The following 10 accounts capture moments in history that have often been forgotten in time. These moments have not only left their mark on US history but have significantly altered the future of a nation in a time plagued with violence, injustice, and despair. The news isn’t all bad, though. We also got an iconic clothing item from the old American West that is still popular today.

10 The Ghost Dance

In 1870, the Ghost Dance, a Native American religious movement, was believed to restore tribal life. Supposedly, the buffalo would return to the Plains, the dead would rise, and all white men would vanish from the land. The movement was enthusiastically received by Native Americans, specifically the Lakota, and spread to California and Oregon over the years.

As word of the ritual reached neighboring white communities, officials felt threatened by the ceremonies, believing that the Lakota intended to start a war. The US government dispatched the army to stop the dancing and apprehend key leaders such as Sitting Bull and Big Foot.

Sitting Bull was killed as police attempted to arrest him. Two weeks later, members of the 7th Cavalry killed Big Foot and 145 of his followers in the Wounded Knee Massacre. The Ghost Dance died out among the Lakota, and historians believe that this atrocity signified the beginning of the end in the West’s Indian Wars.

9 A Failed Revolution

In December 1826, Benjamin Edwards and a force of 30 men rode into Nacogdoches, Texas, which was owned by Mexico. Edwards declared himself the ruler of the Republic of Fredonia and intended to seize the region. He had hoped that his efforts would be supported by the Anglo residents.

To strengthen his defense against the Mexican soldiers, Edwards negotiated an agreement with the Cherokee under which he would share Texas with them in exchange for military aid. However, the revolt disintegrated when the Mexican militia arrived six weeks later.

Realizing his rebellion had failed, Edwards fled to the US for sanctuary. In 1835, a more victorious revolution took place and established the independent Republic of Texas. Texas joined the Union as its 28th state in 1845.

8 Levi’s Jeans

During the Gold Rush in 1853, Levi Strauss headed West and opened his own dry goods and clothing company. Jacob Davis, a tailor in Nevada who had purchased cloth from Strauss, developed a way to make pants durable and resistant to wear and tear. Seeking a patent for his unique design yet unable to cover the cost himself, Davis wrote to Strauss asking for financial backing in exchange for partnership in the business.

The men formed Levi Strauss & Co. and quickly began selling their “waist-high overalls” to miners, lumberjacks, and farmers. By 1873, Strauss and Davis had sold thousands, allowing them to expand around the world. What was born during the Gold Rush became a social phenomenon and stood the test of time, becoming known as the iconic Levi’s jeans.

7 Trail Of Tears

In 1835, 100 members of the Cherokee tribe signed the Treaty of New Echota, relinquishing all lands east of the Mississippi with the promise of money, livestock, and land in Indian Territory. Although most Cherokee opposed the treaty, the US government considered the deal finalized, justifying the removal of Native Americans from their southeastern homeland.

By 1838, only 2,000 Cherokee had left for Indian Territory, prompting President Martin Van Buren to send General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to forcefully remove the Native Americans from the land.

Their homes and belongings were looted, and they were forced to march more than 1,900 kilometers (1,200 mi) to Indian Territory, an event known as the “Trail of Tears.” Historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died during the journey from typhus, dysentery, whooping cough, cholera, and starvation.

6 Bleeding Kansas

“Bleeding Kansas” was a period of violence that erupted in 1854 following the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which overturned the boundary between slave and free territory. Northern abolitionists began organizing groups for the settlement of Kansas. Meanwhile, largely proslavery western Missourians flooded into the state to oppose the Act, resulting in carnage on the border.

Kansas territory became difficult to govern due to the conflicting pro- and anti-slavery views, resulting in two separate governments within the state. Five years later, a single constitution was adopted, although the animosity and violence remained.

These events spurred tensions nationally due to the media’s portrayal of the atmosphere in Kansas and became the spark that helped to ignite the Civil War.

5 Banditos

In 1853, Joaquin Murieta became a legend to Mexican Americans living in California. Born in Mexico, Murieta immigrated to California in 1848 with the hopes of striking it rich during the Gold Rush.

However, his dreams of fortune were diminished upon the passing of the Foreign Miners Act and the Greaser Act, which disallowed Mexicans to mine for gold. In response, Murieta led a band of outlaws up and down the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys, robbing stagecoaches and gold miners.

A $6,000 bounty was offered by the state of California for Murieta’s capture, dead or alive. Led by Deputy Sheriff Harry Love, a team of 20 California Rangers searched the countryside for weeks. They captured Murieta’s brother-in-law, who led the rangers to Murieta’s whereabouts.

Attacking the campgrounds at dawn, the rangers killed eight of the bandits, including Murieta. Love claimed the $6,000 reward after he presented Murieta’s severed head, preserved in whiskey, to state officials.

4 The Pueblo Revolt

For three generations, Spanish explorers subjugated the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico, forcing them to abandon their religions, adopt Christianity, and pay tribute to Spanish rulers. The Pueblos’ sacramental objects were destroyed, their land seized, and their centers of worship demolished. Any resistance to Spanish rule was punishable by imprisonment, torture, amputation, and death.

In 1680, the Pueblos began an uprising to expel the Spanish from New Mexico. The Native Americans seized Spanish horses and blocked all roads leading to Santa Fe, isolating the northern part of the province from the southern part. They demanded that the Spanish leave and free Native American slaves.

But it was to no avail. This prompted an attack of nearly 500 Native Americans on Spanish settlements and missions. Many Spanish settlers escaped, fleeing south down the Camino Real. The Pueblos rejoiced in their newfound independence for 12 years. Then, on September 14, 1692, the Spaniards returned to reclaim Santa Fe.

3 The Battle At Picacho Peak

Led by Captain Sherod Hunter, Confederate Rangers set out for Tucson, Arizona, in February 1862 to establish a Confederate stronghold in the West. Meanwhile, in Fort Yuma, California, Union Colonel James H. Carleton ventured east to Tucson with his battalion to halt Captain Hunter’s advance.

On April 15, 1862, Union soldiers approached Picacho Peak, 80 kilometers (50 mi) northwest of Tucson, where they were ambushed by the waiting Confederate cavalry. The armies exchanged heavy fire until late afternoon, eventually forcing the Union soldiers to withdraw.

In the end, it was a victory for the Confederates. Although miniscule in comparison to the bloodshed in the East, the events that transpired in the desert that fateful afternoon marked the westernmost battle of the US Civil War.

2 Mountain Meadows Massacre

In southern Utah in 1857, 140 men, women, and children were shot, bludgeoned, and stabbed in an event known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Newspapers placed blame on Mormon settlers while Brigham Young, leader of the Mormon Church, openly blamed Native Americans for the atrocity.

The few people who did survive, all under age seven, stated that the perpetrators were white men. In addition, Mormons were witnessed wearing jewelry and clothing from the massacred victims. To restore order, President James Buchanan sent 2,500 soldiers into Salt Lake City, territory that Young had declared as independent from the United States.

Knowing federal troops were approaching, Young called for Mormons to prepare for the anticipated war between the church and the federal government. The Mormons set fire to the plains to halt the advancing army, attacked the supply lines, and burned Fort Bridger to the ground. With winter taking its toll on the starving soldiers, President Buchanan agreed to grant amnesty to the Mormons regarding all federal offenses, including murder, in return for peace and order.

1 1838 Smallpox

The fur trade in the Great Plains introduced smallpox to the Native American population in 1837, leaving them decimated and vulnerable to attacks by nomadic tribes.

The Native Americans had no immunity or treatment, so the disease killed nearly everyone infected. Those who contracted smallpox died within a few hours after experiencing excruciating pain. Nearly half decided to end their own misery with knives, guns, or leaps headfirst off cliffs.

Some attempted to escape the epidemic, dispersing into the Plains for refuge. Those who remained in their villages became easy prey for the virus and stood no chance of survival. There are few events in history of a disease killing so many within such a short period of time. The Mandan population fell from 1,800 to fewer than 100 and the Hidatsa and Arikara tribes were reduced by half between the summer and fall.

Adam is just a hubcap trying to hold on in the fast lane.

While the Wild West wasn’t quite the world of gunslingers and desperadoes portrayed in movies, it was still a dangerous place. With law enforcement often miles away, criminals flourished, and people were left to take matters into their own hands—often with terrifying results.

10The People Under The Floor

In 1870, a man was making his way through the lonely mountains of New Mexico when he came across a stout wood cabin tucked at the foot of the Palo Flechado pass. The owner introduced himself as Charles Kennedy and invited his new acquaintance inside for a meal.

As Kennedy’s Ute wife served dinner, the traveler sat next to the couple’s young son and asked if there were other Native Americans nearby. The boy looked back at him for a moment and then answered: “Can’t you smell the one Papa put under the floor?”

The unfortunate traveler had stumbled into the lair of one of the West’s most notorious killers. Charles Kennedy killed at least 14 people who stopped at his isolated homestead on their way through the pass. After shooting the traveler, Kennedy beat his son to death for nearly warning the man in time to escape.

The murder of their son was too much for Kennedy’s wife, who slipped out of the house while her husband was drunk and walked to Elizabethtown, where she made a full confession. After unearthing the grisly evidence, the townsfolk dragged Kennedy behind a horse until he died and then staked his severed head outside the local inn.

9Clay Allison’s War Dance

The leader of the mob that butchered Charles Kennedy was Clay Allison, a violent local vigilante who might have racked up a higher body count than the serial killer he beheaded. On one occasion, he tried to settle a petty dispute with a neighbor by digging a grave and proposing that they have a knife fight inside it, thus saving the effort of moving the loser’s body.

Allison gained notoriety as one of the deadliest participants in the Colfax County War, a massive land dispute that caused up to 200 murders. At the start of the war, Allison organized the lynching of a local constable he suspected was moonlighting as an assassin. When the dead man’s uncle came looking for revenge, Allison got the drop on him and shot him dead in the local saloon. He reportedly then stripped naked, tied a red ribbon around his penis, and did a “war dance” around the crime scene.

8The Going Snake Fight

Nobody’s certain exactly what caused the feud that left 11 men dead in Judge Blackhawk Sixkiller’s courtroom at Going Snake. Whatever it was, it came to a head in 1872, when Zeke Proctor rode up to Jim Kesterton’s mill and opened fire. The miller recovered from his wounds, but his wife, Polly Beck, was hit by a stray round and killed.

The murder took place in the Cherokee Nation, and Proctor and Beck were both Cherokee, so it seemed obvious that the case would be handled by the Cherokee courts. But Proctor came from a well-connected family and was a member of the powerful Keetoowah Society. As a result, the Becks argued that they couldn’t get a fair hearing in Indian Territory. They wanted the case transferred to the federal court at Fort Smith. When their request was rejected, a group of Becks burst into the courtroom and opened fire.

But things went wrong for the Becks, who found themselves crowded in the doorway of the windowless courtroom. Zeke Porter somehow produced a gun and fired back, as did several guards. The planned massacre turned into a nightmarish close-range battle. Eleven men died: seven Becks, two Proctors, a lawyer, and a US marshal. The participants quickly scattered, and nobody was ever convicted over the incident.

7The Crusade Of Felipe Espinosa

Felipe Espinosa was a petty criminal who deeply resented the movement of Anglo-American settlers into 19th-century Colorado. He was also a fanatical member of the Penitentes, a local Catholic brotherhood known for whipping themselves bloody and performing other acts of self-mutilation. When American soldiers tried to arrest him for banditry, Felipe declared his own personal war on the Protestant interlopers.

Accompanied by his brother Vivian, and later his nephew Jose, Felipe roamed through the mountains of Colorado, slaughtering every Anglo he came across. Some of the bodies were found with a cross carved into their chest. Felipe wrote taunting letters to the governor, telling him to inquire if anyone had ever “killed as many men as the Espinosas. We have killed thirty-two.” Despite a massive manhunt, which killed Vivian Espinosa, Felipe remained elusive. In a letter to his wife, he boasted:

They have hands and cannot touch me;
They have feet and cannot catch me;
They have eyes and cannot hear me;
They have ears and cannot hear me.

