The Old West saloon conjures up images of gunfights, heavy drinking, dancing girls and brawling cowboys and gunfighters. It was also popular with miners and soldiers. The saloon was often depicted having duel wooden doors that swung open, a wide wooden boardwalk in front and a step higher than the dusty streets, a long hitching’ post in front.

Inside, a long oak or mahogany wooden bar, barstools and sets of tables and chairs completed the look along with a brass foot rail encircling the base of the bar and a row of spittoons spaced along the floor. The first of the western saloons, however, didn’t look anything like what we had seen in all those cowboy and western movies. Rather, they were tents or lean-tos that were quickly thrown together so that a traveler might stop to quench his thirst or strike up a conversation or a cowboy or miner might come to relax a spell during their off hours. Card playing, too, was a popular activity. As the town or settlement grew, the establishment took on the traditional features of the Old Western saloon that we’ve all come to expect.

Saloons of the American Wild West generally cropped up wherever pioneers established a settlement or where trails crossed. The first establishment to actually be called a “saloon” was the Brown’s Saloon at Brown’s Hole near the Wyoming-Colorado-Utah border. It was established in 1822 and catered heavily to the many fur trappers who traded during the old days. One of the Old West’s first saloons that catered to soldiers was at Bent’s Fort, Colorado in the late 1820s. The gold rush caused another increase in the construction and popularity of saloons. In 1848 when gold was discovered near Santa Barbara, California, the settlement only had a single cantina (Mexican for bar). Just a few years later, more than thirty saloons had cropped up.

Whiskey & Firewater Served
The whiskey served in many of the early saloons was strong stuff, a combination of raw alcohol, burnt sugar and chewing tobacco. Cactus Wine, made from a mix of tequila and peyote tea was popular as was something called a Mule Skinner made with whiskey and blackberry liquor. Rye or bourbon were also popular drinks and beer was served in high volume too, but it wasn’t served ice cold as it is today. If a barkeeper was ever going to water down his liquor, he did it with some really odd ingredients like turpentine, ammonia, gun powder or cayenne pepper. It packed a wallop either way. Firewater was a term originated when early traders were selling whiskey to Indians. They’d pour some of the whiskey on a fire to convince the Indians of the high alcohol content.
Card Playing & Deadly Gun Action
Faro was the most popular game played in western saloons, closely followed by poker and some dice games. Mixing alcohol and gambling could result in some deadly gun play. Professional gamblers quickly learned to protect their assets by honing their six-shooter skills at the same time as their gambling abilities.

The Expansion of the the Saloon
As saloons increased in popularity and townships prospered the saloon itself changed into many different forms, moving from the early plain drinking saloons to gambling saloons, hotel saloons, restaurant saloons and dance hall saloons. In the more populated settlements, these saloons catered to patrons 24 hours a day, every day of the week. Generally all were welcome with the exception of Chinese workers, soldiers who were blamed for infecting parlor house girls with diseases and respectable women. Unless they were saloon girls or shady ladies as some women gamblers were considered, ladies did not enter saloons. This tradition lasted until World War I. The ladies got their revenge when they initiated the temperance (prohibition) movement.

From Drink & Gambling to Public Meetings
Because the saloon was usually one of the first and bigger buildings within many new settlements, it became common to use it as a public meeting place before the real town halls entered the scene. For example, Judge Roy Bean had a combination saloon and courtroom from which he ran his business and ordered hangings. Downieville, California had a popular saloon which also served as the office of the local Justice of the Peace.

Famous Barkeeps & Violence
Some noted gunmen and lawmen of the wild west owned saloons too: Wild Bill Hickok, Bill Tighman, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Ben Thompson, Doc Holliday, to name a few, tended bar or dealt cards. Wild Bill Hickok, you’ll remember, ended up being killed by Jack McCall while playing poker in the No. 10 Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota. Saloons were great brawling places too and fights would end up careening onto the streets.

If you happen to visit Tombstone, Arizona today you’ll get to see some authentic western saloons, replete with authentic furnishings and get a good feel of what life was like in the rugged old west.

 

 

Brigham Young was a Mormon leader, born in 1801, who has a University named after him in Utah, and was the driving force which led the Mormon faithful to the Great Salt Lake basin and founded what is present day Salt Lake City.

Young was the ninth of 11 children, and although he lacked much formal education, he mastered skills that would make him independent and able to make his own way.

He married in 1824 and in 1830 he first saw the Book of Mormon, written by Joseph Smith, and was deeply impressed.  It should be noted at this point that according to the Mormon faith, God called Joseph Smith to merely “translate” The Book of Mormon (a record of God’s dealings with his people in the American Continents from 600 B.C. to 421 A.D.)  Therefore, according to Brigham Young’s belief, Joseph Smith was not the author but rather the translator.

Young converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April of 1832, and after his wife died he went to visit Prophet Joseph Smith in Ohio, and later gave up his business and began proselytizing for the Mormon religion. He met Mary Ann Angell and married her in 1834. He joined a long trek to help the Mormon community in Missouri, which had been legally harassed, and violently attacked as well. Young proved himself a leader while on this expedition, and when it was formed, he was appointed to the Council of Twelve Apostles. He spent the summers of 1836 and 1837 doing missionary work in the East.

In 1838 he followed Joseph Smith from Ohio to Missouri, but the local people feared the Mormons, and the Governor of Missouri issued orders to exterminate or drive the Mormons out of Missouri. Joseph Smith and other leaders of the church were held by federal troops, and thievery of Mormon property was “legitimized” by saying it was necessary to pay for the military action.

Young then helped to bring the Mormons from Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois. Young went to England to recruit converts, and back in Nauvoo he became president of the Council and part of Smith’s inner circle. It was about this time that the doctrine of plural marriage became a divine requirement, which according to some accounts Young accepted reluctantly, but with his wife Mary Ann’s permission, in 1842, he married his first plural wife, Lucy Ann Decker Seeley. He next went East to raise money for the Nauvoo Temple.

Nonetheless, back in Nauvoo, Smith’s Mormon policies did not sit well with non-Mormons who feared and mistrusted the Mormons who they thought of as outsiders trying take over their area. Smith’s enemies made trouble, and Smith was arrested, jailed, and then killed by a mob that broke into the jail. Brigham Young returned from the East and claimed the right of church leadership as president of the Council, and was accepted by the congregation. With the constant threat of violence by the non-Mormons, Young knew that the approximately 16,000 Mormons would have to leave and find a place where they could practice their religion in peace. This led to the migration know as the great trek to the Salt Lake Valley, that Young stated was ordained for his people.

The city itself was laid out and much was done in time to develop resources, and encourage immigration. Many Mormons made the trek over a period of many years after the original founding of Salt Lake City, by pulling or pushing hand carts, in fact, rescue teams were sent out to bring people in to avoid them being caught in the winter snows and there were no shortage of young strong men to volunteer because they knew that they would get the first chance to meet the young women immigrants and possibly get themselves a wife.

President Millard Fillmore appointed Brigham Young as the first governor of the new territory but there were plenty of conflicts between the Mormons and the Federal government which led President Buchanan to send Federal troops to Utah in 1857, so Young declared martial law and sent Mormon troops to meet the Federals. There were some skirmishes but all out war with the United States was avoided.

The Utah Territory remained neutral during the Civil War. It is reported that Brigham Young was “arrested” for bigamy in 1872, but he was never tried. Later those from other religions forced the Mormons to renounce plural marriage as a condition of joining the Union, however, some sects of the Mormon religion have never given the practice up. Young died in 1877 and left many theological writings and sermons. He is supposed by some accounts to have had 55 wives and sired 57 children.

The idea of a repeating rifle had been the subject of many inventions since the use of firearms began, but few of these had proven to be practical, mainly because the modern cartridge, which made repeating arms practical, had not yet been developed.

Repeating revolvers, however, were popular in the mid 19th century. One of these revolving pistols, the Colt, was very successful, and a rifle version was produced, but it was not widely used. The more successful Spencer rifles and carbines of the American Civil War were a notable step forward, but were not completely satisfactory in various respects.

The ancestor of Winchester rifles was, in fact, the Volcanic rifle of Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson. It was originally manufactured by the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, which was later reorganized into the New Haven Arms Company, its largest stockholder being Oliver Winchester.

The Volcanic rifle used a form of “caseless” ammunition and had only limited success. Wesson had also designed an early form of rimfire cartridge which was subsequently perfected by Benjamin Tyler Henry. Henry also supervised the redesign of the rifle to use the new ammunition. This became the Henry rifle of 1860, which was manufactured by the New Haven Arms Company and was used in considerable numbers by certain Union Army units in the Civil War.

Thus, the idea of a repeating rifle was finally realized by Oliver Winchester who was assigned US patent No. 5501, which protected improvements to the Henry rifle (Model 1860 with improvements by B. Tyler Henry and Nelson King). The new technology included a spring-closed loading port on the right-hand side of the frame, directly at the rear of the magazine tube, and resulted in the first reliable lever-action repeating rifle, produced as the first Winchester, Model 1866.

Famous for its rugged construction, the original Winchester rifle allowed the rifleman to fire a number of shots before having to reload: hence the term, “repeating rifle.” Manufacturing of the Model 1866 started in Bridgeport, Conn. in 1867; the Winchester Repeating Arms Company moved to New Haven in 1871. The Company also manufactured and licensed to the U.S. government the M1 Carbine, the standard 30 caliber weapon used by Allied forces in World War II.

The 1866 was only available in the rimfire .44 Henry. The 73 Model was available in .44 WCF (.44-40), .38 WCF (.38-40), and .32 WCF (.32-20), most of which were also available in Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, Merwin & Hulbert, and other revolvers. Having a common centerfire cartridge in both revolvers and rifles allowed the owner to carry two firearms, but only one type of ammunition. The original 73 Model was never offered in the military standard .45 Colt cartridge; only modern reproductions are offered in that caliber. There was a limited number of 1873 Winchesters manufactured in .22 rimfire caliber, which lacked the loading gate on the right side of the receiver.

