Category: American Old West
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Cole and John Younger, Frank, and Jesse James, and Art McCoy pulled off the first peacetime train robbery in Missouri history at the whistle-stop town of Gads Hill. January 31, 1874.
Image: Jesse and Frank James, 1872. (Public Domain) On this day in history, January 31, 1874, Cole and John Younger, Frank, and Jesse James, and Art McCoy pulled off the first peacetime train robbery in Missouri history at the whistle-stop town of Gads Hill. They would manage to steal $12,000. Fresh from a stagecoach holdup…
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Wild West Wednesday – Wild Bill Hickok and Gambler Davis Tutt Engaged in First Recorded Gunfight in the Old West
Image: Wild Bill Hickok threatens the friends of Davis Tutt after defeating Tutt in a duel. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, February 1867. (Public Domain) On July 21, 1865, Wild Bill Hickok and gambler Davis Tutt engaged in a gunfight in the town square of Springfield, Missouri. It is the first time in the recorded history…
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American Soldiers Under the Control of General Ranald Mackenzie Obliterate a Village of Cheyenne Residing With Chief Dull Knife on the Powder River During the Dull Knife Fight. November 25, 1876.
Image: Dull Knife Battlefield (Public Domain) On this day in history, November 25, 1876, American soldiers under the control of General Ranald Mackenzie obliterate a village of Cheyenne residing with Chief Dull Knife on the Powder River during the Dull Knife Fight. The strike was retribution against some Native Americans who had joined in killing…
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Wild West Wednesday – Outlaw William “Bill” Doolin
Image: William “Bill” Doolin (Public Domain) William Doolin was an American outlaw and founder of the Wild Bunch, sometimes called the Doolin- Dalton Gang. Like the earlier Dalton Gang alone, it concentrated on robbing banks, trains, and stagecoaches in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Indiana, during the 1890s. Bill Doolin was born in 1858 in Johnson…
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On This Day in History, the Notorious Hired Killer Tom Horn is Executed for Murdering Willie Nickell, the 14-year-Old Son of a Wyoming Sheep Rancher. November 20, 1903.
Image: Tom Horn braiding a rope in the Laramie County jail office in Cheyenne, 1902. (Public Domain) Several historians have subsequently doubted whether Horn murdered the boy, indicating that the jury condemned him merely because of an intoxicated admission of guilt that Horn purportedly made to a deputy sheriff. Also, the jury did not give sufficient…
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Wild West Wednesday – “Buckskin” Frank Leslie
Image: Nashville Franklin “Buckskin Frank” Leslie, a lawman, U.S. Army scout, gambler, and an outlaw of the American Old West. He assisted Wyatt and Warren Earp in their search for those they held responsible for maiming Virgil Earp and assassinating Morgan Earp. 1881. (Public Domain) “Buckskin” Frank Leslie was a U.S. Army scout, gambler, bartender,…
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303 Santee Sioux are Found Guilty of Raping and Murdering American Pioneers and are Condemned to Hang in Minnesota. A Month Later, President Abraham Lincoln Exchanged All But 39 Death Sentences for Life in Prison. November 5, 1862.
Image: Execution of the thirty-eight Sioux Indians at Mankato Minnesota, December 25, 1862. President Abraham Lincoln ordered the mass execution of 38 Native Americans in Minnesota for revolt against the government in 1862. (Public Domain). On this day in history, November 5, 1862, 303 Santee Sioux are found guilty of raping and murdering American pioneers…
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Wild West Wednesdays – Outlaw Milt Yarberry
Image: Milt Yarberry shortly before his hanging, while shackled to his chair at the prison in Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory. (Public Domain) People change their names for many reasons. In the old West, it was just as likely that a person was attempting to run away from something because of something to hide or…
History Daily With Francis Chappell Black 