The desperate government finally hired the famed mountain man Tom Tobin, who tracked Felipe and Jose Espinosa through the Sangre de Cristos and personally killed both in a bloody battle near the summit of Mount Mestas. Tobin then returned to Fort Garland and collected his bounty by dumping Felipe Espinosa’s severed head in front of the shocked colonel who had hired him.

6The Cowboy Cop Of El Paso

In 1881, El Paso, Texas, hired the legendary gunfighter Dallas Stoudenmire as their new marshal. He successfully cleaned up the town, but only by launching a reign of terror in which he killed numerous locals in shoot-outs. It was said that he used the church bell for target practice and was often visibly drunk. When the town council tried to fire him, Stoudenmire charged in and dared them to try taking his guns.

Stoudenmire’s most famous gunfight took place just three days after taking the job. The “Four Dead in Five Seconds” fight started when a local ruffian named John Hale grabbed a gun from his friend George Campbell and killed one of Stoudenmire’s constables. Stoudenmire immediately whipped out his own pistols and gunned down Hale, a random bystander, and Campbell (who was loudly shouting that he wanted nothing to do with the fight).

Campbell had been good friends with the wealthy Manning brothers, who hired a man named Bill Johnson to assassinate Stoudenmire in revenge. Unfortunately for Johnson, he discharged his shotgun early, allowing Stoudenmire to whirl around and shoot his testicles off. He quickly bled to death, and Stoudenmire remained in El Paso until he died in a shoot-out with the Manning brothers 18 months later.

5The Horrible Horrells

The Horrell Brothers were a nightmarish family of cowboys who carried out some of the Old West’s worst atrocities. In 1873, they murdered five policemen in a Texas bar and fled to Lincoln County, New Mexico. Shortly after they arrived, Ben Horrell drunkenly gunned down yet another lawman, only to be murdered in turn by a local posse. Ben’s killers were mostly of Mexican descent and the remaining Horrells decided to take revenge on the entire Hispanic community.

The ensuing race war started with the murder of two Mexican Americans on the Horrell ranch. A few weeks later, the Horrells burst into a wedding reception and killed four guests. Local Hispanics armed themselves and seized the hills surrounding the Horrell property, but the Horrells withstood a short siege and escaped before the ranch was burned to the ground. Recruiting a gang of Texans, they rode through the country massacring random Mexicans (and at least one Anglo with a Mexican wife).

The killings ended when local authorities requested military assistance and the Horrells fled back to Texas. Official estimates say at least 29 people died in the “war.”

4The Horrell-Higgins Feud

After returning to Lampasas, Texas, the Horrells secured a jury of their old cronies and were promptly acquitted of the New Mexico murders. But the crimes would catch up with them in a way. In 1877, Merritt Horrell died in a barfight with rancher “Pink” Higgins. Since everyone remembered the massacres triggered by Ben Horrell’s death, the terrified Higgins family decided that they had no option but to strike first.

In March, the Higgins clan ambushed Tom and Mart Horrell on their way to court. But they were no match for a hardened killer like Mart Horrell, who stood over his wounded brother and single-handedly drove off the attackers. By June, Lampasas had become a miniature war zone, as the feuding families battled each other through the town.

The Texas Rangers ended the feud by forcing the clans to sign a “peace treaty.” Astonishingly, the Horrells were allowed to continue their criminal ways for another year, until Mart and Tom were murdered by an enraged mob, apparently incited by Pink Higgins.

3The Bascom Incident

In 1860, the inexperienced Lieutenant George Bascom was ordered to retrieve a young boy who had been kidnapped in a Native American raid. Bascom wrongly believed the Chiricahua Apache were responsible and rode off to find their leader, Cochise. Meanwhile, Cochise had no idea he was being hunted and simply rode into Bascom’s camp for a visit one day, accompanied by his wife and son.

A ridiculous conversation followed, with Bascom making all sorts of threats unless the boy was returned immediately, and a frustrated Cochise insisting that he didn’t have the boy and therefore couldn’t return him. Bascom then announced that he was taking Cochise and his family prisoner, at which point Cochise whipped out a knife, sliced through the side of the tent, and sprinted out of the camp with bullets whizzing around him.

Bascom still had Cochise’s wife and son hostage, so the Apaches attacked a wagon train, tortured eight Mexicans to death, and kidnapped four Americans as bargaining chips. However, Bascom stubbornly refused to make the trade unless the kidnapped boy was included. In a fury, Cochise slaughtered his hostages and retreated. After some consultation, the Americans hanged most of their own hostages and likewise retreated. The ensuing war lasted a decade and killed thousands.

2The Death Of Mangas Coloradas

The brutality of the war sparked by the Bascom Incident can be seen in the death of Mangas Coloradas. While the American Civil War raged, the Apaches drove white settlers out of most of southern Arizona. However, reinforcements began arriving as the war in the east wound down and it became clear that the Apaches couldn’t hold out forever. Cochise’s father-in-law, the great chief Mangas Coloradas, decided to try to negotiate peace.

When the chief rode up with a flag of truce, General Joseph West immediately had him arrested. He then took the guards aside and told them that the “old murderer . . . has left a trail of blood for 500 miles on the old stage line. I want him dead or alive tomorrow morning, do you understand? I want him dead.”

That night, the guards entered the room where the chief was being held, tortured him with red hot bayonets, scalped him with a cooking knife, and then shot him dead “while trying to escape.” The war would rage for several more years.

1Papa Nicetas

In 1870, four people settled in Labette County, Kansas, not far from where a young Laura Ingalls Wilder lived with her parents. They called themselves the Benders and claimed to be a family, although the exact nature of their relationship would later be questioned. Ma and Pa Bender spoke only German, but their children were fluent in English, and the family soon turned their one-bedroom shack into a small inn. They were rumored to practice magic, and Kate Bender became popular locally as a fortune teller and spiritualist.

In the years that followed, settlers began to vanish while traveling through Labette County. Body parts began to turn up in the countryside, but nobody knew who to blame. Eventually, the locals held a meeting and agreed to form a party to search every house in the area, but this was delayed by bad weather. When the party finally reached the Bender place, the family were long gone.

Underneath the bed, a trapdoor led to a secret basement, where the floor was stained with blood. Eight bodies were found buried in the garden, each with a cut throat and a smashed skull. The Benders were never found, and it’s unknown how many more victims they claimed over the years.

The Wild West of the late 1800s and the turn of the next century was a land with loose laws, big egos, and, of course, adventure. It attracted fiery individuals, with spirits as wild as the terrain, who left colorful pages in history. It was a place where rebellious women roamed free and pushed all the envelopes ever made for the fairer sex. These 10 women reveled in the freedom of the frontier and led lives in a way that still has us talking about them today.

10 Calamity Jane

Born: Martha Jane Cannary
Lived: May 1, 1852–August 1, 1903
Areas: Wyoming, Utah, Arizona

Calamity Jane is perhaps the most famous of the wild women of the West and for good reason. She pretty much did it all when it comes to the things that brought these women notoriety. She skillfully shot a gun, told tall tales, dabbled in prostitution, committed hefty crimes, and drank—a lot.

Besides her reputation as a drunken outlaw, Calamity Jane was known for her generous heart. She and her siblings were orphaned when Jane was 14, and she took it upon herself to care for them.

This responsibility helped to shape her into a true enigma.^[1] While one of her earliest-known careers was as a dance hall girl, she also became famous for wearing men’s clothing and riding alongside the roughest cowboys on whatever work or action she could find.

Jane ended up with a plethora of careers, including a short stint as a storyteller in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. However, none of these careers lasted long due to Jane’s unfortunate chronic alcoholism.

Like many of the notable characters from the Wild West, Jane was unashamed about telling a fib. She is known for being a sidekick of Wild Bill Hickok and bragged about their friendship until the day she died. However, many who knew them both said that Jane was, in fact, obsessed with Bill rather than having a true partnership or friendship with him.

Although she was buried next to him, his friends said at the time that the location of the burial was a joke on Hickok. He was rumored to have said that he had “absolutely no use” for Jane.

9 Big Nose Kate

Born: Maria Katalin Horony
Lived: November 7, 1850–November 2, 1940
Areas: Arizona, Texas

Known primarily for being the longtime companion of Doc Holliday, Big Nose Kate was an indomitable woman to be reckoned with.

Kate’s family emigrated from Hungary to Iowa when she was 10 years old. Tragically, the roughness of the frontier left Kate and her siblings orphaned only three years later. In true outlaw fashion, she ran away from her foster home at age 15 and became a stowaway on a riverboat headed for St. Louis.

She proceeded to dabble in various careers and move around until meeting Doc Holliday in Texas in 1877. History, in fact, would not be the same without Kate, as she was the one who introduced Doc Holliday to Wyatt Earp.^[2] Kate and Doc moved to Tombstone, Arizona, with Wyatt and his brothers in 1880, and the rest is history.

Her legacy continues to this day. A Tombstone saloon named in her honor is still one of the best cowboy bars in the entire area.

8 Poker Alice

Born: Alice Ivers
Lived: February 17, 1851–February 27, 1930
Areas: Colorado, South Dakota

Perhaps even more than today, the Wild West was a place where women were given permission to experiment with careers not normally seen as fit for women. Alice Ivers embraced a career as a poker player, a profession still largely dominated by men.

Alice was born in England to conservative parents in 1851. Her father had the wanderlust bug of the age and relocated the family to Colorado. Alice seems to have caught the ailment herself as she fled her family at a young age to marry her first husband, Frank Duffield. This bold act would change the course of Alice’s life forever as Frank was a poker enthusiast, to say the least.

Preferring to accompany her husband out at night, she sat at the tables behind him while he played. When he died in a mining accident a few years into the marriage, Alice took up gambling^[3] herself. This led to another interesting Wild West crossover: She made big bucks playing at a bar in Colorado owned by Bob Ford, the man who killed Jesse James.

Alice was known to use her skills to finance a lavish lifestyle and made a show of heading to New York City with large earnings to stock up on the couture fashions of the day. She was also exceptionally shrewd as a professional gambler. It is widely believed that she married her last husband rather than pay off a large gaming debt she owed him.

Humorously, it is reported that Alice refused to play on Sundays despite her nontraditional ways. However, she was still arrested several times for running girls, bootlegging, and public drunkenness.

7 Belle Starr

Born: Myra Maybelle Shirley
Lived: February 5, 1848 – February 3, 1889
Areas: Missouri, Texas

Belle Starr was destined to live a life rubbing shoulders with notable outlaws. She was childhood friends with both the James brothers and the Younger brothers (of the Younger Gang), all native to Missouri. All the families eventually ended up in Texas, where their bonds were strengthened.

In time, Belle married a Cherokee man named Sam Starr who was addicted to a life of crime and could not tolerate traditional employment. During their marriage, Belle became skilled as an organizer for local cowboy gangs, providing refuge for fugitives, bootleggers, and thieves. She was well-known for her class, always riding sidesaddle and in her best black velvet. Belle loved the outlaw life and only quit after Sam was gunned down.

She lived the rest of her life attempting to have less notoriety. Her cause of death, two days before her 41st birthday, remains a mystery with several colorful theories.

At the time, it was reported that Belle was ambushed^[4] on her way home from a neighbor’s house late at night. Some believe that she had come from a dance and was killed by a rebuffed attendee with whom she had refused to dance. Still others believe that it was her own son who committed the murder in a fit of adolescent rage.

6 Sally Scull

Born: Sarah Jane Newman
Lived: c. 1817–Unknown Date of Death
Areas: Texas

Sally Scull loved to shoot, loved to intimidate those around her, and loved to marry. She perhaps attracted so many suitors because she intrigued everyone she met. She played poker, was a good shot, and could ride a horse. Sally could also lasso as well as any man and better than many. She combined this with a strong taste for men and must have been a striking and unforgettable woman to encounter.