Winchester continued to dominate the American rifle market for decades with the introduction of Models 1876, 1886, 1892, 1894, and 1895 (featuring a box magazine, rather than the tubular magazine found on previous models).

The ’76 was a heavier-framed rifle than the ’66 or ’73, and was the first to be chambered for full-powered centerfire rifle cartridges, as opposed to rimfire cartridges or handgun-sized centerfire rounds. It was introduced to celebrate the American Centennial, and earned a reputation as a durable and powerful hunting rifle. The Canadian Mounties also used the ’76 as a standard long arm for many years. President Theodore Roosevelt favored it as well during his early hunting expeditions in the West.

The John Browning-designed Model 1886 continued the trend towards chambering heavier rounds, and was even stronger than the toggle-link ’76. In many respects the ’86 was a true American express rifle. The ’86 could be chambered in the more powerful black powder cartridges of the day, including the .45-70 Government. Chambering a rifle for the .45-70 had been a goal of Winchester for some time.

Winchester returned to its roots with the Model 1892, which, like the first leverguns, was primarily chambered for lower-pressure, smaller, handgun rounds. The Model ’92, however, incorporates a much stronger action than the leverguns of the 1860s and 1870s. Over one million ’92s were made then phased out in the 1930s. The model 1892 was designed by John Moses Browning as a replacement for the 1873. Browning went on to dominate the Winchester design team during the 1880s to the early 1900s, when smokeless powder forced all arms makers to rethink every aspect of their firearms. From 1883, John Browning worked in partnership with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and designed a series of repeating rifles and shotguns, most notably the Winchester Model 1887 and Model 1897 shotguns and the lever-action Model 1886, Model 1892, Model 1894 and Model 1895 rifles.

Thanks to his genius, Winchester was able to stay on top of the market during this revolutionary period. The company was the first to develop a rifle and cartridge for the new powder, the Winchester Model 1894. Though initially too expensive for most shooters, the ’94 went on to become Winchester’s most popular rifle of all time.

In 1885 Winchester entered the Single Shot market with their model 1885 rifle, a rifle that had been designed by John Moses Browning in 1878. The Winchester Single Shot, known to most shooters as the low-wall and the hi-wall, but was officially marketed by Winchester as the Single Shot rifle, produced to satisfy the demands of the growing sport of “Match Shooting” or “Target Shooting”, which opened at Creedmoor, New York, on June 21, 1872. This was a very popular sport from about 1871 until about 1917.

Thus in 1885, the Winchester company, which had built its reputation on repeating firearms, now challenged the single shot giants of Sharps, Remington, Stevens, Maynard, Ballard, among others. Winchester not only entered the competition, they excelled at it, as MAJ. Ned H. Roberts (1866-1948 – inventor of the .257 Roberts) would state later, “…the most reliable, strongest, and altogether best single shot rifle ever produced.”

Winchester produced its Single Shot from 1885 to 1920, with nearly 140,000 units. The model 1885 had been built with the strongest falling block action known at that time, strong enough for the Winchester company to use the 1885 action with which to test all of their new ammunition. To satisfy the needs of the shooting and hunting public, the model 1885 single shot had been produced in more calibers than any other winchester rifle.

In 2005, after a break of 85 years, the Winchester Company reproduced a “Limited Series” of its Winchester Single shot rifles, in both 19th and 20th century calibers. The 21st century Winchester Single Shot rifles are built with the latest technology and modern steels, enabling them to fire modern cartridges.

While earlier rifles and shotguns actually “won the West,” the majority of lever action rifles seen in classic Hollywood Westerns are Winchester ’92 carbines chambered in .44-40 and .38-40 (to utilize the “5-in-1” blank cartridge), which John Wayne famously carried around through dozens of films set in periods from the 1830s to the 1880s. Winchester rifles remained the most popular in the US through WWI and before WWII, up until European advances in the development of bolt action rifles upset that.

After the company was bought out by the Olin-Matheson Chemical Corporation in 1963, Winchester saw a management change which led to an extensive and extremely controversial redesign of their firearms in 1964. This is regarded by many as the year the “real” Winchester ceased to be, and consequently “pre-’64” rifles command higher prices than those made afterwards.

Winchester itself went on to have a troubled future as competition from both the US and abroad began to decrease its sales. In the 1970s, the company was split into parts and sold off. The name “Winchester” remained with the ammunition making side of the company, and this branch at least continues to be profitable. The arms making side and New Haven facilities went to U.S. Repeating Arms, which struggled to keep the company going under a variety of owners and management teams. Owned by Herstal Group, a Belgian gun-making conglomerate that also owns Browning Arms Co., the company announced in January 2006 that it would close its Winchester plant in New Haven on March 31. The plant closing ended production of a celebrated line of rifles and shotguns known collectively as “the gun that won the West.” Winchester Rifles carry on in use today in competitive Cowboy Shooting where only older style rifles are allowed.

Winchester Timeline

1850s
1855 – Volcanic Arms Company

1857 – New Haven Arms Company

1860s
1860 – Henry lever action rifle introduced

1866 – Oliver Winchester buys New Haven Arms controling stock

1866 – Winchester Repeating Arms Company

1866 – Model 1866 Rifles and Carbines introduced the first firearms to bear the Winchester name

1870s
1873 – Model lever action rifle introduced

1876 – Model lever action rifle introduced

1879 – Winchester imports double barrel shotguns

1879 – Hotchkiss bolt action rifle introduced

1880s
1885 – Model Single Shot rifle introduced

1886 – Model lever action rifle introduced

1887 – Model lever action shotgun introduced

1890s
1890 – Model 1890 slide action .22 RF rifle introduced

1892 – Model lever action rifle introduced

1893 – Model slide action shotgun introduced

1894 – Model lever action rifle introduced the first Winchester designed to shoot smokeless powder

1895 – Model lever action rifle with box magazine

1896 – Lee Model 1895 bolt action rifle introduced

1897 – Model slide action shotgun introduced

1899 – Model 1900 bolt action single shot .22 RF rifle introduced

1900s – early years
1901 – Model bolt action single shot .22 RF rifle introduced

1901 – Model lever action shotgun introduced

1902 – Model bolt action single shot .22 RF rifle introduced

1903 – Model semi auto rifle .22 WSL introduced

1903 – Salute Cannon 12 gauge blank introduced

1904 – Thumb Trigger single shot .22RF introduced

1904 – Model bolt action single shot .22RF introdued

1905 – Model semi auto rifle introduced

1906 – Model slide action rifle .22 RF introduced

1907 – Model semi auto rifle introduced

1910 – Model semi auto rifle introduced

1911 – Model semi auto shotgun introduced

1912 – Model hammerless slide action shotgun introduced

1915 – British Enfield botl action rifles produced, .303 British cal. Gov’t contract

1917 – Model Enfield bolt action rifles produced, .30-06 cal. Gov’t contract

1918 – Browning Automatic Rifles produced, Gov’t contact

1919 – Model 52 bolt action rifle .22 RF introduced

1920 – Model 20 single shot shotgun introduced

1920 – Model 41 bolt action single shot shotgun introduced

1921 – Model 36 single shot shotgun introduced

1924 – Model 53 lever action rifle introduced

1924 – Model 55 lever action rifle introduced

1925 – Model 54 bolt action sporting rifle introduced

1926 – Model 56 bolt action rifle .22 RF introduced

1926 – Model 57 bolt action rifle .22 RF introduced

1928 – Model 58 bolt action single shot rifle .22 RF introduced

1930 – 1972
1930 – Model 59 bolt action single shot rifle .22 RF introduced

1931 – Winchester Repeating Arms Company purchased by John Oilin owner of Western Cartridge Company

1931 – Model 21 double barrel shotgun introduced

1932 – Model 60 bolt action rifle .22 RF introduced

1932 – Model 61 hammerless slide action rifle .22 RF introduced

1932 – Model 62 slide action rifle .22 RF introduced

1933 – Model 63 semi-auto rifle in .22 LR introduced

1933 – Model 64 lever action rifle introduced

1933 – Model 65 lever action rifle introduced

1933 – Model 42 hammerless slide action shotgun introduced

1934 – Model 67 bolt action rifle in .22 RF introduced

1934 – Model 68 bolt action rifle in .22 RF introduced

1935 – Model 69 bolt action rifle in .22 RF introduced

1935 – Model 70 bolt action sporting rifle introduced

1935- Model 71 lever action rifle introduced

1936 – Model 37 hammerless single shot shotgun introduced

1938 – Model 72 Bolt Action Rifle in .22 RF Introduced

1938 – Model 75 bolt action rifle .22 RF introduced

1939 – Mode 74 semi auto rifle .22 RF introduced

1939 – Model 24 double barrel shotgun introduced

1939 – Model 40 semi auto shotgun introduced

1940 – M-1 Garand rifles produce .30-06 cal. Gov’t contract

1940 – M-1 Carbines produced .30 carbine cal. Gov’t contract

1949 – Model 43 bolt action sporting rifle introduced

1949 – Model 47 bolt action single shot rifle in .22 RF introduced

1949 – Model 25 hammerless slide action shotgun introduced

1954 – Model 50 semi auto shotgun introduced

1955 – Model 77 semi auto .22LR rifle introduced

1955 – Model 88 hammerless lever action rifle introduced

1957 – Model 55 single shot auto .22rf rifle introduced

1960 – Model 59 semi auto shotgun introduced

1960 – M-14 Springfield semi auto rifle produced .308 cal (7,62mm) Gov’t contract

1961 – Model 100 semi auto rifle introduced

1963 – Model 250 lever action .22 RF rifle introduced

1963 – Model 270 slide action .22 RF rifle introduced

1963 – Model 101 O/U shotgun introduced

1963 – Model 101 O/U shotgun introduced

1964 – Model 1200 slide action shotgun introduced

1964 – Model 255 lever action .22WMR rifle introduced

1964 – Model 94 Wyoming Diamond Jubilee Commemorative, the first commemorative rifle

1964 – Model 1400 semi auto shotgun introduced

1967 – Models 121,131,141, bolt action .22 RF rifles introduced

1972 – Model 12 “Y’ series slide action shotgun introduced

1972 – Model 9422 lever action .22 RF rifle introduced

1972 – Model 320 bolt action .22 RF rifle introduced

 

In 1852 Henry Wells and William Fargo opened an office in San Francisco to serve the Gold rush prospectors who needed to send their Gold east.

