star outlaw from Texas to Kansas. Charles E. Rankin, retired editor of the University of Oklahoma Press and astute...
They Called Him Wild Bill Wild Bill Hickok was arguably the greatest shootist of them all. Wild Bill's other hobby was gambling, although his hand at cards wasn't nearly as skillful as his prowess with his 1851 Navy Colt’s.
Wild Bill Hickok was arguably the greatest shootist of them all. His skill as a marksman with a six-gun, even considering embellishments, can't be...
An Apt Punishment? David McCanles was determined to make his point.
David McCanles—later killed by Wild Bill Hickok—was a bully. In late 1859, he caught one of his Nebraska ranch employees drunkenly sleeping on the...
Wild Bill Shot Down
James Butler Hickok vs Jack McCall
The Saloon Number 10 Wild Bill Hickok’s death chair
Not long ago I received a question from a True West reader asking about Wild Bill Hickok’s death chair. He wondered if the chair hanging above the...
Bosom Buddies? What was the relationship between Hickok and Hardin?
John Wesley Hardin hit Abilene, Kansas as part of a Texas cattle drive in 1871. The newly installed marshal there was Wild Bill Hickok. Hardin...