Sally learned to be brave, bold, and fierce as a young girl growing up in Comanche territory. One famous story recalls her mother chopping off the toes^[5] of a local Native American who was trying to break into their home. By the time the family moved to Texas a few years later, Sally had learned to be a quick draw and a skilled horsewoman.

Sally became famous for her skills as what we now call a cowgirl. But her legacy has perhaps survived because of her five husbands and her involvement in the deaths of two of them. In one instance, Sally reportedly fired in shock at her current husband after he poured ice water over her head to wake her one morning.

In another case, her husband and the horse on which he was riding met their deaths when a strong river current overcame them. Rather than expressing any grief, Sally famously said that she wished her husband’s belt buckle had been saved so she could retrieve the $40 it was worth.

Given her abilities and knowledge of the area, Sally was the perfect person to help the Confederacy during the Civil War. She seems to have stayed busy and profited from transporting cotton during those years.

Following the war, her trail runs cold. It is not even known when or how she died. Had she been born a decade later, she could have built a career as an outlaw or frontierswoman. Nonetheless, she still left quite a legacy.

5 Laura Bullion

Lived: October 1876–December 2, 1961
Areas: Texas, Tennessee, Missouri

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree with this wild woman. Laura Bullion came from a family who lived on the edge. Her father was a bank robber who was friends with Wild Bunch gang member Ben Kilpatrick (aka “The Tall Texan”), and her uncle was a train robber. Needless to say, her family life was less than stable and she left home at age 15 to make her own way.

As with many infamous female outlaws of this age, Laura started her career of crime as a prostitute. Sadly, she began very early and retired around age 17 when she transferred to robberies with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. She was likely welcomed into the group because of her father’s connections, and she did, in fact, become romantically involved with Kilpatrick for a time.

Laura is known to have participated in many heists^[6] with the Wild Bunch. She is believed to have been involved with many more because she often dressed in men’s clothing and may have gone unrecognized. As with many other outlaws, Laura retreated into a life of traditional employment and a low-profile existence after she was released from prison.

Perhaps most notably, prior to her death, Laura was one of only three people believed to know the true identity of Etta Place, a secret that she happily took to her grave.

4 Etta Place

Lived: 1878–Unknown Date of Death
Areas: Utah, Argentina, California

No list of female Wild West outlaws would be complete without at least a mention of Etta Place, the mysterious companion to Harry Longabaugh (aka “the Sundance Kid“). The two were so devoted to each other that she was the only person to flee the country with him and Butch Cassidy and the only woman to stay with a member of the Wild Bunch as long as she did. At the same time, few people from recent history can claim such notoriety and mystery.

Despite Etta being one of the only women to have penetrated the inner circle of the gang and stay with them long-term, little is known about her life before or after her relationship with Longabaugh. It is widely believed that she met the Sundance Kid while working as a prostitute, possibly in Utah, and that the two eventually became devoted companions. When Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid escaped to South America in 1901, Etta was at their side.^[7]

There are at least half a dozen theories about Etta after she parted ways with Longabaugh, most of them involving Etta living as a prostitute or outlaw. It is known that she lived in San Francisco in 1907, at least for a little while, but the trail runs cold after that. Estimations about her date of death range from 1922 to 1966. Now that’s one wild woman with a talent for mystique!

3 Pearl Hart

Born: Pearl Taylor
Lived: 1871–Unknown Date of Death
Areas: Missouri, Arizona

The success of train robbers in the Wild West was lucrative but short-lived. Pearl Hart, besides earning a name as a female gang member, is also famous for being involved in the last of such recorded robberies.

Pearl was a true rebel. Born into a well-to-do family, she eloped at age 16 with an abusive alcoholic with whom she had an on-again, off-again relationship until 1893. Then she discovered Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and became infatuated with the cowboy life.

In 1898, she ended up in Phoenix running a tent brothel. When the nearby mine closed, she and a male cohort decided to rob a stagecoach for funds. She cut her hair short and dressed in men’s clothing to commit the crime.

The pair was quickly arrested and ultimately acquitted. (Pearl’s passionate plea to the jury that she needed the money to care for her elderly mother actually worked.) But she was arrested^[8] and convicted a short time later for mail tampering.

Pearl had evidently learned a thing or two about using her female charms to her advantage. She used her notoriety to finagle a comfortable stay during her five years in prison. Not only was she granted a comfy mountainside suite, it came complete with an outdoor yard. She was also allowed to visit with the public and pose for photos (for which she received compensation).

Pearl was pardoned in 1902. While the reasons remain unknown, many believed that it was because she became pregnant and the authorities wanted to keep the circumstances secret. She was given a ticket to Kansas City, Missouri, and proceeded to dabble in various careers, even going full circle and working anonymously as a storyteller for Buffalo Bill’s show.

2 Fannie Porter

Lived: February 12, 1873–January 1, 1940
Areas: San Antonio

When it came to the famous outlaws of the Wild West, Fannie Porter rubbed shoulders with them all. However, it was not as a fellow outlaw or lover that she knew them. It was because she owned a brothel that most of them frequented over the years.

As with many of the frontier women who dabbled in prostitution, Fannie started her career at a young age—15 years old. By age 20, she had already become known for her business acumen as a high-end brothel owner, running one of the cleanest, safest, and classiest establishments in Texas.

Fannie didn’t just supply outlaws with short-term company. Many of her “girls,” as she referred to them, became lovers and companions to the most famous Wild West figures.

Until becoming the girlfriend and accomplice to Kid Curry, Della Moore worked at the brothel. She returned after the relationship ended. Lillie Davis was a companion to Will “News” Carver of the Wild Bunch and claimed to have even married him before he died.

Most famously, the mysterious Etta Place is believed by many to have met the Sundance Kid while she was working for Fanny (rather than in a brothel in Utah). However, this has not been confirmed.

As the outlaws disappeared into obscurity and the Golden Age of the Wild West came to an end, Fannie also faded from the public eye. Some say she retired rich,^[9] some say she married rich, and some say she returned to England to live well. Whatever the case, many famous outlaws have her to thank for introductions of the most provocative type.

1 Lottie Deno

Born: Carlotta J. Thompkins
Lived: April 21, 1844–February 9, 1934
Areas: Texas, New Mexico

Born Carlotta J. Thompkins, this wild woman was so skilled at poker that she was eventually given the name “Deno,” which was a shortened version of dinero (“money”). Unlike many women who made names for themselves living on the edge of the law during this time, Carlotta was from a wealthy family and from parents who gave her ample care and affection.

She learned to play cards by spending time with her father, a successful gambler and horse breeder. After he was killed in the Civil War, Lottie began her own career at the poker table.^[10]

She quickly added fugitive-companion to her resume when she fell in love with Frank Thurmond, also a professional gambler. He was accused of murder, and the two of them went on the lam, happily using poker to support their lifestyle.

The pair ended up in Fort Griffin, a quintessential cowboy town, and became friends with Doc Holliday. Fearful of being caught, Lottie and Frank hid their relationship until they were married years later. In Fort Griffin, Lottie’s fame grew as a poker player who was not to be challenged. She became the subject of songs, paintings, novels, and numerous short stories.

Lottie and Frank were a couple with their eyes on the big picture. They eventually married in 1880, used their savings to invest in a number of legit businesses, and settled in New Mexico. There, they became leaders in their community. Their later life found Frank as the vice president of a bank and Lottie as the cofounder of a hospital.

Janice Formichella is an American-born traveler of the world currently residing in Bali, Indonesia. She loves history, gin, girl talk, her bullet journal, and a good list. You can follow Janice and her adventures on Twitter and on Instagram.

Thanks mostly to Hollywood, many Wild West outlaws have reached folk hero status. Even today, people know gangs like the Wild Bunch, the Dalton Gang, or Billy the Kid and his Regulators, and their reputations are such that many would tremble at the thought of going back in time and meeting any of them in person.

But history doesn’t treat everyone equally. When some figures are pushed to the front, others are necessarily relegated to the background. These next entries are not well-remembered today, but their exploits formed a fascinating contribution to the lore of the Wild West.

10 The Rio Grande Posse

The Rio Grande Posse, active during the 1870s and 1880s, was also known as the John Kinney Gang after its founder and leader. Kinney, a military man, was discharged from the US Army in 1865 and started his gang, focusing primarily on cattle rustling and robbery. The gang contained members who would go on to become more prominent figures of the Wild West. They included Jesse Evans, who went on to form his own gang, and Charles “Pony Diehl” Ray, who later joined Curly Bill Brocius during his famous fights against the Earp brothers.^[1]

The Kinney Gang’s defining moment came in 1878, when it took part in the Lincoln County War, fighting against Billy the Kid and his Regulators. According to legend, Kinney got part of his ear shot off by Billy during a gunfight. When the feud was over, some of the men stayed with Kinney, while others broke off and joined Evans’s new gang.

The end of the posse came in 1883, when Kinney was arrested for cattle rustling. By the time he was released, everyone else was either dead or in jail. Kinney avoided returning to a life of crime and instead joined the Army again during the Spanish-American War.

9 The Bummers

While most of the West’s infamous groups made a name for themselves through cattle rustling, robberies, and gunfights, the Colorado Territory was plagued by a less ambitious bunch. They were a group of lowlifes, losers, and layabouts known as the Bummers, headed by Eddie “Shooter” Coleman.

They mostly targeted a mining settlement called Auraria, today a part of Denver. The Bummers usually resorted to petty theft and vandalism, taking advantage of the fact that the territory had not been incorporated yet and lacked any official law enforcement. At night, they would get loud, drunk, and rambunctious, firing their guns in the air as a display of intimidation toward the law-abiding citizens of the town.

Eventually, the Bummers went too far. Over the Christmas holiday of 1859, the ne’er-do-wells stole a farmer’s wagon full of birds intended for Christmas dinners, triggering the colorfully named Turkey War.^[2] The townsfolk had finally had enough and gathered a vigilante posse. The two groups clashed. One Bummer was killed during the fight, and a few more were promptly lynched. The rest of the gang got the message—they left town and went their separate ways.

8 The Innocents

The Innocents were either the most vicious, bloodthirsty gang in the history of the Old West or patsies who were used by an equally bloodthirsty group of vigilantes. It all depends on who you ask.

First, the official version: The Innocents were a group of highwaymen active throughout the Montana Territory during the gold rush, preying on travelers carrying gold between cities. They were led by a corrupt sheriff named Henry Plummer and had killed over 100 people before they were stopped by a vigilante group. Most of the Innocents, sheriff included, wound up hanging from trees following brief trials or, in some cases, no trials at all.

That was the official story for over a century, but historians in recent decades began to question if the Innocents were such a prolific gang or, indeed, if they existed at all. There are records of multiple gold robberies and murders during that time, but little evidence connects them together, let alone implicates one single gang. The dozens of alleged victims of the Innocents were cut into pieces and buried, burned, or dumped under ice, but none of them were found. Neither was their stolen treasure.

The official story was believed for so long because it came from a reputable source. Many of the vigilantes became prominent figures of Montana’s early years as a state. This included Thomas Dimsdale, Montana’s first newspaper editor and the author of The Vigilantes of Montana.^[3]

People’s opinions of the Innocents were exemplified perfectly by Sheriff Henry Plummer’s posthumous trial in 1993. The verdict split 6-6, ending in a mistrial.

7 The Jennings Gang

The Jennings Gang was proof that, even in the Wild West, not everyone was cut out for a life of crime. Formed by lawyers-turned-criminals Al (pictured above) and Frank Jennings, the eponymous gang was initially feared because it also included former Wild Bunch member Richard “Little Dick” West. However, the gang’s short-lived criminal career only spanned a few months in 1897.

Active in Oklahoma, they tried to rob a few trains, stores, and a post office, but none of their heists proved financially fruitful. One general store only had $15, and during one train robbery, they blew up an empty safe. Given their criminal incompetence, the gang was soon arrested. Only “Little Dick” managed to escape, and he died in a gunfight a year later.