Within 15 years of founding in San Francisco Wells, Fargo and Company had absorbed or driven every serious rival out of business and had become the most important mail deliverer, bank, express agency, and stagecoach company in the West.

The name of Wells Fargo is well entrenched in Western history and was so well known that miners swore only “By God and Wells Fargo.”

At one time they were so efficient in the mail business that they were charging only six cents for a letter, while the Post Office was charging 25 cents, and the Post Office demanded they stop undercutting their prices. In 1850 the two partners merged their businesses with an express company owned by John Butterfield, (who later on operated a stagecoach line) and the new company was called American Express.

The importance of Stagecoaches declined after the railroad linked up to the West, but Wells Fargo acquired railroad rights as it cut back its Stagecoach operations, and it lost its lucrative mail contract in 1895 when the Federal Government took over all mail delivery services. Henry Wells made one inspection trip to San Francisco to see the new operation in 1852, William Fargo never ventured west of the Mississippi.

At the peak of their operations Wells Fargo employed a large force of Police and Detectives and more or less stopped the robbing of its Stagecoaches, by capturing about 240 what were called “Road Agents” including the famous Black Bart.

The dark green strongboxes were a company symbol that was carried in 100’s of Western movies. Wells served as president of the American Express Company for 18 years. He died in Glasgow Scotland, and Fargo became president of the American Express Company in 1868. Fargo was active in Buffalo New York politics, he was twice elected mayor.

Born in Tennessee on December 13, 1798, Joseph Walker grew to be six feet tall and at least 200 pounds, and was a powerful mountain man and trail blazer.

Walker helped establish the Santa Fe trail, and discovered “Walker Pass” the gap in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He was the first white man to find the Yosemite Valley in California.

Walker spent about 12 years as a trapper in the far west, and had long hair and a full beard, and always had a number of Indian women to keep him company. Later on he became the first sheriff of Jackson county, Missouri. Walker headed west again with Captain Benjamin Bonneville to lead an expedition to California, this group left Green River in Wyoming in July of 1883 and arrived on the pacific coast in November of that same year.

They spent the winter in California and in February 1834 started back and arrived at the Bear River rendezvous in Utah in July. Walker also served as John Fremont’s guide on his expedition in 1845, later on Walker served as an Army scout and he also prospected for Gold.

“The Town too Tough to Die“

Founded: 1879
Incorporated: February 1881

Tombstone has a very storied history, particularly with the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral between the Earps (Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil Earp) and the Clantons (Billy Clanton and Frank and Tom McLowery) in 1881.

The town began when a man named Edward Lawrence Schieffelin came to Camp Huachuca with soldiers and left to begin prospecting in the area, searching for a rich ore deposit. With Apache Indians nearby threatening settlers and others, he was told he would more likely find his tombstone rather than silver. When he filed his first claim in 1877, he named it “Tombstone”. As word filtered out about the rich silver lodes in the area, the town was given Tombstone as its name (1879) and plans for the town were laid out . Prospectors came a plenty as did the people who would service them: equipment suppliers, bankers, saloons and, of course, ladies of ill repute. Mining boomed in Tombstone for a good seven years until rising underground water caused operations to cease.

The famous gunbattle at the OK Corral was an indication of the lawlessness and violence that took place in Tombstone in its heyday. The slogan, “The Town too Tough to Die”, came about after the town survived the depression and the moving of its county seat to nearby Bisbee during the 1930’s.

Historical Events of Tombstone, Arizona

1877, August 1
Prospector Edward Lawrence Schieffelin stakes his first mining claim in the area. He names it Tombstone.

1878, Oct
Weekly stagecoach service between Tucson and Tombstone was begun.

1879, Mar 5
The townsite of Tombstone was plotted.

1879, Dec 1
The Earp Brothers came to town.

1879, December
Tombstone was incorporated. William A. Harwood, Esq. became the first mayor.

1880, Feb 22
U.S. Mail service begins in Tombstone on a daily basis.

1880, July 27
Wyatt Earp was appointed the Deputy Sheriff of Pima County at the age of 32 and the first railroad from Tombstone to Tucson was completed.

1880, Sept 9
The Grand Hotel opens.

1880, Oct 28
Virgil Earp was appointed temporary City Marshall. At the time, he was the Deputy U.S. Marshal.

1880, Nov 9
Wyatt Earp resigns the office of Pima County Deputy Sheriff

1881, June 22
Sixty-six businesses were destroyed in a fire that started when a barrel of whiskey exploded at the Arcade Saloon.

1881, Oct 26
The Gunfight at the OK Corral took place around 2:30pm after quite a bit of arguing and physical fighting between the participants. It lasted only about 30 seconds, but once it was over, Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were dead. Morgan and Virgil Earp were wounded, Doc (John Henry Holliday) had a scratch and Wyatt was unhurt.

1881, Dec 29
Wyatt Earp appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal over the telegraph.

1882
The Tombstone County Court House was built, containing the county jail and other county offices. The City Hall was also built during this time.

1882
Tombstone founder, Ed Schieffelin sells his holdings to become a millionaire and moves to California.

1882, May 25
A Second fire destroys most of the business district. The fire was again started in a saloon, this time, the Tivoli.

1884
Boothill cemetery full and officially closed to burials.

1892, July
The original Bird Cage Theater closes permanently. Other names of the theater have been the Elite and the Olympic.

1929
County Seat was moved from Tombstone to Bisbee.

1962 Sept 30
Tombstone named a National Historical Landmark.

Born in South Dakota on March 5, 1929, Casey Tibbs is the most famous “bronco rider” of all times, and probably did more that anyone to bring attention and status to Rodeo riding.

Outside the Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, there is a larger than life bronze statue called “The Champion”,  a cowboy riding a bucking bronc, and according to sculptor Edd Hayes, the cowboy depicted is Casey Tibbs on “Necktie”.  No one has done more to establish Bronc riding and Rodeo as high level entertainment as did Casey Tibbs.

He won championships six times in saddle bronc riding, plus two all-around Cowboy Championships and one Bareback riding Championship. As a rider he had style and the authority that inspired audiences, with his trademark “Purple Shirt” (which matched his “purple” Cadillac) and his riding style that was made up of balance and getting into the rhythm of the horse, instead of depending on pure strength to keep him on, as most riders did.

Tibbs was a colorful personality in and out of Rodeo, he was featured in a LIFE magazine cover story in 1951, and in 1950’s he produced Rodeos in Japan, and in 1958 performed at the World’s Fair in Brussels. In 1964 he retired from Rodeo to concentrate on TV and movie roles but came back briefly in 1969. In 1967 he produced the documentary file “Born to Buck” and was a pioneer in bucking horse breeding programs.

Outside of Rodeo, Tibbs relished the high life and indulged his taste for pretty women and good whiskey, and spent his money as fast as he made it. He died in Ramona California on January 28, 1990. Edd Hayes the sculptor of the “Champion” said that inside the bronze, where not one can see, he inscribed a heart with the words…”Ride Cowboy, Ride”.  

Country singer Charlie Daniels called Tibbs “As western as the sunset, and cowboy to the core”.

The Texas Rangers  were Indian fighting militiamen who were established in a Texas area that was freed of Mexican rule.

After Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana overthrew the Constitution of 1824, the Rangers organized themselves into a broader band whose intent was to seek restoration of the Constitution. Thus, “The Texas Rangers” was formally organized into a force of three 56-men companies to be deployed on the Indian frontier to protect the Texas citizenry against Indians and Mexican raiders.

Some of the most prominent rangers included: Ben McCulloch, the Tennessee frontiersman and friend of Davy Crockett’s, William A.A. “Big Foot” Wallace, John Coffee “Jack” Hays. It was Hays who helped the Rangers earn their reputation for brutality during the war, men with “uncouth costumes, bearded faces, lean and brawny forms, fierce wild eyes and swaggering manners…fit representatives of the outlaws which make up the population of the Lone Star State”, according to Samuel Chamberlain.

After the Mexican War, the Rangers returned to patrol the new state of Texas, trying to end Comanche Indian raids. Captain John S. “Rip” Ford was the famous frontiersman who is credited with killing many Comanches.

In the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, the Rangers continued their pursuit of Indian raiders, outlaws, and cattle rustlers. They tracked the bandit John Wesley Hardin all to the way to Pensacola, Florida . The Texas Rangers were reorganized in 1935 as a branch of the Texas Department of Public Safety and remain active today as the oldest law enforcement agency in America.

(February 15, 1803 – June 18, 1880)

John Sutter was a Swiss pioneer best known for his association with the California Gold Rush and for establishing Sutter’s Fort in the area that would eventually become Sacramento, the state’s capital.

Born in 1803 in Germany of Swiss parents, he served in the Swiss Army, and later went into the dry-goods business and also married. Neither of these ventures turned out as his marriage was unhappy and his business failed leaving him in debt.