More interesting was Al Jennings’s career following his five-year stint in jail. After receiving a presidential pardon in 1907, Jennings got into politics and successfully won the Democratic nomination for Oklahoma County attorney in 1912. He ran on a platform of honesty, openly talking about his criminal past.

While Jennings didn’t win, he attracted the attention of Hollywood and launched his fourth career as a silent film actor. His filmography included two dozen acting credits, including a starring role in a 1914 biopic about his life titled Beating Back. Jennings put his newfound popularity to good use and ran for governor Oklahoma. He finished third out of six in the Democratic primaries.^[4]

6 The Red Jack Gang

The Red Jack Gang was active in the early 1880s, targeting stagecoaches along the San Pedro River in Arizona. The leader was “Red Jack” Almer, noted for his ginger hair and pale complexion, which gave him a youthful, almost feminine appearance.

Although the gang pulled off several successful heists, their most memorable haul came on August 10, 1883, when they robbed a Florence-Globe Stagecoach carrying a Wells Fargo strongbox holding a fortune in gold. Prior to the robbery, Almer got on the stagecoach as a passenger to ensure it was transporting valuable loot. Conflicting reports say that he either got off before the robbery or stayed on and somehow signaled his partners. According to one colorful legend, Red Jack also took advantage of his appearance by wearing a dress and disguising himself as a woman to deflect suspicion.^[5]

Whatever the truth might be, the gang made off with thousands of dollars in gold, which was never recovered. However, their exploits also put the law on their trail, and several posses tracked them down one by one. Almer himself was killed in a gunfight by Earp associate Sheriff Bob Paul.

5 The Ketchum Gang

Tom “Black Jack” Ketchum (pictured above) started out his criminal career with his older brother, Sam, in the mid-1890s. The two were rumored to have been behind the 1896 disappearance and presumed murder of Texas senator Albert Fountain and his eight-year-old son, Henry. The brothers were involved in a bloody shootout that same year after robbing a store. The owner, Levi Herzstein, rounded up a small four-man posse and pursued the criminals. A gunfight ensued, in which Levi and a companion were killed, and the other two barely escaped with their lives.^[6]

As the Ketchum Gang grew, they began targeting trains and stagecoaches. By this point, the gang included several prominent outlaws who would go on to join Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, such as Ben “Tall Texan” Kilpatrick and Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan.

In 1899, the gang, led by Sam Ketchum, robbed a train without Tom. Although successful, they were pursued by a posse and engaged in a gunfight where several members were either killed or fatally injured, including Sam.

Shortly thereafter, Black Jack tried to rob a train single-handedly. However, the conductor recognized him and blew off his right arm with a shotgun blast. Afterward, Ketchum was captured and arrested. The violent man met a fittingly violent end. His hanging was botched, and Ketchum was decapitated in front of a shocked audience.

4 The Dodge City Gang

Unlike other entries on this list, the Dodge City Gang had high aspirations and aimed to dominate the political and economic life of a booming Las Vegas, New Mexico, through corruption, intimidation, and violence.

The gang was active for a few months in 1879. It was mostly composed of gunslingers who fought together during Railroad Wars in New Mexico. The leader was Hyman Neill, also known as Hoodoo Brown.^[7] He parlayed his reputation as a gunfighter into a position as justice of the peace with the promise of stamping out corruption. Instead, he installed his fellow gunslingers into positions of law enforcement. Joe Carson, “Mysterious” Dave Mather, and Dave Rudabaugh became chief of police, deputy marshal, and policeman, respectively.

Carson was soon killed in a shoot-out. Despite their successful positions, the gang members couldn’t refrain from the occasional robbery. Eventually, a deputy named John Sherman assembled enough honest men to catch the criminals in the act. Most of them were arrested. Mather was acquitted and went on to build a fearsome reputation as a gunfighter before vanishing from the history books. Although Hoodoo Brown didn’t take part in the robbery, the people knew he was involved, and an angry mob ran him out of town.

3 The Jack Taylor Gang

Active throughout the Arizona Territory and Mexico during the mid-1880s, the Jack Taylor Gang gained a fearsome reputation for being cruel and quick to draw. They once murdered four passengers during a single train robbery and four more train crew members on different occasions.

The beginning of the end for the gang came in 1887, in Mexico, when the eponymous leader was captured by Rurales and sentenced to life in prison.^[8] The rest of the gang returned to Arizona. However, this brought them under the purview of Cochise County sheriff “Texas” John Slaughter, who was tipped off to their presence, swiftly rounded up a posse, and went in pursuit.

There were four members left: Manuel Robles, Fred Federico, Geronimo Miranda, and Nieves Deron. Foolishly, they thought they could hide out with relatives and visited Robles’ brother in Contention City. Slaughter learned of this and stormed the house where Deron and Robles were sleeping, prompting a gunfight. Deron was killed, and Robles, although shot, managed to escape and rendezvous with Miranda and Federico later. The men left Arizona and moved again into Mexican territory.

All three remaining members of the Jack Taylor Gang met their end later that year. Robles and Miranda both died in a shootout with the Mexican Rurales. Federico shot a deputy sheriff and was captured and hanged soon after.

2 The McCanles Gang

The event that took place on July 21, 1861, at Rock Creek Station, Nebraska, became known as the McCanles Massacre. According to certain accounts, three men acted in self-defense against a ruthless gang looking to start trouble. Others, however, contend that the McCanles Gang never really existed and that those same three men committed cold-blooded murder to get out of a debt. Whatever the truth might be, the shootout helped start the legend of Wild Bill Hickok.

David McCanles (pictured above) owned the property that the Rock Street Station was built on and where a then-unknown James Butler Hickok worked as a stock tender. According to the popular story, he was also a ruthless outlaw who terrorized the region with his gang. On that fateful day, McCanles and two of his men, James Woods and James Gordon, came to collect payment from the station manager, Horace Wellman. When the manager didn’t have the full sum, McCanles turned violent and tried to kill him.

Luckily for Wellman, Hickok and another stock tender named Brink were present and jumped to his aid. In the ensuing shootout, McCanles and his two henchmen were gunned down. Hickok was later charged with murder but acquitted.

There’s another version of the story, one told by McCanles’s 12-year-old son Monroe, who was there but wasn’t allowed to testify due to his age.^[9] He claimed his father and his men came unarmed and were gunned down without provocation by Hickok, Wellman, and Brink. Wellman then tried to kill Monroe with a hoe but missed, and the boy managed to make a run for it.

1 The Reynolds Gang

The true nature of the Reynolds Gang is disputed, but few would argue against the fact that they had a fascinating history mostly forgotten today. They were Confederate soldiers who became outlaws, targeting the Colorado Territory. Led by Jim and John Reynolds, they primarily robbed coaches passing through the Kenosha Pass and weren’t above shedding blood from time to time.

Some historians contend that the gang remained loyal to the Confederacy. They were under military orders to disrupt Union supply lines, and the stolen money was to be saved and sent back to the Confederate Army. Whatever the real story, people eventually had enough and formed a posse. They caught up to the gang on July 31, 1864, and a gunfight ensued. One outlaw died, and five others were captured shortly. Only John Reynolds and Jack Stowe managed to escape into New Mexico.^[10]

Afterward came another bit of controversy. The official story said that the prisoners were gunned down during a failed escape attempt. However, an inquiry by Confederate sympathizers revealed that the men were chained to a tree and executed under the orders of Colonel Chivington, the same man who orchestrated the Sand Creek Massacre.

Fast-forward seven years, and John Reynolds was partnered with a man named Al Brown. After being fatally injured during a gunfight, Reynolds allegedly told Brown where he buried the money stolen with his gang. Brown traveled to Mount Logan but was unable to find the loot due to a landslide altering the landscape. Since then, treasure hunters have been eagerly searching the area, hoping to uncover Reynolds’s lost treasure.

In the days of the frontiersmen, the line between wild and west often became blurred, with people switching and re-switching sides so frequently that it was difficult to tell who was the lawman and who was the outlaw. Outlaws often became bounty hunters to bring in extra money, and many were appointed as sheriffs by communities on the premise that it takes one to know one.

There were, perhaps, a few upstanding citizen sheriffs in white hats, but not many made it to the history books—probably because they didn’t last very long. Those whose names are remembered today often weren’t entirely aboveboard. Here are ten lawmen who gave the outlaws as good as they got.

10 Bill Tilghman

Bill Tilghman was born in Iowa but moved to Kansas. When he was still a young man, Tilghman became a hunter, and he claimed to have killed 12,000 bison in only five years, much to the annoyance of the local Native Americans, for whom this meant food. During an exchange in September 1872, Tilghman is said to have killed seven Cheyenne braves. It wasn’t his only scrape with the law. Two years later, he just barely escaped being lynched after he was accused of murdering a man in Granada, Colorado.^[1]

In 1875, he opened a saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, and in 1878, he became the town’s deputy sheriff. He is said to have collected more rewards for bringing in outlaws than anyone else. During his time as sheriff, he was accused of corruption and selling whiskey to the Native Americans. He was also arrested several times for running a brothel and facilitating gambling.

Tilgham was shot on November 1, 1924, while trying to arrest a corrupt Prohibition officer. Karma?

9 William Davis ‘Dave’ Allison

Dave Allison was appointed sheriff 1888 in Midland, Texas, at the tender age of 27. He remained as sheriff until 1903, when he joined the Arizona Rangers. In Arizona, he shot and killed a criminal with the wonderful name of “Three Fingered Jack” in a shoot-out. Allison is best known, however, for leading the posse that captured and killed the Mexican revolutionary-turned-outlaw Pascual Orozco in 1915. Allison is said to have been “the most noted gunman in Texas.”

Allison was, however, also said to have a serious gambling problem, and there were several accusations made against him regarding the misappropriation of money. At these times, Allison moved swiftly to another position in another town, albeit always working as a lawman. This was, presumably, a “no references required” kind of job.^[2]

Allison, along with a colleague, was killed by a pair of cattle thieves whom they were preparing to testify against. They were sitting, unarmed, in the lobby of a hotel, when the gunmen burst in and shot them.

8 Harry Wheeler

Harry C. Wheeler had a variety of jobs before he was appointed the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, including, in 1907, protecting striking miners from thugs hired by their employers. He was considered a “friend of labor,” and his popularity in the town grew.

However, ten years later, when he was sheriff, he deputized and armed 2,000 men and sent them out at dawn to arrest striking miners while he supervised the proceedings with a machine gun. In total 1,185 miners were arrested, loaded onto cattle trucks, and transported into the New Mexico desert, where they were abandoned. Wheeler was indicted, along with 224 of his deputies, on charges of kidnapping, though these were later dropped.

One of Wheeler’s most notable exploits was a rock fight with a man who had been stalking an ex-girlfriend. Wheeler heard about the man’s threat to kill the girl and her new husband and went to arrest him. The stalker, J.A. Tracy, fired a shot which missed so narrowly that bullet went through Wheeler’s coat. Both men exchanged gunfire. Wheeler was shot in the thigh, while Tracy was shot four times. Feigning an empty gun, Tracy pretended to give himself up, and then shot at Wheeler twice more. However, he wasn’t a very good marksman and only ended up hitting Wheeler once in the foot.

Being out of bullets himself, Wheeler resorted to heaving rocks at Tracy until the latter’s wounds overcame him. Astonishingly, Tracy was not arrested for his actions, and the two men shook hands before Wheeler put him on a train to Tuscon, which was unfortunate because Tracy was wanted for murder in Nevada. However, Tracy’s injuries were such that he died on the train. Wheeler collected the reward money, which was $500, but gave it to the widow of one of Tracy’s victims.^[3]

7 Heck Thomas

Henry Andrew Thomas, commonly known as “Heck,” apprehended some of the most notorious outlaws of the Wild West, including members of the Dalton Gang and the Doolin Gang. He began his working life serving as a courier in the Civil War in Virginia when he was just 12 years old. He joined the police force at the age of 17 in Atlanta and soon began to make a name for himself as a fearless fighter.