In 1834 he emigrated to America and traveled first from New York to St. Louis, then to Santa Fe, and some other cities before arriving in San Francisco in 1839. At that time, northern California was the farthest piece of Mexican territory and Sutter offered his services to the Mexicans to establish a fort at the junction of the American and Sacramento rivers. He became a Mexican citizen and the Mexican Governor made him a land grant of 50,000 acres.

Sutter planted wheat, fruit trees, and vineyards, and built an impressive fort. He called the settlement New Helvetia (New Switzerland) and encouraged immigrants to join him. He also made a deal with the Governor’s political enemy for future land grants and also bought up Russian holdings at Bodega and Fort Ross.

In the 1840’s Sutters Fort was a key stopping point for wagon trains from the east. Sutters endorsements of American interests led to suspicion of him by the Mexicans. The bad times for Sutter were not from political side changing but from another source, GOLD!

His partner James Marshall found some bright stones while constructing a sawmill on the American river, Sutter tried to keep the word from leaking out, but it did spread and started a world-wide rush to the California Gold fields.

Sutters workmen left him for the promise of easy riches, and California became a U.S. Territory only nine days after gold was discovered.  Sutter’s title to the land was disputed and he could not protect the land that was now being overrun by prospectors. He petitioned in vain for redress for his stolen land to Congress but he was awarded a pension of $250 a month from 1862 to 1878 from the California State Legislature,.   After the pension ended, Sutter died two years later.

Sutter died impoverished and mainly due to the greed of people who as this case shows, ran roughshod over white men and Indians alike when it was Gold to be had,.  Of course the government looked the other way, and his fate not mentioned too much in history.

 

(1829-1902)

Levi Strauss was one of the best-known beneficiaries of California’s gold rush economic boom. He was born in Bavaria and came to San Francisco in 1850, one of the thousands hoping to stike it rich.

He was trained as a tailor and planned to manufacture tents and wagon covers for the Forty-niners, but found no market for these items. So instead, he used the stout canvas he had brought with him to make very durable pants which miners found perfect for their line of work. He quickly began selling these “wonderful pants of Levi’s” as fast as he could make them.

Strauss opened a factory at 98 Battery Street in San Francisco and began adding copper rivets at the stress points in his pants. He then switched from canvas to a heavy blue denim material called “genes” in France, which became “jeans” in America. The company Levi Strauss founded remains one of America’s leading apparel manufacturers, and even today, the garment he created, still known as “levis”, represents the lifestyle and spirit of the American West: egalitarian, utilitarian and independent.

Following his success in the clothing business, he branched out to serve as a director of an insurance company, a utility company, several banks, and in a variety of charitable organizations. He died in San Francisco in 1902.

John Stetson was the famous designer of the “Trademark” western hat that bears his name — the “Stetson”.

He was born in Orange, New Jersey on May 5, 1830.

His “Stetson Hat” (also known as “Stetsons”) has defined the look of the cowboy for many years. Stetson came from a family of Hatters (people in the hat business) and went out west for the first time for health reasons.

However, in 1865 he opened a one-man hat factory in Philadelphia, but sales were poor so rather than just copy other hat styles, he started to design his own.

He was forced to make another trip out west for health reasons, and wound up in Colorado. This led him to design a western hat, after he saw the distinctive hats worn out west.

He then returned to Philadelphia and his plant began to manufacture “Cowboy Hats”.  The business grew and by 1906 was producing two million hats a year.

Stetson was also a philanthropist who gave a lot of money to Baptist Churches and causes.

He died in DeLand, Florida on February 18, 1906, and by that time had taken such an interest in the DeLand Academy, in the form of buildings and money, that they changed the name of the institution to the John B. Stetson University.

Rodeo is supposed to come from a Spanish word “rodear” which means “to encircle” and of course the Rodeo grew out of normal cattle ranch activities. Even before there were Rodeos for spectators, cowboys got together to test each other in contests related to their ranch and cattle work. Probably the first Rodeo (which wasn’t called that as yet) was supposed to be held in Pecos Texas probably to celebrate the 4th of July. The first exhibition to offer “prize money” was held in Prescott, in the Arizona Territory on the 4th of July, 1888.

The cowboy riding and roping events of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show and other traveling shows became so popular that many western towns created annual Cowboy Tournaments (Round-ups and Frontier Days, etc) such as the Calgary Stampede started in 1912, and as Cheyenne Wyoming has done since 1897. The actual term “Rodeo” was first given to cowboy exhibitions in 1916 and the first indoor Rodeo was held at the Stockyards Coliseum in 1917 at Fort Worth, Texas.

Early Rodeos had Chuckwagon races, and Markmanship contests much like the format of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows, but in 1929 the Rodeo Association of America was formed in Salinas, California, and most of the events became standard as we know them today.

Some of the great names in Rodeo are Enos “Yakima” Canutt, (later to become a Hollywood stunt man) Will Rogers of Oklahoma, bronco rider Casey Tibbs of South Dakota (who was the model for the statue outside of the Rodeo Hall of Fame) and bull rider Jim Shoulders of Henryetta, Oklahoma.

The Pony Express, which brought faster mail service from the East to California, was the brainchild of William Hepburn Russell who was a partner in the West’s largest wagon-freight operation called Russell, Majors and Waddell.

When the Butterfield Overland Mail Operation (St. Louis to San Francisco, a 2,800 mile route that dipped south to El Paso) was suspended in 1861, Russell convinced his partners to develop a new and simpler route from a staging area in St. Joseph, Missouri to San Francisco, using express riders to cover the ground in half the time than the Butterfield route.

There was a $600,000 government contract at stake, so the partners took the bait and issued Russell the credit to establish his Pony Express. Then, out came the ads for young, skinny fearless riders, “Orphans preferred”. Russell hired 80 such men from the hundreds of responses. The riders received a Bible, a pair of Colt revolver and $125 a month to ride at high speed through some of the roughest and most dangerous terrain known to man. One hundred ninety stations in 5 divisions were established, 40 to 100 miles apart depending on the terrain, complete with bunk beds and feeding facilities; relay stations were established every 10 to 20 miles with small shelters, horses and stables.

On April 3, 1860, the Pony Express was formally begun – a 2,000 mile trek from St. Joseph to San Francisco. The sender had to pay $5 per half-ounce plus the regular 10-cents in U.S. postage.

The Pony Express lasted 19 months and became a very expensive operation for Russell and his partners. When the transcontinental telegraph reached California, the Pony Express was discontinued. But it had successfully carried 34,743 pieces of mail.

Its most celebrated rider was William F. Cody.

The famed Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803–1806), headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, was the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. Originally intended to determine exactly what was obtained in the Louisiana Purchase, the expedition laid much of the groundwork for the Westward Expansion of the United States.

President Thomas Jefferson was the driving force that launched the  Lewis and Clark expedition partly because he wanted to map and investigate the lands to the west and firm up claims of the United States to disputed territory in the Pacific Northwest.

At that time, Napoleon of France offered to sell to the United States what became known as the “Louisiana Purchase” to finance his war in Europe for the sum of 15 million dollars for roughly 500 million acres. This set the stage for an exploration of the “new” territory as well as a search for the long sought-after Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that was thought to exist at the time.

To head the expedition, Jefferson chose Captain Meriwether Lewis from the regular army, and William Clark, a comrade from the Indian campaigns, who at the time he was called to serve, was working his family’s plantation. Lewis and Clark had become good friends and corresponded even after Clark had left the army. It was, therefore, no surprise when they were named co-leaders of this important expedition. It consisted of the two captains, 27 soldiers, a mixed-blood interpreter and hunter, Clark’s black slave, York, and a group of soldiers and boatmen who would return after the first season out.

The mission had been laid out in detailed written instructions and in conversations between President Jefferson and Lewis. Geographical information about waterways and passes through the mountains were important to further expansion. Finding routes to the Pacific ocean would facilitate trade with the Orient. And, of course, knowledge gained about natural resources and the Indians living on the plains was of immense value. It was part of the mission to try and establish trade and good relations with the Indians as well as record scientific data such as: the flora and fauna, minerals, soil composition, and climate.

The group headed out in a 55-foot keelboat with two dugout canoes on May 14, 1804 after spending the previous winter getting ready and outfitting the expedition. They explored the Missouri river and stopped in October at Indian villages in present day North Dakota. In early 1805, the extra men turned back in the keelboat, and more dugout canoes were made for the rest of the party.

Enter Sacagewea

Three new recruits went along: Taussaint Charbonneau, a fur trader, Sacagewea one of his two Indian wives and her infant son. Sacagewea (shown here) was a Shoshone captured by the Hidatsas Indians five years earlier and Lewis and Clark decided she might serve as an interpreter and go between when they reached her mountain homeland.

The explorers worked their way up the Missouri river, carrying their canoes around the great falls. They found and named many tributaries and as the headwaters climbed into the continental divide, they had to leave their canoes behind. Fortunately, they came upon a band of Cosines that were Sacagewea’s people and as Lewis and Clark hoped, she provided friendly relations and the expedition was able to obtain horses that enabled them to cross the mountains.

There were thought to be only a thin range of mountains, but Lewis and Clark found range after range of rugged mountains, and in 1805, they crossed the Bitterroot Range and in a very difficult part of their journey, descended the Lolo trail to the Clearwater river. They were then helped by friendly Nez Perce Indians, and they exchanged their horses for canoes and used them to navigate the Clearwater, the Snake, and the Columbia rivers. On November 18, 1805, they arrived at the Pacific Ocean. They erected a Fort (Clatsop) at the mouth of the Columbia river and spent the winter of 1805-1806 there. Continual cold rains, unfriendly Indians, and little game all conspired to make things miserable for the expedition.