In 1875, he moved to Texas. In 1878, he was in charge of protecting the railroads when the Sam Bass Gang tried to rob a train. Thomas was injured during the shoot-out, but his quick thinking ensured that the gang got away with nothing; he had moved the valuables to an unlit stove and filled the safe with decoy parcels.^[4]

In 1896, Thomas led a posse that tracked down the Doolin Gang, which had been robbing trains and banks in Kansas. They caught the leader of the gang, Bill Doolin, after a long pursuit, fatally wounding Doolin after the robber tried to shoot his way out.

Heck Thomas was responsible for arresting over 300 wanted men. He once collected 41 prisoners in a single episode. He was wounded at least six times during his gunfights but managed to live long enough to retire from the force.

6 John Reynolds Hughes

In May 1886, John Reynolds Hughes (seated on the right above) set out to discover who had stolen horses from his and his neighbors’ ranches. He trailed them for close to a year before coming upon them in New Mexico. He killed some of the horse thieves and captured the rest before returning the horses to his neighbors. The exploit earned the attention of the Texas Rangers, who persuaded him to join up.

Hughes served as a Texas Ranger for 28 years. When his captain was killed by bandits in 1893, Hughes was named as his successor. His first act as captain was to take a group of his men to search the border until they found, and killed, all those responsible for the death.^[5]

5 John Hicks Adams

John Hicks Adams was a bona fide forty-niner. In 1849, he left his home in Illinois for California as soon as news of the Gold Rush reached him and remained for two years until moving to Santa Clara County with his family to settle on a farm. He was elected sheriff in 1863 and was involved in the pursuit and capture of Tiburcio Vasquez, a notorious bandit and horse thief.

His interest in gold never waned, and he is credited with making the first exploration of Lake Tahoe.^[6] In 1878, Adams was killed in Arizona while prospecting for gold. The suspects escaped to Mexico and were never tried for his murder. However, they were all later killed by an unidentified posse.

4 John Armstrong

John Barclay Armstrong moved to Austin, Texas, in 1871. He joined the Texas Rangers in 1875 and took part in the Las Cuevas War. Armstrong was a member of Captain Leander McNelly’s Special Forces, which, like all special forces, operated on a “Shoot now; ask questions later” policy.

Among his many exploits was his capture of John Wesley Hardin. Hardin, a notorious outlaw said to have once killed a man for snoring too loudly, was wanted for the murder of Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb. At the time, Armstrong was recovering from a gunshot wound and needed to walk with the aid of a cane, but he still volunteered to help track Hardin down.

After receiving information as to Hardin’s whereabouts, Armstrong and his men went in pursuit. They tracked him onto a train in Florida, and as the train pulled into a station, Armstrong entered the coach. Seeing only a man with a cane, Hardin did not reach for the gun hanging from the luggage rack above his head, which was a mistake. Armstrong suddenly switched his cane to his left hand and drew his gun, confronting not only Hardin but also four members of his gang. One of the gang members opened fire, and Armstrong killed him instantly before hitting Hardin over the head and knocking him unconscious.^[7]

3 Henry Newton Brown

Henry Newton Brown was a classic example of a poacher-turned-gamekeeper. He had once ridden with Billy the Kid, and they ambushed and murdered a sheriff in New Mexico in 1878. After making a hasty retreat, Brown disappeared for a while before reappearing in Texas, where he worked as a deputy sheriff for a short time. He became a ranch hand and ended up in Kansas, where he again took up law enforcement. In order to make ends meet, Brown began to track outlaws for their bounty, but occasionally, he got sidetracked.

In April 1884, at the Medicine Lodge bank, Brown and three accomplices burst in just after opening time and robbed it, shooting several bank employees in the process.^[8] They made their getaway but were soon surrounded. The locals were shocked when they discovered the identity of the thief, and there were many calls to hang Brown. He was due to hang in the morning, but the mob could not wait. They broke into the jail, overpowered the guards, and opened the cell. Brown, as was his nature, made a desperate attempt to escape, but he was shot dead.

2 Frank M. Canton

Frank Canton was jailed in 1877, under his birth name of Josiah Horner, for robbing a bank in Comanche, Texas, but soon escaped and signed on as a cattle herder, working his way to Nebraska. Deciding on a new start, he changed his name to Frank M. Canton and settled into a job protecting cattle stock for a large consortium of Wyoming cattlemen with questionable ethics. In 1882, he was elected sheriff of Johnson County, Wyoming.

During the Johnson County War, Canton signed on as one of Frank Wolcott’s Regulators. In April 1892, he led the Regulators to the KC Ranch, where Nate Champion and Nick Ray, small-time ranchers who had been falsely accused of cattle rustling, were holed up. Champion had been a friend of Canton’s, but this did not prevent Canton from setting the house on fire after a gun battle that had lasted most of the day. As the house burned around him, Champion burst out of the house and was shot 28 times.

Canton left town shortly after and traveled to Oklahoma, where he became a deputy US marshal. He killed the fugitive Bill Dunn in 1896. In 1897, he left for Alaska due to a gold rush. He returned to Oklahoma the next year and continued to work in law enforcement.^[9]

1 ‘Longhair Jim’ Courtright

In addition to his untamed locks, Timothy Isaiah “Longhair Jim” Courtright was known for his skill as a gunman, performing at one time as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Always a controversial character, he was the first elected marshal of Fort Worth, Texas. He also ran protection rackets in the local saloons and gambling houses. He is rumored to have killed several business owners who declined his offers of protection. His enthusiasm for his work often ran away with him. At one point, he was employed to track down cattle rustlers, but he ended up killing both rustlers and homesteaders.

Courtright finally met his end in 1887 in a duel with Luke Short, a saloon owner and former friend of Courtright’s. Short had told Courtright to “go to hell” when the former had offered the latter protection. In the middle of the street, the two men met in one of the very few face-to-face gunfights to have actually taken place in the Wild West. After a tense standoff, both men drew their pistols at the same time. Short fired first, blowing off Courtright’s thumb. Courtright tried to shift his gun to his uninjured hand, but as he did so, Short shot him in the chest.^[10]

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

Serial killers are hardly a phenomenon confined to the 20th and 21st centuries. Many periods of history have been witness to serial murders of their own. The Old West was a well-known time of lawlessness, so it’s no surprise that there were many active serial killers stalking the prairies and deserts of North America.

Whether they murdered for profit, pleasure, or both, the impact on the victims, their families, and the community was always the same. The ruthlessness of the following crimes may shock you, so mentally prepare yourself for the brutality to come.

10 The Bloody Benders

The Bloody Benders were a family who moved into Osage Township, Kansas, in late 1870. This family of four would end up killing as many as 21 people.^[1] The West could be a dangerous and violent place, so a safe area of peace and refuge would have been a cherished thing. This is how the Benders lured their victims in. They would play the part of a loving family with a cozy inn for weary travelers to stay, and when their guests had their backs turned, the Benders would bash in their skulls, steal their money, and bury them out back.

Several people who stopped at the Benders’ place told a tale about how they had almost become the serial-killing family’s victims. They said the Benders had a sheet hung up in a room that the men would hide behind while the women would try to get the guests to sit in a very specific chair facing away from the sheet. When they refused to sit, Ma Bender became enraged, and then the male Benders stepped out from behind the sheet. The men quickly left, likely avoiding becoming the Benders’ next victims.

The Benders themselves ultimately escaped before they could be captured, and they were never found.

9 Stephen Dee Richards

Stephen Dee Richards has been called the Old West’s Ted Bundy, but in his day and age, he was dubbed the Nebraska Fiend.^[2] He was a charming and well-spoken man. Unlike Bundy, Stephen seems to have had no preferred type of victim when it came to killing. He murdered a young man he had a disagreement with, and he killed a mother and her three children with an ax. He said of killing the family that it was no different to him than killing jackrabbits.

Stephen ultimately murdered nine people in total. He did not escape justice, however, and was hanged in 1879.

8 Charles Kennedy

Charles Kennedy was a mountain man who lived near Eagle Nest, New Mexico. One day in 1870, Charles’s wife came running into a saloon crying. Incredibly upset, she confessed to the townspeople what she had witnessed. Her husband had been luring travelers into their home to kill them and steal their money. The very night before, Charles had done just that, but his son was in the room speaking to the traveler. The traveler asked if there were many “Indians” around, and the son responded, “Can’t you smell the one Papa put under the floor?”^[3] Charles flew into a rage, murdered both the traveler and his own son, and then locked his wife in the house. The woman waited for her husband to pass out after getting drunk and then escaped out a chimney.

The men at the saloon went after Charles along with a man named Clay Allison, who was known to be good with a gun. Charles was brought to the courthouse, but after the townspeople heard rumors that his lawyer was going to get him off, they took matters into their own hands. A group of several men took Charles from his jail cell, tied a noose around his neck, and dragged him behind a horse until he was strangled to death.

7 Boone Helm

Levi Boone Helm was a mountain man and gunslinger, but he is best known as the Kentucky Cannibal. Boone was part of a gang that would steal and murder all over Oregon and Idaho, but by the time Boone had joined this group, he had already killed many men.

One day, Boone and some others got caught up in a snowstorm. The animals and all the men perished, except for Boone and a man named Burton. They had discovered an empty cabin, but it had no food. According to Boone, he had started trying to light a fire when he heard a gunshot and discovered that his companion had killed himself. It did not take long for Boone to decide to cannibalize the body.^[4]

Boone would make it out of the winter storm and return to his life of crime, but he wouldn’t evade justice forever. He and the rest of his gang were eventually arrested and brought before a court. Boone tried to defend himself, but it was all in vain. He was convicted and hanged.

6 The Servant Girl Annihilator

The Servant Girl Annihilator was a serial killer who murdered seven women and one man in Austin, Texas, in 1884 and 1885. He also maimed six other women and two men. The murders were thought to have been partially motivated by racism because many of the victims were black. The murderer would typically attack his victims while they were asleep before dragging the bodies outside.^[5]

The police were given conflicting reports on what the killer looked like, with differing accounts as to whether he was white or black. As many as 400 men were arrested in connection to the crimes, but none were convicted. To this day, there is speculation as to who the Servant Girl Annihilator was, with theories as mundane and reasonable as Nathan Elgin, a cook who was shot by the police while attacking a woman around the time the killings stopped, to Jack the Ripper, because of course.

5 James Miller

James Miller, aka Miller the Killer, was a murderer-for-hire. He was also called Deacon Miller because he would regularly attend church and seemingly had no vices; he didn’t smoke or drink. Despite his pious behavior in public, James obviously had a darker professional and private life. He would often kill people he didn’t like. When his sister was engaged to be married to a man whom James despised, the fiance was mysteriously murdered. James are arrested and convicted of the murder, but the charges were overturned on a technicality. James would eventually turn his passion for killing into a profession, charging large sums of money to have someone executed.

Because of James’s pious outward appearance, no one in his community had any idea what he was capable of. He actually had a brief stint as a lawman. James’s downfall ultimately came when he assassinated a former deputy US marshal. This caused an enraged mob to lynch him. Right before he was hanged, he reportedly shouted, “Let her rip!”^[6]

4 John Wesley Hardin

John Wesley Hardin was the last man you’d think would become a vicious outlaw. Being born to and raised by a preacher didn’t stop John from getting into trouble at an early age. His first kill was at the age of 15, and he would not stop after just one man. It’s possible he killed up to 42 men. His temper was well-known, and it was common for him to murder anyone who bothered him. John didn’t just kill troublesome people, of course; in his time, it was common to kill people and then rob them.

John was eventually imprisoned for his crimes, a rarity for someone on this list, but he didn’t evade vigilante justice altogether. After spending 17 years in prison, John lived in El Paso, Texas. As you can imagine, with that temper and all, he was not well-liked. One day, John got into a heated argument with a lawman named John Selman. Not long afterward, Selman walked up behind John and shot him in the head.^[7]

3 Bill Longley

Bill Longley was a psychopath through and through. By the time he was 20, he had already killed several times. Bill was known to murder anyone who irritated him, and he was an avowed racist, so black people and Mexicans were frequent targets of his cruelty. Bill and some of his friends once happened upon three black men named Green Evans, Pryer Evans, and Ned, who were freed slaves and were traveling to visit friends. Bill and his cohorts held the men up at gunpoint. The poor men panicked and tried to escape, but Green Evans was shot and killed.

Bill’s final murder would be that of his childhood friend Wilson Anderson. Bill was already a wanted man, but this put new bounties on his head, and vigilante groups tried to capture him. Bill would eventually be caught and convicted. Longley was hanged but did not receive a quick and painless death. The rope was loose at first, so Bill’s knees hit the ground. Then, when the rope was pulled taut, he slowly suffocated. It would take 11 minutes of strangulation before he finally died.^[8]

2 Liver-Eating Johnson

John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston was a mountain man who was dubbed Liver-Eating Johnson. John’s life is shrouded in legend, the biggest of which involves how he earned his nickname. According to the tales, after his wife was killed by a Crow Native American, John had a vendetta against the entire tribe. They say that he killed over 300 Crow natives, scalped them, and ate their livers. This was a great insult to the Crow because they believed that the liver was vital to go on to the afterlife.

The truth, though, was that John probably never ate anyone’s liver; the rumor that he did so most likely started as a dark joke he told some people and went wild from there.^[9] John would eventually make peace with the Crow despite butchering scores of them, or so the legend goes. In actuality, the Crow were thought to be very friendly with American frontiersmen. In this case, it is hard to distinguish fact from fiction.

John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston died in 1900, penniless and without any family to speak of.

1 Delphine LaLaurie

Delphine LaLaurie was a wealthy socialite who lived in New Orleans and went down in history for her monstrous treatment of slaves. Her torture of her slaves was discovered in 1834, when one elderly slave tried to burn down Delphine’s home. She was trying to kill herself in order to escape LaLaurie’s brutal punishments.

After being brought to the house by the fire, authorities also found the attic, where several slaves were in various states of torture. Previously, Delphine had actually whipped a little girl off a roof, and the police had forced her to sell her slaves. This was all for naught, as Delphine had her relatives buy her slaves for her and then sneak them back into her house.

In a shocking act of compassion for slaves for the time period, Delphine’s neighbors actually formed a mob and drove her and her family from their home.^[10]

The Wild West, or the Old West, refers to the period of western expansion in United States history, roughly from the late 19th century and early 20th century. While most of us today only know it as a fictional aesthetic, the period was full of real violence and lawlessness, especially along the frontier regions. The unique characteristics of that time gave rise to numerous powerful Wild West gangs, some of which were known for their brutality and scale of violence. 

10. Soap Gang

The Soap Gang was a group of conmen led by Jefferson Randolph Smith II, better known as Soapy Smith. It was formed in 1879 in Denver, Colorado, and quickly gained fame for their innovative con jobs. Smith was a skilled con artist specializing in many scams, including the ‘Prize Package Soap Sell’ racket, which involved selling bars of soap to a crowd with a chance to win a valuable prize inside. Of course, he’d always have a member in the crowd to buy the soap at a higher price, convincing others into putting their money into worthless soaps.

The Soap Gang gained fame in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as they traveled from town to town throughout the American West defrauding locals and visitors alike. They were especially active in the towns of Skagway and Juneau, Alaska, during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-1899. 

The gang’s downfall came in 1898, when a group of vigilantes known as the Committee of 101 in Skagway, led by a man named Frank Reid, decided to pick bounties against some of the criminals in town, including members of the Soap Gang. Soapy Smith and several members were killed in a shootout at Juneau Wharf.

9. Dalton Gang

The Dalton Gang, also known as the Dalton Brothers, was a group of outlaws that gained fame during the latter part of the 19th century. It was formed in 1890 in Oklahoma by four brothers, Bob, Emmett, Grat, and Bill Dalton, with other members like Bill Doolin and George “Bitter Creek” Newcomb joining some time later. They were feared for their daring train and bank robberies across the American West, and could be called one of the most dangerous gangs of the time.

Their most famous robbery was that of the C.M. Condon & Co. Bank in Coffeyville, Kansas, in 1892. The gang was confronted by lawmen and citizens during the robbery, resulting in a shootout that left several members and civilians dead. It became known as the Coffeyville Raid and further cemented the gang’s reputation as ruthless criminals. Their final heist came in 1894, when they attempted to rob two banks simultaneously in the town of El Reno, Oklahoma. It ended in disaster, with most of the gang members killed or captured. 

8. Archer Gang

The Archer Gang was active in central Indiana and parts of Illinois and Kentucky during the mid 19th century. Formed by brothers Thomas, Mort, John, and Sam, they robbed banks and other businesses in towns throughout large parts of Indiana. They’d also rob stagecoaches, trains, and other travelers on the roads, sometimes even resorting to stealing cattle and horses from unsuspecting residents of small towns.

The members of the Archer gang were mostly farmers and millers who turned to robbery and crime during hard financial times. Many civilians and other regular folk died or disappeared due to their activities, particularly in the Martin County region. Their reign ended in 1886, when three of the Archer brothers were arrested by law enforcement in the town of Shoals. Before they could be tried, however, they were broken out by local vigilantes and lynched nearby.

7. Reynolds Gang

The Reynolds Gang was a short-lived group of criminals and outlaws operating in Colorado during the 1860s. It was named after brothers James and John Reynolds, gaining popular attention in 1864, when local newspapers in and around the South Park region started talking about their early crimes. Most of the members were experienced criminals and ex-Confederate soldiers, executing a number of high-profile robberies and murders in the area until they were brought down. 

Because of their Confederate past, the Reynolds gang was associated with many local stories and legends of lost treasures, despite their relatively short existence. The Reynolds brothers and many of the gang’s members were arrested and eventually shot in the summer of 1864, bringing a quick end to their exploits.

6. Rufus Buck Gang

The Rufus Buck Gang lived in Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. It was formed in 1895 and consisted of Rufus Buck, a Creek Indian, Lewis Davis, Sam Sampson, and brothers Maoma July and Lucky Davis. They were known for robberies, murders and assaults, and were particularly notorious for their level of brutality. 

The Rufus Buck Gang gained attention in July 1895, when they first robbed Fort Smith and violently murdered the marshal in charge. Their list of crimes includes rape and torture, as they terrorized the region for many months. When members of the Rufus Buck gang were finally  captured on August 10, they were almost lynched by the locals. All of them were eventually put on trial and sentenced to death at Fort Smith, Arkansas. 

5. McCarty Gang

The McCarty gang was headed by Tom McCarty, and included his brother Bill McCarty and nephew Fred McCarty. Their first operation was robbing the Wallowa National Bank in Enterprise, Oregon, followed by many other heists and robberies in and around Colorado. 

While the McCarty’s were great at evading law enforcement, they were ultimately downed by a bunch of civilians during a raid in Delta, Colorado in September 1893. While they had partly succeeded, the heist ended in the death of the cashier, resulting in an armed fight between the locals and the gang’s members. Bill and Fred were shot dead in the resulting violence, bringing an abrupt end to the McCarty gang. While Tom managed to escape the law and settle down as a sheepherder in Montana, he was also killed in a gunfight around the turn of the century. 

4. Calton Gang

Also known as The Cowboys, the Caltons were a family of outlaws and cattle rustlers living along the Mexican border during the late 19th century. It was an early form of organized crime in the area, and the gang members mostly included people from the Carlton family living in Tombstone, Arizona. They were infamous for robberies, murders, and other forms of crime in the border regions, and are still remembered as one of the most feared outlaw groups in Arizona’s history.

The gang was involved in a number of crimes, including a high-profile gunfight against rival gang members that resulted in the death of William “Billy” Clanton. The gang’s rivalry with the Earp brothers and their allies led to a series of violent confrontations now known as the Earp-Clanton feud. Even after the gang’s downfall, the Clantons remained an influential ranching group in the region for a long time.

3. Ketchum Gang

The Ketchum gang was named after its leader, Black Jack Thomas Ketchum, along with his brother, Sam, and other members like Will Carver, Elza Lay, and Ben Kilpatrick, who was also associated with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. Active during the late 1890s, they were known for robberies of all kinds in small towns in the New Mexico region.

One of their most famous robberies happened in Folsom, New Mexico, when members Sam Ketchum, Will Carver, and Elzy Lay decided to carry out a heist without Black Jack Ketchum. While they managed to rob about $50,000, the group was pursued by a posse led by Sheriff Edward Farr. Sam Ketchum was seriously wounded in the ensuing shootout, though the other members were able to escape to a nearby hideout. Some of them were later arrested, or went on to work with other gangs in the region. Black Jack Ketchum was arrested on August 16, 1899 during an attempted robbery, and was eventually hanged in Union County, New Mexico. 

2. Daly Gang

The Daly Gang was a group of thugs operating out of a saloon in Aurora, Nevada between 1862 and 1864. Founded by “Three-Fingered Jack” McDowell and John Daly, they quickly gained a reputation for beatings and murder in and around the Aurora region. Apart from the regular stagecoach and bank robberies, they also targetted the goldfields springing up between Aurora and Carson City during the gold rush period.

It was one of the most powerful gangs in the region’s history, though their terror ultimately came to an end when they murdered a man named William R. Johnson in a gruesome manner. As a result, the citizens of nearby towns formed a local civilian committee and attacked McDowell’s saloon on February 5, 1864. After the fight, all of the gang’s members were arrested and hanged outside the Armory Hall in Aurora. 

1. Mason Henry Gang

The Mason Henry gang operated in the San Joaquin Valley in Santa Cruz County, California during the mid-1860s. Named after its leaders, John Mason and Jim Henry, the gang posed as Confederate partisan rangers, but were, in reality, a band of ruthless criminals who committed robberies, thefts, and murders throughout the southern part of the valley.

The Mason Henry gang was involved in several high-profile robberies, including the theft of a large amount of gold from a stagecoach. They also murdered several people, and despite their efforts to portray themselves as Confederate soldiers, the gang’s actions quickly earned them a reputation as ruthless outlaws among local civilians.

Their downfall came in September 1865, when a posse led by the local sheriff pursued and engaged them in a shootout near Panoche Pass. Several members were killed in the ensuing battle, including Henry and Showalter, bringing an end to the famous-yet-short-lived Mason Henry gang.

Certain periods of history are known to have a particular aesthetic, and perhaps no period of history brings to mind very specific aspects like the wild, wild west. What would later become the western half of the United States of America possessed a dramatic, dynamic history during the 19th century. Gold rushes, railroads, the plights of Indigenous tribes, and, of course, cowboys and outlaws are probably the first things that come to mind when one thinks of the early American frontier. And many legends, such as Jesse James or Buffalo Bill, are still remembered to this day.

Some legends, however, skew a bit more supernatural than just some town that happens to not be big enough for both a sheriff and an outlaw. The wild west is as beautiful as it is isolated and has a rich history, stretching far before European colonists even reached the eastern part of the continent. This list details ten yeehaw-nting legends from the lawless lands out west.

10 The Haunted Bullock Hotel

The HBO wild west show Deadwood was indeed based on a real-life South Dakota Gold Rush town by the same name. In fact, the main character and store owner-turned-sheriff, Seth Bullock, was just as real. And according to legend, he still keeps tabs on the town of Deadwood from beyond the grave.

The Bullock Hotel was built in the last decade of the 1800s and is the location where the spirit of Bullock apparently keeps tabs on his property. The ex-sheriff, however, isn’t a malicious spirit, often only engaging in prankster poltergeist activity, such as moving chairs, slamming doors shut, and knocking objects over. It is claimed that the spirit even aided a lost young boy find his way back to his parent’s room. When the parents asked the child who helped him find his way, he simply pointed at a portrait of Seth Bullock.^[1]

9 The Platte River Death Ship

When haunted ships sailing the seas seem like an overrated concept, look no further than the land-locked state of Wyoming, where, against all odds, a haunted sailing ship is said to sail. Worry not, though; Wyoming’s “Death Ship” does stick to a body of water. It sails the Platte River, specifically, instead of somehow drifting through the deserts or plains.