In March they welcomed the idea of the return trip. They went to their eastern base, where they divided with Lewis taking nine men and following the Blackfoot river to the Missouri, while Clark and the rest of the men retraced the way they had come. On August 12, Lewis and Clark met at the mouth of the Yellowstone river and turned down the Missouri, and on September 23, 1806, some two years and four months after they left St. Louis, the intrepid explorers landed back there. They were thought to be “lost” (killed or died) so there was a lot of celebration and President Jefferson was elated to learn of their success and safe return.

As for immediate results, there was very little from the expedition, partly because of Lewis’ death, and the fact of Clark’s preoccupation with other matters. However, even though delayed, the report was finally put before the country in 1814 and the information had a major influence on United States policy. It was many years before much of the information could be put to use, but the exploration was responsible for the fur trade, better maps, and it established a firm claim to the Pacific Northwest, culminated by the resolution of the Oregon boundary dispute in 1846.

The Lewis and Clark expedition was a great adventure and a great part of American history. And the foresight of President Jefferson to make the Louisiana Purchase and to send Lewis and Clark to explore it, is a true success story for the young nation America was at the time.

(March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863)

Samuel Houston was a 19th century American statesman, politician, and soldier.

He was born in Lexington, Virginia, in 1793 and was the son of a career Army officer and veteran of the Revolutionary War. The family moved to Tennessee farm in 1807, and as a teenager Houston began his lifelong association with the Cherokee Indians who were located along the Tennessee river, and learned their language and culture.

At 20-years old he joined the 7th Infantry Regiment and went with Andrew Jackson in his campaign against the Creek Indians in Alabama. He earned a commission as a Lieutenant, distinguishing himself in the battle of Horseshoe Bend. However, suffering arrow and gunshot wounds, he resigned from the Army after the war, and in 1818 finished Law School and passed the bar.

Andrew Jackson was now his friend and benefactor and helped him get elected to public office. He later served two terms in Congress and helped elect Jackson president. Jackson then helped Houston become governor of Tennessee.

In 1829 Houston married Eliza Allen, the daughter of a rich Tennessee family, but the marriage only lasted three months, the despondent Houston resigned the governorship and drifted to Arkansas where he lived among the Cherokees, starting a trading post and taking up with a Cherokee woman. As a spokesman for the Cherokees, he traveled to Washington on Indian business.

In 1832 he went to Texas for the first time, some even say as an “unofficial” mission for president Jackson, and reported that the people in Texas were favorably disposed to becoming part of the United States. He settled in Nacogdoches, opened his Law practice and became involved in the movement for Texas independence. In 1835, with a Texas revolution against Mexico now a sure thing, Houston was elected chief of his district and began raising a volunteer force. Later in November he was named Commander-in-Chief of the Texas Army.

With Santa Anna’s army approaching the Rio Grande in February of 1836, Houston attempted to have the Alamo’s cannon removed and the defenses torn down, but on March 6, Santa Anna attacked and all of the 183 defenders were killed, including Houston’s friend Jim Bowie. He also received word of the loss of Fannin’s force at Goliad.

Houston maneuvered and played for time to get his poorly trained recruits in fighting shape, which some, if not most of those around him, and the acting president of Texas, Davis Burnet, thought him afraid to fight, and urged him to do so. Houston craftily played for time, and knew Santa Anna’s movements due to his trusted scouts following the Mexican army.

They told him that Santa Anna’s army was camped on the San Jacinto River and that he had almost no “pickets” (soldiers out from the main body to warn of surprise attack) so Houston’s Army numbering 783 men threw themselves against Santa Anna’s 1500 man force with shouts of “Remember Goliad, and Remember the Alamo” the battle itself was a total defeat for the Mexicans. Almost half were killed and the other half were taken prisoner, including Santa Anna trying to hide in a private’s uniform. This was the battle that freed Texas, and Sam Houston was elected its first president. He quickly secured United States recognition for Texas.

In 1840, Houston married Margaret Moffette Lea of Alabama (they had eight children together) and served two terms as president of Texas. In 1846 Texas was annexed as a state, and Houston served as a Senator for 14 years. He opposed secession, resisted joining the Confederacy and refused to swear allegiance to it, so as a result the Texas legislature declared the office of governor vacant and Houston retired to his farm in Huntsville Texas and died July 26, 1863.

Other names for gunfighter included gunslinger, gunman, shootist, pistoleer. 

Some believe the term “gunslinger” to be a more modern term.  We do know that Bat Masterson used the term “gunfighter” in the newspaper articles he wrote about the lawmen and outlaws he had known.

The names were given to men in the American Old West who had gained a reputation as being dangerous with a gun.  Often “gunfighter” was applied to men who would hire out for contract killings.   But, a gunfighter could either be an outlaw or a lawman depending on the chore at hand. 

Outlaws most often engaged in murder or robbery, while a sheriff or lone avenger faced or tracked down the outlaw and brought him to justice, either legally or by execution.

The legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral occurred at about 3 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot (lot 2, in block 17) behind a corral, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory.   At that time, a corral was like a livery stable.  Some of the fight also took place on Fremont Street in front of the vacant lot.  About thirty shots were fired within thirty seconds.  During the battle, the three Earp Brothers: Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil, along with their friend, Doc Holliday fought against the McLaury Brothers: Frank and Tom, and their cowboy friend, Billy Clanton.

The conflicts leading to the gunfight were complex.   Both sides were in opposition due to a variety of concerns: politics, business, as well as other ideological factors.  The Earps were viewed by their enemies as badge-toting bullies who ruthlessly enforced the business interests of the town, while the McLaurys, the Clantons and their cowboy friends were viewed by their enemies as cattle rustlers, thieves, and murderers.

The instigating factor leading to the shootout was the arrest by Virgil Earp and later release of Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury for carrying firearms within the city limits.   After they were disarmed and released, the two men joined Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury, who had just arrived in town. The men gathered at the OK Corral.

Virgil Earp now decided to disarm Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury and recruited Wyatt, Morgan and Doc Holliday to help him in this dangerous task.  Sheriff John Behan was in town and when he heard what was happening he raced to Fremont Street and urged Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury to hand over their guns to him.  They replied: “Not unless you first disarm the Earps”.

Behan now headed towards the advancing group of men. He pleaded for Virgil Earp not to get involved in a shoot-out but he was brushed aside as the four men carried on walking towards the OK Corral.  When they reached the four men, Virgil Earp said: “I want your guns”. Billy Clanton responded by firing at Wyatt Earp. He missed and Morgan Earp successfully fired two bullets at Billy Clanton. Meanwhile Wyatt Earp fired at Frank McLaury. The bullet hit him in the stomach and he fell to the ground.   Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury were both unarmed and tried to run away. Clanton was successful but Doc Holliday shot McLaury in the back. Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury, although seriously wounded, continued to fire their guns and in the next couple of seconds Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were all wounded. Wyatt Earp was unscathed and he managed to finish off Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury.

Sheriff John Behan arrested Virgil Earp, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday for the murder of Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury. However, after a 30 day trial Judge Wells Spicer, who was related to the Earps, decided that the defendants had been justified in their actions.

In the 1950s, this 30-second gunfight came to be known as the “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” after a movie title.  It has been the subject of many books and movies ever since.

For those who wanted a “taste” of Western life, Dude Ranches were established somewhere in the 1870’s, for Eastern and also foreign tourists. Those who were interested in the “Cowboy Mystique” which was fanned by the famous “dime novels” about Western life, wanted to experience life on a ranch, so a demand was there and some ranchers figured there was money to be made from this interest, so many of them began to take on “paying” guests.

There are several versions of how the word “Dude” became associated with the people and the ranches, but the most believable is that Dude is a corruption of “duds” referring to clothing. Of course part of the fun of going to a “Dude Ranch” was getting to dress-up in real Western clothes, and of course these store-bought, too new, and too clean clothes easily marked the “dudes” that were coming to the west to play cowboy, for a couple of weeks, as the tourists.

Also in the 1880’s, some of the rich British game hunters came to the American West to hunt the various animals, including the American Bison (Buffalo) which was available no where else. Reports are that a Mr. Howard Eaton (the same name as a very exclusive British school which probably didn’t hurt his business) had British hunters at his ranch in South Dakota but that the hunting and fishing would be better in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming and so he opened a ranch there, not so much as a working ranch, but as a working ranch for the “Dude Ranch” tourist trade. In the beginning, Dude Ranches were only for the wealthy, but as time went along they began to draw people from all walks of life.

Dude Ranches had a boom of sorts shortly after the start of World War I, because Europe was no longer a place to vacation during, and for some time after the war. Of course Dude Ranches were very popular with the tourists, but less so with the “real” cowboys, many of whom thought it was beneath their dignity to work at these “fake” businesses, and so many refused to work on a Dude Ranch.

Nonetheless, the popularity of Dude Ranches grew in the 1920’s and 30’s, whereas the cattle business dropped off and jobs at “real” cattle ranches became far and few between. So many of the then crop of cowboys traded in unemployment for jobs on a Dude Ranch. Dude Ranches continue to thrive today, and it is ironic that much of the “cowboy culture” is preserved by Dude Ranches, that would have otherwise died off. Today’s Dude Ranches offer staged gunfights, holdups, and cowboy and Indian battles, however, after a hard day on the range, today’s “Dudes” can retire to a room or cabin with air conditioning, swimming pools, and color TV, a far cry from what old time cowboys, or even the early “Dudes” had available to them.

The gunfighter’s stance and drawing your gun from your holster was a popular depiction in western movies and televisioln shows.

The classic style was standing with your gun hand near your holster but slightly away from your body and reaching for your gun, drawing from the holster and then firing upon your enemy.