The Platte River Death ship is said to appear to one person every 25 years, though it does far more than simply sail silently on a river. According to legend, witnesses unlucky enough to spot the vessel materializing out of the fog also see the illusory corpse of someone they know among the spectral sailors. Shortly after, the person witnessed is said to then die in the real world. This is what occurred with the Death Ship’s first witness in 1862; trapper Leon Webber, who saw his fiancée on the haunted frigate. The woman was said to have died the exact same day of Webber’s sighting.^[2]

8 The Ghost Town of Garnet

Just because someplace is called a “ghost town” doesn’t mean it’s necessarily home to any ghosts. Some places simply become abandoned and are left to the elements. The ghost town known as Garnet, however, is an exception to the rule. Located on the western side of Montana, this still-standing ex-boomtown has multiple buildings that allegedly house restless spirits.

Kelly’s Saloon, for example, is probably the most notorious, where one can hear the raucous sounds of music and laughter without a single living person on the premises. The Wells Hotel is also plagued by strange, incorporeal footsteps, doors slamming, and more strange laughter. The town grew in popularity in 1865 when gold was found at nearby First Chance Gulch, though when the gold dried up in 1905, less than a hundred people remained until, eventually, there was no one. ^[3]

7 The Phantom Train of Marshall Pass

From the supposed spectral funeral train of Abraham Lincoln in Illinois to the equally haunted illusory locomotive in Louisiana, ghost trains are a staple in American folklore. And the wild west, being particularly affected by the invention of the steam train, is no stranger to such stories. One of the most infamous ghost trains of the frontier was once sighted in the area of Marshall Pass in Colorado in the 1880s, a route that connected Denver to Santa Fe.

Engineer Nelson Edwards was steering his locomotive along the icy Colorado tracks when suddenly, he heard and saw what sounded like a train right behind his own; a train that wouldn’t decelerate and would soon crash. A warning light showed, telling Edwards it was required that he brake, and he bit the bullet and pulled the lever. Mysteriously, no train collided with his own, and Edwards’s locomotive was safe. However, after receiving a mysterious note detailing the accounts of a crashed train years prior, Nelson Edwards immediately retired the next day.^[4]

6 The Bandit Ghoul of Six Mile Canyon

With such a colorful name, one would expect this Nevada specter to also have a colorful history. Big Jack Davis was an accomplished train and stagecoach robber in the 1860s. However, one unsuccessful robbery would end with the outlaw getting shot in the back and killed, though his unclaimed fortune in the Nevada wilderness would grow a reputation that exceeded Davis’s while alive.

However, where normal spirits of the deceased manifest as ghosts, Big Jack Davis would allegedly change into something more. Described as a “shrieking white demon,” it is said that the outlaw grew wings from the bullet holes in his back, and according to legend, he would chase away anyone who dared search for his hoard.^[5]

5 The Headless Valley

When one thinks of the wild west, it is most often the wild southwest that features in most western movies, but the western half of Canada is also filled with a rich history and stunning landscape. Also, if the legends are to be believed, it was a particularly haunting location, where many prospectors hoping to strike it rich in the 19th and 20th-century Yukon Gold Rush would meet a grisly fate.

From supposed cannibal giants to cryptid dire wolves to a dozen actual, documented disappearances and mysterious murders, the Nahanni River Valley in the Northwest Territories of Canada is an enormous hodgepodge of paranormal activity. Although, the largest swath of mysterious circumstances occurred at the height of the Yukon Gold Rush in the late 19th century. Perhaps the most notable case, however, is the deaths of prospecting brothers Willy and Frank McLeod, whose bodies were found to be decapitated after allegedly finding a rich prospect.^[6]

4 Texas’s Headless Horseman

Keeping with the decapitation theme, this next headless legend is found toward the southernmost end of the western frontier this time. In southern Texas, near the border with Mexico, is where the tale of El Muerto runs wild. Though the translation from Spanish to English is a bit on the nose, simply meaning “The Dead,” El Muerto is nonetheless a horrifying spirit to cross paths with.

In 1850, a horse thief who went by the name Vidal stole prized mustangs from Texas Rangers Creed Taylor and William Alexander Anderson Wallace. When they tracked the bandit down, the rangers decided to leave behind a grisly warning to other would-be horse thieves. They decapitated the man and strapped his body to his horse to ride off into the sunset. Vidal’s body, though, would allegedly escape decomposition. For the next few decades, unfortunate frontier folk would spot the ominous headless horseman of Texas riding in the wilderness, giving him the name “El Muerto.”^[7]

3 Ghosts of Tombstone

The aptly named Tombstone in Arizona is the site of many gruesome deeds, though perhaps the most memorable is the accidental death of Fred White by “Curly” Bill Brocius in 1880. Though a mistake, White was, indeed, the marshall of the town, and Brocious toed the line of an outlaw by belonging to the notorious Clanton Gang.

Though less flashy than a classic cowboy quickdraw, it is said that the marshall’s black-coated specter is still seen in the streets of Tombstone, which has survived to this day as a tourist attraction. His ghost isn’t alone, however, as the spirit of a woman in a white dress is also often seen, in addition to the ghosts of victims of the Bisbee Massacre, the result of a failed stick-up. Though often embellished, Tombstone’s sordid history is rife with outlaw gang violence and crime, so a well-established history of hauntings isn’t too out of place.^[8]

2 Skinwalker Ranch

Some legends are the sort that are fun to tell around a campfire, and some legends are a heavily believed subject, even to this day, and the mere mention of them in passing is a taboo subject. The Navajo tales of the shape-shifting witch known as the Skinwalker are such a legend, and even talking about it, let alone taking it lightly, is extremely looked down upon.

One alleged hotbed of paranormal activity can be found in Uintah County, Utah, which was colloquially dubbed “Skinwalker Ranch” after Terry and Gwen Sherman bought the property in 1994. The Sherman family supposedly played witness to a rash of cattle mutilations, massive, magically bulletproof wolves, and even UFOs and poltergeist activity until they sold the property two years later. Though the legend of the ranch itself is more modern, the eponymous monster therein has apparently been spotted for centuries in nearby cursed Bottle Hollow. Although it is important to note that the neighboring area belongs to the Ute tribe, not the Navajo.^[9]

1 The Ghost of Jesse James

Unsurprisingly, one of America’s most infamous outlaws is the subject of many legends that even go beyond his exploits as a living, breathing criminal. Jesse James Farm, in the town of Kearney, Missouri, is both the location of the outlaw’s death at the hands of fellow gang member Robert Ford in 1882, as well as the location of James’s supposed ghost.

Ethereal footsteps and horse hooves can be heard where none are present. Shadows move without tripping security alarms, and even the sounds of a sudden gunshot can be heard from inside the property. In fact, the James family itself claims that their home was haunted well before the notorious outlaw grew up and started his crime spree, even seeing the apparitions of Civil War soldiers on the premises. However, activity certainly increased after James’ death by gunshot.^[10]

Beginning with The Great Train Robbery in 1903, the Western has been one of Hollywood’s most definitive genres. These so-called “oaters” (cheaply-made films as common as oats for horses) would soon become the predominant staple for movie audiences over the next five decades.

At its core, Westerns usually depict life on the frontier during the latter half of the 19th century and feature the quintessential American icon: the cowboy. However, the narrative is based on several highly romanticized myths, blending fact and fiction from the Wild, Wild West.

This is an encore of one of our previous lists, as presented by our YouTube host Simon Whistler. Read the full list!

The Old West is a place of legend and lore. We’ve all read the tall tales about outlaws, gunslingers, shootouts, and skirmishes from the Great Plains to the Southwest and places farther west. Many of the shocking stories are real. Many others are embellished. For more than two centuries now, the myths of the frontier remain in American culture. But what about how life really was back then? After all, there were far more people in the Great West than just sheriffs and train robbers. How did these regular folks live? What did they do for fun?

Bandits be damned—everyday laborers, ranchers, cowboys, and saloon workers needed an outlet too. And their diversions ranged from the mundane to the fascinating to the disturbing. The relative lack of law enforcement on the frontier allowed more freedom than people in other areas of the country. Many of their leisure activities followed accordingly. Today, you’ll learn about twelve things everyday folks did for fun in the Old West.

12 Drinking

What self-respecting list about life in the Old West would neglect to lead with alcohol? Drinking culture was the center of frontier life. Saloons were community centers and regular hangouts in every tiny town. For the men, that is. Women weren’t allowed in saloons unless they were there as working girls selling sex. And the atmosphere was bawdy, rowdy, and dangerous.

All sorts of men from varying backgrounds descended as often as they could to drink. Soldiers, miners, and farm laborers of all kinds met in the saloon. Outlaws and sheriffs always showed up too. Many bars had music on hand, much like those today. Others offered card games and gambling. Many more served as brothels. The working girls plied their trade upstairs while customers got drunk, then shelled out more money for pleasure.

There was never a shortage of alcohol-selling establishments to visit. At one point, the small frontier settlement of Livingston, Montana, boasted 33 saloons. Considering the ramshackle town had just 3,000 residents, that’s quite a ratio. But customers always came, and barkeeps always seemed to make out well. Whiskey was usually the drink of choice in these places. But it wasn’t like the whiskey we know today.

The stuff back then was brutal. Most commonly, it was raw alcohol fermented with burnt sugar and chewing tobacco. Some saloons served “cactus wine,” which combined tequila and peyote tea. Others offered straight rye liquor and room-temperature beer. And the most adventurous drinkers had the option to swig “rotgut.” That disgusting beverage was 100-proof liquor, usually mixed with some combination of turpentine, ammonia, pepper, and even gunpowder. Cheers? ^[1]

11 Brothels

Brothels were a common sight in frontier towns. Prostitution was technically illegal throughout the Old West in the 19th century, but that didn’t seem to stop anybody. Lawmen were often few and far between. Laborers, miners, and itinerant workers were rough-and-tumble men. They sought a good time after a hard day’s work, and they were willing to pay for it. The “soiled doves” and “sportin’ women” who populated the brothels were happy to comply if it meant taking in big bucks.

As the west was won, brothels became town centers in much the same way as saloons. Migrant laborers, cowboys, and outlaws alike gravitated to them. For a little hard-earned cash, pleasure was easy to find. The women who ran those establishments did big business. In fact, it was one of the only ways frontier women could make money and assert themselves in an otherwise male-dominated society.

By the end of the 19th century, many boomtowns made no show of hiding their red-light districts. In one infamous instance, the 1895 Travelers’ Guide Of Colorado explicitly listed out brothels operating in the state. Traveling men could pick out any establishment from 66 pages of information. It was like Yelp for the old days—with an adult angle.

That’s not to say the sex industry was healthy, of course. Countless women died from childbirth and venereal disease as a result of their work in brothels. Others were at the mercy of careless, violent, and sadistic men. In the best-case scenarios, some madams became extremely wealthy. But that was rare. More often, women were used for men’s pleasure in these not-so-halcyon days on the frontier.^[2]

10 Rodeos

Rodeos may have originated centuries ago south of the border. But while conquistadors and natives in current-day Mexico started the practice, it kicked up a notch in the Old West. In 1852, a group of Texans put on the first public rodeo in America. Immediately, it was a hit. Frontier townspeople showed up in droves. Soon, they never stopped coming. Westerners loved attending rodeos through the rest of the 19th century. Formal shows and informal outings were both popular in boomtowns. Events allowed frontier men to congregate and be merry. Some fought. Most drank. They all took in bullfighting, roping, steer wrestling, and all kinds of other cowboy-inspired attractions.

Of course, the notorious bucking bulls were the main selling point. Even from those humble beginnings in Texas, promoters sold bull riding as the ultimate show. But through the years, other ranch tricks evolved into rodeo competitions. The aforementioned roping and wrestling were central. Lasso tricks, horse racing, bullfighting, and bronco bucking filled the card.

After decades of Old West tours, rodeos began traveling. Refined audiences back east coast grew to love the rugged shows. Frontier legends like Bill Pickett and Buffalo Bill saw this spread as a money-making opportunity. They hit the road to put on rodeo shows all over America. The dollars rolled in. Over the years, rodeo became a favorite show for millions nationwide. Its legacy continues in the rodeos and stock shows of today.^[3]

9 Gambling

Wherever men gather in large numbers, certain vices seem to often follow. As we’ve already seen, drinking and sex were at the top of that list. And in the Old West, one other pastime was there, too: gambling. Saloons were serious about promoting gambling because it kept patrons buying drinks. Some bars even hired employees to keep card tables in order so customers would stay seated all night. Men spent their hard-earned dollars on high-stakes blackjack and a host of other card games.

Depending on the region and time period, all kinds of different games flourished. Some were known by humorous names. “Chuck-A-Luck” was a common card game, along with “Three Card Monte,” “High Dice,” and “Faro.” Through the decades, boomtown saloons embraced gambling. Local sheriffs even looked the other way—until issues got too violent to ignore. As you might expect, gambling often led to deadly disagreements. Arguments over card games were common in the Wild West. Disputes would bubble up over a hand of cards, a cheating accusation, or a misplaced bet. Men were quick on the draw—literally—and many of the worst spats had fatal endings.

Today, historians view gambling as a logical part of life in the West. After all, the men who settled the frontier often left behind relatively calmer lives back east. Whether mining, prospecting, or ranching, they hoped to strike it rich overnight in these boomtowns. So they showed up with a gambler’s mindset. Combine that with the presence of guns, and the atmosphere at card tables was electric. And in countless instances, gambling proved to be a very deadly diversion.^[4]

8 Animal Fighting

The Wild West was a cruel place. As we’ve already learned, countless women in brothels were mistreated. Saloons were places of wanton violence and cruelty. And the barbaric nature of the frontier extended to animals too. One of the most sought-out diversions in the Old West was animal fighting. Dog fights were common, as were cock fights.

In some boomtowns, event promoters made a big show of it. Builders would cobble together wooden grandstands to attract paying customers. The fighting arena was outlined by chicken wire. The aggressive roosters were brought in and left to unload on each other. The fights were usually short, often brutal, and always deadly. But their popularity was never in question. Promoters made a proverbial killing in ticket sales from fans wanting to watch killings inside the ring. Of course, gambling and alcohol were widespread at these events too. Are you sensing a pattern in some of these Wild West pastimes yet?

Out in the Far West, bull and bear fighting were the 19th century’s popular sports. Pioneers across California thought roosters and dogs were too insignificant to bother with. So they put together big bear pits and caught California grizzly bears in the wild. Once the bear was in the pit, promoters would send in a raging bull. The two massive animals battled it out to the death. Bear fights like this weren’t invented out west. In fact, ancient Romans used to stage similar battles—although it’s unlikely American pioneers knew that. Still, California’s bear and bull fights were historically brutal. Pioneers trapped and killed so many bears in the awful sport that the state’s grizzly bear population went extinct because of it.^[5]

7 Minstrel Shows

Across the Old West, American settlers clashed with native populations. American Indians on the Great Plains and Hispanic locals in the Southwest were pushed out of their homelands by expansion. Along the way, American pioneers brought with them some serious racial prejudices. The pastime that best exemplified this was the minstrel show. Modern historians define minstrel shows as “the comic enactment of racial stereotypes.” These circus-like acts were very popular at the time. They weren’t invented out west, but they reigned supreme there. Traveling actors wore blackface makeup and acted out unflattering Black, Hispanic, and Indian stereotypes. Today, the shows are seen as a troubling vestige of a dark period in American history. But at the time, pioneers in boomtowns flocked to see the cheap entertainment.

Minstrel shows first became popular in the 1830s back east. But what started in New York spread like wildfire on the frontier. By the mid-19th century, western shows played to the lawlessness of the land. Unique costumes and makeup promoted particularly harmful stereotypes of Indian and Hispanic cultures. Many of the performances were technically intricate. Most included songs and choreographed dances. Some even boasted burlesque sequences and opera performances. But the racially abusive nature of the content is shocking to consider today. Thankfully, minstrel shows long ago fell out of favor. Still, their cultural reign in the Old West is another reminder of how cruel life was back then.^[6]

6 Medicine Shows

Minstrel shows weren’t the only traveling entertainment out west. Along with those troubling performances, medicine shows also had a unique place on the frontier. At the time, healthcare was hard to come by in the west. So whenever a doctor or quack rode into town promising a miracle cure for common ailments, people were bound to listen. That’s how medicine shows drew attention.

Traveling charlatans and quasi-medical salesmen would pitch a tent and promote a product. People would come out to see what the new drug supposedly did. Quickly, the salesmen’s pitches ratcheted up in intensity. Soon, they became far more entertaining than the product itself. Over the years, frontier settlers attended these shows in droves just to see the spectacle.

As settlers spread further west, the traveling salesmen followed. Over the years, these events became more intricate. Some included things like burlesque shows. Others offered pie-eating contests. Even the proverbial “dog and pony show” became standard fare under the medicine tent. Settlers seeking diversion in their small community flocked to the shows. Entertainment wasn’t the only purpose, though. There were sales going on throughout the era. In fact, one modern historian published research claiming these traveling health revivals pulled in nearly $100 million annually across the west during the 19th century. That’s not chump change!^[7]

5 Circuses

Combine rodeos, minstrel shows, and medicine shows, and what do you get? Circuses! The Old West was one of the earliest supporters of circus acts. What we know today as the “Greatest Show On Earth” swept quickly across the frontier. Different circuses had different attractions, but many became stereotypical of the later industry. Russian cossack horsemen rode around rings under the big tent. Trapeze artists always wowed western crowds. Animal acts were a particular attraction too.

Traditional circus outfits like the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey developed iconic acts for pioneer audiences. Western settlers showed up in droves when one of these companies rode the rails into town. Nearly two centuries later, circus acts like these still conjure up a very particular image in the American psyche.

They weren’t the only shows available to western settlers, though. In the late 18th century, Buffalo Bill took the circus idea and gave it a pioneer spin. The longtime cowboy brought exotic animals, rodeos, and Western culture together under its own big tent. More than most former cowboys of the dying era, Buffalo Bill promoted pioneer values to the rest of the country. He hired Native American performers to re-enact moments in frontier history. Ranch hands showed off horse tricks, bison runs, and more for stunned eastern audiences. Slowly, the frontier was becoming more settled and civilized. But Buffalo Bill leaned into the era’s nostalgia. He traveled around performing Old West reenactments with his troupe well into the 20th century.^[8]

4 Public Hangings

Public executions have been a popular part of civilizations down through history. Rulers have always relished the opportunity to show subjects what happens when one breaks the law. And ancient peoples have forever been attracted to this vigilante justice. The lawless nature of the Old West felt similar to these ancient times. So it makes sense that public hangings were a common pastime on the borderless American frontier.

Sheriffs relied on hangings to boost public morale amid their often-inconsistent enforcement of the law. Nothing was better for a local lawman than catching and killing a violent train robber or hated horse thief. Settlers were often left without law enforcement nearby for long stretches of their lives. So they appreciated this frontier justice from a practical standpoint. Seeing a convicted criminal strung up in the public square made their towns safer. It also gave Westerners a grisly, macabre diversion from their boring daily lives.

In the Wild West, public hangings were elaborate rituals. Processions would follow the condemned man beginning at the jailhouse. Lawmen surrounded the bound convict. Still, local citizens hurled everything from insults to cabbages at the shamed man. By the time the group reached the gallows, the procession was often at a fever pitch. There, the sheriff would read the man his last rights. A specific hangman’s noose was made from the strongest bit of rope available. As the crowd cheered on mercilessly, the convicted man was hanged. And with his death, another measure of justice came to a lawless place.

Public hangings were common across the West during the 19th century. Dozens of legal hangings and dozens more lynchings have been recorded. In the 1850s, one California town even briefly changed its name to “Hangtown” to celebrate all the public executions that took place there. This justice was swift and shocking. But it proved very popular among frontier residents.^[9]

3 Manly Competitions

The Old West was a manly place. As we’ve already learned, women were relegated to the fringes of society. So when it came time for fun, men engaged in stereotypically masculine pursuits. As pioneer culture developed, manly games and competitions surged. These intense affairs took on all sorts of different styles. Some men pursued rock drilling competitions. Others engaged in steamboat racing. The most common sports of the day included ax throwing, rifle and revolver shooting, and log rolling. Wagon racing was a popular daredevil activity too. And when those rickety contraptions didn’t move fast enough, men ditched the wagons and opted for old-fashioned horse racing.

The competitions were fun for the men involved. They were fun for spectators too. Alcohol always flowed at these events, and plenty of cash was laid out to gamble. The manly sporting endeavors also fostered an early sense of community in fledgling frontier towns. Some men were locally famous for their sports stardom. Towns became well-known for developing icons in one sport or another.

Legends were born, and myths were made over many friendly frontier competitions. Amazingly, many of these sports have been passed down through time. In February 2022, hundreds of modern cowboys traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, to compete in a shooting challenge first founded in the mid-19th century. Clearly, the glory of the Old West remains a draw to modern men.^[10]

2 Boxing

Boxing was one of the perfect outlets for fun in the Old West. It needed no equipment and used limited space. No playing fields had to be cleared. The rules were remarkably simple. Two men could always be found willing to duke it out for money. And the era’s wanton violence fostered aggression in frontier men. So it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn boxing was one of the most popular pastimes for pioneers.

Boxing matches were often sold out. Even legends of the Wild West took part. OK Corral participant Wyatt Earp began refereeing boxing matches late in his life. He even grew to be the face of the West Coast boxing circuit. By the end of the 19th century, California towns were routinely selling thousands of tickets to quasi-legal boxing matches.

As you might expect, bouts often turned into raucous affairs. Attendees drank heavily and wagered money. When they got too out of control, crowd skirmishes broke out. Suddenly, boxing was going on in the ring and all around it! At various points in the 19th century, sheriffs tried in vain to rein in boxing promoters.

Various frontier towns moved to make the public fights illegal. But promoters didn’t care, and neither did fans. People still flocked to illegal bouts. And the most creative promoters took the opportunity to work within the law. If boxing was illegal in a town, event organizers would host a play in a theater. As luck would have it, one of the play’s “acts” involved two men duking it out on stage. The loophole worked, and crowds got their fill of (legal) organized violence.^[11]

1 Baseball

It seems hard to believe America’s pastime was a pioneer pursuit, but baseball did (partially) overlap with the age of the Wild West. After Alexander Cartwright invented the game in the mid-19th century, he set his sights on the frontier. Hearing about the discovery of gold in California, Cartwright joined thousands of other men on the journey. Naturally, he brought baseball with him. The sport had already been growing back east, and Cartwright found western settlers loved it just as much as their more refined eastern neighbors.

Frontier towns didn’t offer pro ball as eastern cities did. But in the late 19th century, settlements cobbled together amateur teams. Barnstorming baseballers traveled across the west to compete against teams in other tiny towns. Local pride was on the line—and a good bit of gambling money too. Soon, amateur baseball clubs sprouted up in places from San Francisco to Kansas City. Even gunslingers like Will Bill Hickok grew to love the game.

In 1869, baseball surged in popularity on the Great Plains. That year, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became America’s first professional baseball team. They set out on a nationwide tour to play for money. In towns across the east, fans flocked to see the new sport. Then, the Red Stockings turned west. When they got to St. Louis, they settled in for a series of exhibition games.

Teams from as far as California showed up to play against the Cincinnati nine. The barnstorming series was a smashing success with fans. It also proved critical to the future of baseball. The Red Stockings’ popularity spurred the growth of what later became Major League Baseball. And out west, settlers started spreading the game among each other until it was played practically everywhere.^[12]