The “Border Style” gun draw consisted of pulling your pistol, worn backward in the holster, by putting your arm across the front of your body. This fancy stuff was popular down around the Mexican border.

It should be noted that this kind of quick-draw shooting did not exactly allow for accurate aiming when firing. 

George Donner was a farmer, who along with his brother Jacob, organized the famed Donner party in 1846. George Donner was 62 at the time, and the expedition party consisted of 27 men, 17 women, and 43 children, spread throughout 23 wagons.

Donner and the other leaders relied on a book by a man named Hastings who wrote “Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California” however there was misinformation in the book that would bear on decisions of the party to leave the “trail” at Hastings cutoff. Therefore, because of the leadership disputes and the misinformation the group lost weeks of valuable time crossing the Wasatch Mountains and the Salt Lake Desert, so as they approached the pass in the Sierra Nevadas in late October, the party was weary and low on critical supplies. Two men were sent ahead to get more supplies in California and one returned with food and two Indian guides.

When they started through the pass, a blizzard struck, and the group became snowbound, and the party made shelters. The snow in the pass increased and the food became critically short. In mid-December the remaining livestock wandered off, and the now panic-stricken party sent off a small group of 8-men, 5-women, and the two Indians guides set out with scanty rations, and they ran into a bad storm on Christmas, forcing them to “hole-up” for days without food. Four of them died and the others turned to cannibalism to survive, and then two more died, and the Indians refused to eat human flesh and were shot and also eaten. 32 days later seven severely exhausted and almost starved survivors reached an Indian camp.

In the meantime, the survivors up in the mountains were eating hides in snow that had reached 13-feet deep. February 18, a rescue party arrived and led 22 of the party down the mountain but the food that they had hidden for the return trip had been broken into by animals, and so several days later this starving group of people met another relief party headed by a James Reed, who had at an earlier time been part of the Donner group. Mr. Reed brought 15 almost starved survivors down the mountain when a storm hit them. On March 8th, the stronger members made an attempt to go on, and those left behind had no food left. When the 3rd relief party found those left behind with fuel for the fire but no food, three had died and the others had turned to cannibalism. Part of the 3rd relief party went on to the where the main party camped in makeshift cabins, where they found only a few survivors, eating the bodies of the dead. The relief party returned with the strongest people who could travel, and left behind George Donner and his wife who were dying, and an old women named Mrs. Graves and a German named Keseberg. When a party went back in the spring, only Keseburg was alive.

In 1918, the Pioneer Monument was put up at the site of the ill-fated mountain camp, in remembrance of the Donner party and the place became known as Donner Pass. The Donner party is infamous for their cannibalism, rather than for their poor planning and disputes of leadership which had to contribute to the entire disaster. In modern times, there have been reports of cannibalism, most notably the soccer teams plane that crashed in the mountains in South America, where the people had to resort to cannibalism to survive. In certain primitive cultures eating parts of the dead are considered beneficial, however, in western culture cannibalism has been disapproved of as morally wrong. It is also a sad commentary on morality that people in the Donner party shot and killed the Indians that were trying to help them, but they were not condemned for the murder of their fellow man, only the cannibalism they practiced to stay alive.

 

A poker hand consisting of a pair of aces and a pair of eights.

Traditionally, Wild Bill Hickok was holding this hand when he was shot dead by Jack McCall in a Deadwood saloon.

Some sources dispute the hand, saying that it really contained two jacks, not aces and two eights.

 

(1839-1876)

George Armstrong Custer is one of the best-known figures in American history and in popular mythology long after his death at the hands of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio, but spent much of his childhood in Monroe, Michigan. After high school he enrolled in West Point where he proved to be a fairly miserable student. Several days after graduating last in his class, he failed in his duty as officer of the guard to stop a fight between two cadets. He was court martialed but saved from punishment only because of the need for officers upon the outbreak of the Civil War.

He fought in the First Battle of Bull Run, and served with distinction in the Virginia and Gettysburg campaigns. Although his units suffered enormously high casualty rates, his fearless aggression in battle earned him the respect of his commanding officers. His cavalry units played a critical role in forcing the retreat of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s forces. In gratitude, General Philip Sheridan bought and made a gift of the Appomatox “surrender table” to Custer and his wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

Custer was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Seventh Cavalry in July 1866 . The next year he led the cavalry in a campaign against the Southern Cheyenne. Then, in late 1867 Custer was again court-martialed and suspended from duty for a year for being absent from duty during the campaign. Custer maintained that he was simply being made a scapegoat for a failed campaign, and his old friend General Phil Sheridan stepped in to help him by calling Custer back to duty in 1868. The army once again took a liking to Custer after his November 1868 attack on Black Kettle’s band on the banks of the Washita River.

in 1873, Custer was sent to the Northern Plains where he participated in a some small skirmishes against the Lakota in the Yellowstone area. The following year, he lead a 1,200 person expedition to the Black Hills, land which just six years earlier had been guaranteed to the Lakota.

In 1876, Custer was scheduled to lead part of an anti-Lakota expedition, along with Generals John Gibbon and George Crook. He almost didn’t make it. His testimony in March about Indian Service corruption so infuriated President Ulysses S. Grant that he relieved Custer of his command and replaced him with General Alfred Terry. Popular disgust, however, forced Grant to reverse his decision. Custer then went West.

The original government plan for defeating the Lakota called for the three forces under the command of Crook, Gibbon, and Custer to trap the majority of the Lakota and Cheyenne population between them and deal them a crushing defeat. Custer advanced more quickly than ordered to do, and neared what he thought was a large Indian village on the morning of June 25, 1876. He was unaware of two important facts: his rapid advance had put him far ahead of Gibbon’s infantry brigades and General Crook’s forces had been turned back by Crazy Horse’s band at Rosebud Creek.

Believing that he was on the verge of a certain victory for both the government and himself, Custer ordered an immediate attack on the Indian village. Badly miscalculating Indian military prowess, he split his forces into three parts to ensure that fewer Indians would escape. This attack turned out to be one the greatest fiascos of the United States Army. Thousands of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors forced Custer’s unit back onto a long dusty ridge parallel to the Little Bighorn where they surrounded and killed all 210 of Custer’s troops.

Custer’s blunders may have cost him his life but it gained him everlasting fame. The Little Bighorn defeat made the life of what would have been an obscure 19th century military figure into the subject of countless songs, books and paintings. His widow furthered his reputation by writing laudatory accounts of his life, portraying him as not only a military genius but also a refined and cultivated man, a patron of the arts, and a budding statesman.

Countless paintings of “Custer’s Last Stand” were made, including one distributed by the Anheuser-Busch brewing company. All of these paintings depicted Custer as a gallant victim, surrounded by bloodthirsty savages intent upon his annihilation. Forgotten were the facts that he had started the battle by attacking the Indian village, and that most Indians present were forced to surrender within a year of their greatest battlefield triumph.

(August 17, 1786  – March 6, 1836)

David Crockett was a celebrated 19th-century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician.   He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution, and died as a result of the Battle of the Alamo.

He was born in 1786 in Tennessee and lived a hard working life and strived to educate himself. Following a series of lost loves, he married Mary Findlay just before his 20th birthday.

In 1813 he enlisted in the Tennessee Volunteers as a mounted rifleman in an expedition against Indians led by Andrew Jackson .  He later fought the British as well as Indians. His wife died and he remarried, gaining a large dowry that allowed him to pursue a political career. He increased his wealth through land speculation and ownership of a gunpowder factory and a distillery.

He ran for state legislator in 1821 and his became well known for his country vernacular and boastful stories. He wasn’t much good in the job so his family moved to western Tennessee and he gained reputation as the killer of black bears, using his trusty .41 caliber Kentucky rifle which he named “Old Betsy”. He was elected to Congress in 1827 but found Washington boring and ineffectual, so he left the Democratic Party.

Throughout his political career, Crockett pushed his land bill which would grant land to squatters. He failed to be reelected and pushed on to Texas to fight against Mexico. Crockett was one of the few survivors of the Battle of the Alamo, but was immediately taken prisoner and brought to General Santa Anna and promptly executed.

The Horse That Survived the Battle of Little Bighorn

Comanche was known as the sole survivor of General George Custer’s command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.

The mustang was born about 1862, captured in a wild horse roundup, gelded and sold to the U.S. Army Cavalry on April 3, 1868, for $90. He was a bay, just over 900 pounds, stood 15 hands high with a small white star on his forehead and became the favorite mount for Captain Myles Keogh of the 7th Cavalry. Comanche participated in frequent actions of the Regiment and sustained some 12 wounds as a result of these skirmishes.

Two days after the Custer defeat, a burial party investigating the site found the severely wounded horse and transported him by steamer to Fort Lincoln, 950 miles away, where he spent the next year recuperating. Comanche remained with the 7th Cavalry and was never again ridden under orders excusing him from all duties. Most of the time he roamed the Post freely, visiting the flower gardens often. Only at formal regimental functions was he led, draped in black, stirrups and boots reversed, at the head of the Regiment.

When the Cavalry was ordered to Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1888, the elderly horse, still in moderate good health, accompanied them and continued to receive full honors as a symbol of the Little Bighorn tragedy.  Finally, on November 7, 1891, about 29 years old, Comanche died of colic.

The officers of the 7th Cavalry, wanting to preserve the horse, asked Lewis Lindsay Dyche of the University of Kansas to mount the remains: skin and major bones. Comanche is currently on display in a humidity controlled glass case at the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, Dyche Hall, Lawrence, Kansas.

This .45-caliber has long been considered “the gun that won the West.”   Noted for its power and reliability, it was the most popular full sized revolver of the late 1800s.  Turned out by the Colt Fire Arms Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut, it sold for $17 by mail order.  A classic single action revolver, it remains in production today.

The model 1873 revolver, commonly known as the Colt Single Action, Peacemaker, or Frontier, was actually developed in 1872, based on the patents granted to Charles B. Richards and W. Mason. In 1873, the US Army adopted this revolver along with its black powder centerfire cartridge of .45 caliber, and issued it to troops in 2 models, the Cavalry model with a 71?2 inch barrel, and the artillery model with a 51?2 barrel. Both were chambered in .45 Colt (also known as .45Long Colt or .45LC).

Colt also initially produced the same gun in .44-40 WCF and .32-20WCF for the civilian market.  The company later added more modern chamberings similar to the .38 S&W Special (.38Spl), the .44 S&W Special (.44Spl), .357 Magnum, .22LR.  Civilian guns also were available in various barrel lengths, varying from 43?4 inches and up to 12 inches.

During the period from 1873 and until 1893, the US Army bought about 37,000 Colts of both models. Commercial production was ceased in 1941, with the outbreak of the World War II, with about 370 000 guns having been made in all.   Then, in 1956, Colt brought the Single Action back into production due to the popular demand by the TV and film industry for “Wild West” era guns.  

The “First Generation” Single Action Colts were the ones made from 1873 until 1941 (serial numbers below 357860 and with no letters).  Colts made from 1956 until another cease in production in 1974 are called  “Second Generation” (serial numbers in the range from 0001SA to 73319SA).   Yet a “Third Generation”  Single Action Army models (.45 Colt, .44 Special, .44-40 and .357 Magnum) were offered in 1976 after the company developed newer equipment and production techniques.   Once again, in 1981, Colt dropped production, and for some time these legendary revolvers were available only as an expensive collectibles.  At the present time, Colt again offers these guns as regular products, in the .45LC, .357Mag and .44-40, and in all standard barrel lengths.

Samuel Colt was an inventor and manufacturer from Connecticut who patented his first revolver type handgun at his plant, Patent Arms Company in Patterson, New Jersey.

His first pistol, marketed from 1836-42 was poorly made. Using the improvements offered by Captain Samuel H. Walker of the Texas Rangers, Colt produced his 1847 model, “The Walker Colt” which proved a great success.

He received a government contract for 1,100 of the revolver for use in the Mexican War and thus was able once again to open a weapons plant, this time in Hartford, Connecticut. Gun sales soared , especially during the Civil War.

The next improvement was the move in 1873 from percussion cap-fired ammunition (loose powder and ball in a paper or linen cartridge) to newly invented metal cartridge containing its own primer and powder and bullet at the end of a copper or brass tube. The first pistol to fire this new ammo was called the “Peacemaker” and was often referred to as “the gun that won the West”.

Other inventions credited to Colt were a submarine battery used in harbor defense and a submarine telegraph cable.

(1846-1917)

William F. Cody came to embody the spirit of the West in a life that was part legend and part fabrication, a national myth of frontier life that still endures today.

He was born in Scott County, Iowa in 1846 and he grew up on the prairie. When his father died in 1857, his mother moved to Kansas, where Cody worked for a wagon freight company as a mounted messenger and wrangler. He tried his luck as a prospector in 1859 during the Pikes Peak gold rush, and the next year, he joined the Pony Express which had advertised for “skinny, expert riders willing to risk death daily.” Cody was a mere 14 years old.

During the Civil War, Cody served first as a Union scout in campaigns against the Kiowa and Comanche, then in 1863 he enlisted with the Seventh Kansas Cavalry, which saw action in Missouri and Tennessee. After the war, he married Louisa Frederici in St. Louis and continued to work for the Army as a scout and dispatch carrier, operating out of Fort Ellsworth, Kansas.

It was in 1867 that Cody took up the trade that gave him his nickname, hunting buffalo to feed the construction crews of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. By his own count, he killed 4,280 head of buffalo in seventeen months. He supposedly won the nickname of “Buffalo Bill” in an eight-hour shooting match against hunter William Comstock.

Beginning in 1868, Cody returned to his work for the Army as chief of scouts for the Fifth Cavalry. He took part in 16 battles, including the Cheyenne defeat at Summit Springs, Colorado in 1869. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872 for his years of service. But the award was revoked in 1916 on the grounds that Cody was not a regular member of the armed forces at the time. (In 1989, the award was reinstated posthumously).

As Cody was earning a reputation for skill and bravery in real life, he was also becoming a national folk hero, as “Buffalo Bill,” in the dime novels of Ned Buntline (E. Z. C. Judson’s pen name). Beginning in 1869, Buntline created a Buffalo Bill – a mixture of fact and romantic fiction – who ranked along with Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone and Kit Carson in that department.

In 1872 Buntline persuaded Cody to assume this role on stage by starring in his play, The Scouts of the Plains, and though Cody was never a polished actor, he proved to be a natural and enthusiastic showman. Despite a falling out with Buntline, Cody remained an actor for eleven seasons, and became an author as well, producing the first edition of his autobiography in 1879 and publishing a number of his own Buffalo Bill dime novels. Eventually, there totaled some 1,700 of these marvelous frontier tales, most of which were written by Prentiss Ingraham.

Despite show business success, Cody couldn’t keep away from the traditons of the West. Between theater seasons, he escorted rich Easterners and European nobility on Western hunting expeditions, and in 1876 he was called back to service as an army scout in the campaign that followed Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn. It was on this occasion that Cody added a new chapter to his legend by engaging in a “duel” with Cheyenne chief Yellow Hair, whom he supposedly first shot with a rifle, then stabbed in the heart and finally scalped “in about five seconds”, according to his own account. Others described the encounter as hand-to-hand combat, and misreported the chief’s name as Yellow Hand. Still others said that Cody merely lifted the chief’s scalp after he had died in battle. Truth or fiction, Cody had the event manufactured into a melodrama — Buffalo Bill’s First Scalp for Custer — for the fall theater season.

It was William F. Cody, who in 1883 organized Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, an outdoor extravaganza that dramatized some of the most picturesque elements of frontier life: a buffalo hunt with real buffalos, an Indian attack on the Deadwood stage with real Indians, a Pony Express ride, and at the climax, a tableau presentation of Custer’s Last Stand in which some Lakota who had actually fought in the battle played a part. It has been described as half circus and half history lesson and the show proved an enormous success. It toured the country for three decades and played to enthusiastic crowds across Europe.

In later years, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West starred sharpshooter Annie Oakley, the first “King of the Cowboys” Buck Taylor, and for one season, Chief Sitting Bull – “the slayer of General Custer”. Cody even added international flavor to the event by assembling a “Congress of Rough Riders of the World” that included cossacks, lancers and other Old World cavalrymen along with the vaqueros, cowboys and Indians of the American West.

Despite his great theatrical celebrity, Cody still had a real-life reputation in the West, and in 1890 he was called back by the army once more during the Indian uprisings associated with the Ghost Dance. He came with some Indians from his troupe who proved effective peacemakers, and even traveled to Wounded Knee after the massacre to help restore order.

Cody made a fortune from his show business exploits but lost it to mismanagement and dubious investments. Even his Wild West show was eventually lost to creditors. Cody died on January , 1917, and is buried in a tomb blasted from solid rock at the summit of Lookout Mountain near Denver, Colorado.

(1809-1868)

Kit Carson was a trapper, scout, Indian agent, soldier and authentic legend of the West.

He was born on Christmas eve in 1809 and spent most of his early childhood in Boone’s Lick, Missouri. His father died when he was only nine years old, and the need to work prevented Kit from ever receiving an education. At age 14, he was apprenticed to a saddle maker and he left home for Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1826.

From about 1828 to 1831, Carson used Taos, New Mexico, as a base camp for fur-trapping expeditions that often took him as far West as California. In the later 1830s his trapping took him up the Rocky Mountains and throughout the West. Then, in the early 1840s for a short time, he was employed by William Bent as a hunter at Bent’s Fort.

Carson became integrated into the Indian world as was the case with many white trappers. He traveled and lived extensively among Indians, and his first two wives were Arapahoe and Cheyenne women. Carson was evidently unusual among trappers because of his temperate lifestyle. According to one acquaintance, he was “clean as a hound’s tooth” and a man whose “word was as sure as the sun comin’ up”. He was noted for an unassuming manner and implacable courage.

In 1842, while returning to Missouri to visit his family, Carson happened to meet John C. Fremont, who hired him as a guide. Over the next several years, Carson guided Fremont to Oregon and California, and through much of the Central Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin. Their expeditions and Kit Carson’s rugged mountain man demeanor were celebrated in Fremont’s widely read reports which quickly made Carson a national hero.

Carson’s fame grew as he became associated with several key events in the westward expansion of the United States. He was still serving as Fremont’s guide when Fremont joined California’s short-lived Bear Flag rebellion just before the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846. It was Carson who led the forces of U.S. General Stephen Kearney from New Mexico into California when a band led by Andrés Pico mounted a challenge to American occupation of Los Angeles later that year.

At the end of the war, Carson returned to New Mexico and took up ranching. By 1853, he and his partner were made rich selling sheep in California, where gold rush prices paid them a handsome profit. This same year Carson was appointed federal Indian agent for Northern New Mexico. He held this post until the Civil War imposed new duties on him in 1861.

He played a memorable role in the Civil War in New Mexico. He helped organize the New Mexico volunteer infantry which saw action at Valverde in 1862. Most of his military actions, however, were directed against the Navajo Indians, many of whom had refused to be confined to a distant reservation set up by the federal government.

Starting in 1863 Carson waged a vicious economic war against the Navajo. He marching through the heart of their territory destroying crops, orchards and livestock. When Utes, Pueblos, Hopis and Zunis, who for centuries had been prey to Navajo raiders, took advantage of their traditional enemy’s weakness by following the Americans onto the warpath, the Navajo were unable to defend themselves. In 1864 most surrendered to Carson, who forced nearly 8,000 Navajo to take what came to be called the “Long Walk” of 300 miles from Arizona to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where they remained in disease-ridden confinement until 1868.

After the Civil War, Carson moved to Colorado in the hopes of expanding his ranch business. He died there in 1868. The following year his remains were moved to a small cemetery near his old home in Taos

(April 10, 1796  – March 6, 1836),

James “Jim” Bowie was a nineteenth-century Kentucky born frontiersman, settler and adventurer-turned-soldier.

He fought for Texas in the Texas Revolution of 1835-36 and died in defense of the Alamo, but at the time of the siege, he lay sick from typhoid pneumonia. He was killed when Mexican troops overran the mission.

Although born in Kentucky, he spent most of his life in Louisiana, where he was raised and later worked as a land speculator.   He first gained prominence in 1827 during what became known as the  “Sandbar Fight”, a duel between two other men that deteriorated into a melee in which Bowie, having been shot and stabbed, killed the sheriff of Rapides Parish with a large knife.

There is disagreement among historian as to whether the knife used in this fight was the same kind of knife now known as a Bowie knife.  Jim’s father, Rezin Bowie, claimed to have invented the knife, and many Bowie family members and authorities agree with that claim. Rezin Bowie’s grandchildren, however, claimed that Rezin merely supervised his blacksmith, who actually created the knife.

After the Sandbar Fight, and subsequent battles in which Bowie successfully used his knife to defend himself, the Bowie knife became very popular and it was copied by craftsmen and manufacturers everywhere.   Major cities of the Southwest had “Bowie knife schools”, which taught “the art of cut, thrust, and parry.”

By the early 1830s many British manufacturers were also producing Bowie knives for shipment to the United States.  The design evolved over the years and today a Bowie knife is generally considered to have a blade 8.25 inches long and 1.25 inches wide, with a curved point.

After moving to Texas in 1830, Bowie became a Mexican citizen and married the daughter of the vice governor of the province. During a expedition to find the lost San Saba mine, his small party repelled an attack by a large Indian raiding party, no small feat.

At the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, Bowie joined the Texas militia, leading forces at the Battle of Concepcion and the Grass Fight. In January 1836, he arrived at the Alamo, where he commanded the volunteer forces until an illness left him bedridden.

Despite conflicting accounts of the manner of his death, the most popular, and probably the most accurate accounts maintain that he died in his bed on March 6th, after helping defend the fort and emptying his pistols into several Mexican soldiers.

a.k.a. Boot Yard or Bone Yard

This was an old west cemetery, especially for those who died with their “boots on” (gunfighters, gunslingers and the indigent).  It was also called: bone yard, bone orchard, grave patch, boot hill.  The last term “boot hill” was the most commonly used phrase, heard often in western movies.

(October or November 1734 – September 26, 1820)

Daniel Boone was a frontiersman, pioneer and hunter whose exploits made him an important folk hero in American history.   His family were Quakers who had immigrated to the United States from Devon, England in 1713.

Daniel Boone spent his early years on the western edge of the Pennsylvania frontier where there had been a number of American Indian villages nearby. He received his first rifle at age 12 and picked up hunting skills from local whites and Indians, beginning his lifelong love of hunting.  Because he spent so much time hunting in his youth, Boone received little formal education.  But according to historians, he learned to read from family members and enjoyed taking books on his hunting expeditions.

Military Experience

As a young man, Boone served with the British military during the French and Indian War (1754–1763), a struggle for land beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

In 1755, he was a wagon driver during an attempt to drive the French out of the Ohio Country, which ended in disaster at the Battle of the Monongahela. Boone then returned home and on August 14, 1756, he married Rebecca Bryan, a neighbor in the Yadkin Valley. The couple initially lived in a cabin on his father’s farm and eventually had ten children.

In 1759, a conflict erupted between British colonists and Cherokee Indians, their former allies in the French and Indian War. After the Yadkin Valley was raided by Cherokees, many families, including the Boones, fled to Culpeper County, Virginia. Boone served in the North Carolina militia during this time, and his hunting expeditions deep into Cherokee territory beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains separated him from his wife for about two years.  There were tales that his wife thought he was dead, he was gone so long, and that she formed a relationship with one of Daniel’s brothers (Edward) and a daughter resulted from the union.  Daniel supposedly accepted the situation and raised the child as his own.

Boone supported his growing family in these years as a hunter, taking part in extended expeditions with other men into the wilderness to gather deer skins in the autumn, and then trapping beaver and otter over the winter.  They were gone for weeks or months at a time.  Upon their return in the spring they would sell their products to commercial fur traders.

In 1762 Boone and his wife and four children moved back to the Yadkin Valley from Culpeper. By mid-1760s, with peace made with the Cherokees, immigration into the area increased, and Boone began to look for a new place to settle, as competition decreased the amount of game available for hunting. This meant that Boone had difficulty making ends meet; he was often taken to court for nonpayment of debts, and he sold what land he owned to pay off creditors.

After his father’s death in 1765, Boone traveled with his brother and a group of men to Florida, which had become British territory after the end of the war, to look into the possibility of settling there. But Rebecca refused to move so far away from friends and family. The Boones instead moved to a more remote area of the Yadkin Valley, and Boone began to hunt westward into the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. Despite resistance from American Indians, for whom Kentucky was a traditional hunting ground, in 1775 Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. There he founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

On one occasion, he raced back to Boonesborough to warn of an imminent attack by a joint force of British soldiers and Shawnees. His preservation of the fort (Boonesborough) proved vital to continued westward migration and settlement. Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.

During the Revolutionary War, Boone served as a lieutenant colonel of the Fayette County militia; he was also a legislator, county lieutenant and deputy surveyor. He was captured by the British in 1781 but later released. He died in 1820.

This was a .50 caliber Sharps rifle used by professionals for buffalo hunting. It weighed between 11 to 16 pounds unloaded.

The cartridge case for the .50-90 was 2.5-inches long and was loaded with 90 to 110 grains of black powder. The longer .50-140 case, developed after the buffalo harvest had ended, was loaded with 120 to 140 grains black powder for differing ranges.

A kindly reader suggests that those interested in learning more about this weapon, check out the following books:

“Sharps Firearms” by Frank Sellers
“Shooting Buffalo Rifles of the Old West” by Mike Venturino

The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) is the most famous battle of the Texas Revolution.

After a revolutionary army of “Texian” settlers and adventurers from the United States drove all Mexican troops out of Mexican Texas, Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna led an invasion to regain control of the area.

Origins
The Alamo was founded in 1718 in San Antonio, Texas as the Mission de San Antonio de Valero and its function was to convert several area Indian tribes. In 1836, however, it was converted into a fortress to protect Texas against Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna who took control of the Mexican government, declared Martial Law and abolished the 1824 constitution. Santa Anna began his siege of the Alamo on February 24, 1836 with a force numbering about 4,000 against the 150 who protected the mission.

Participants in the Battle
Some of the principals included Colonel Jim Bowie (famous for the Bowie knife), David Crockett (who brought the Tennessee Mounted Volunteers, Sam Houston (as commander in chief of the Texas Army), William Barret Travis.

Final Siege
The final siege was on March 6, 1836 and most everyone inside was killed, including the sick in the hospital who were slaughtered outright. One man escaped alive overnight by going over the wall. That final battle lasted 90 minutes.

When it was over, five defenders had survived long enough to be brought to Santa Anna who promptly executed them and set them afire. “Remember the Alamo” became the rallying cry as the Mexicans were driven from Texas the following April when Sam Houston and 800 men defeated Santa Anna’s 3,000-man army and forced the now captured Santa Anna to sign a peace treaty recognizing Texas independence.

Black Nell – Wild Bill Hickok’s Horse
Black Nell died in 1870. The horse’s grave marker read: “Here lies Black Nell, the most gallant heroine of the Civil War and of the Plains.”

Commanche – (1862-1891) – Survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn
Commanche was famous for having been the sole survivor of General George Custer’s command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.   Commanche was of mustang lineage, captured in a wild horse roundup, gelded and sold to the U.S. Army Cavalry in 1868. The 15 hand bay became the favorite mount for Captain Myles Keogh of the 7th Cavalry.  He was found two days after the battle by a burial party investigating the site.   Severely wounded, the horse was transported by steamer to Fort Lincoln, 950 miles away, where he spent the next year recuperating. Comanche remained with the 7th Cavalry under orders excusing him from all duties. Most of the time he freely roamed the Post and flower gardens.   When the Cavalry was ordered to Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1888, Comanche, aging but still in good health, accompanied them and continued to receive full honors as a symbol of the tragedy at Little Bighorn. Finally, on November 7, 1891, about 29 years old, Comanche died of colic.  The horse is currently on display in a humidity controlled glass case at the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, Dyche Hall, Lawrence, Kansas.

Isham
Buffalo Bill Cody’s white horse that he had ridden in the 101 Ranch show.

Traveller (1857 – 1871)
Traveller, An American Saddlebred, was Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s most famous horse during the American Civil War.   As a colt he took the first prize at the Lewisburg, Virginia, fairs in 1859 and 1860. As an adult gelding, he was a sturdy 16 hands high and 1,100 pounds, iron gray in color with a long mane and flowing tail.  Traveller was a horse of great stamina and was usually a good horse for an officer in battle because he was difficult to frighten.  In 1870, when Lee died, Traveller was led behind the General’s hearse, following the caisson with his master’s boots reversed in the stirrups, his saddle and bridle draped with black crepe. Not long after Lee’s death, in the summer of 1871, Traveller stepped on a rusty nail and developed lockjaw. There was no cure, and he was euthanized to relieve his suffering.