Category: American Old West
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Wild West Wednesday – Laura Bullion: The Thorny Rose of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch Gang
Image: Laura Bullion was one of five women who spent time with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch outside of Fannie Porter’s brothel. (Public Domain) Laura Bullion was an outlaw in the American Old West. In the 1890s, she was a member of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch gang; her associates were fellow outlaws, including the Sundance Kid,…
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Wild West Wednesday: Outlaw Ben Thompson and the Vaudeville Theater Ambush. March 11, 1884.
Image: Ben Thompson, 1879. (Public Domain) “I always make it a rule to let the other fellow fire first. If a man wants to fight, I argue the question with him and try to show him how foolish it would be. If he can’t be dissuaded, why then the fun begins, but I always let…
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Wild West Wednesday – Outlaw Dirty Dave Rudabaugh
Image: Dave Rudabaugh (Public Domain) Nicknamed “Dirty Dave” because he scarcely bathed and wore filthy clothes, Dave Rudabaugh was a cowboy, outlaw, and gunfighter in the American Old West. Dave Rudabaugh was born on July 14, 1854, and was a young boy living in his birth state of Illinois when his father was killed during the…
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Brothers John and Simeon Reno and Frank Sparkes Hold the First Train Robbery in United States History, Stealing $16,000 From an Ohio and Mississippi Railroad Train in Jackson County, Indiana. October 6, 1866.
Image: The Reno Gang 1860s. (Public Domain) On this day in history, October 6, 1866, brothers John and Simeon Reno and Frank Sparkes hold the first train robbery in United States history, stealing $16,000 from an Ohio and Mississippi railroad train in Jackson County, Indiana. The Reno brothers’ influence on criminal history was to halt…
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The Dalton Gang Attempted to Hold Up Two Banks at the Same Time When Five Members of the Gang Rode Into the Town of Coffeyville, Kansas. It Ended Badly. October 5, 1892.
Image: Memento Mori of the Dalton Gang following the 1892 Coffeyville, Kansas raid. Left to right: Bill Powers; Bob Dalton; Grat Dalton, Dick Broadwell. (Public Domain) On this day in history, the Dalton Gang attempted to hold up two banks at the same time when five members of the Dalton Gang (Grat Dalton, Emmett Dalton, Bob Dalton,…
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Wild West Wednesday: Outlaw Belle Starr
(Image: A studio portrait of Belle Starr probably taken in Fort Smith in the early 1880s. Public Domain.) Belle Starr was born Myra Maybelle Shirley near Carthage, Missouri, on February 5, 1848. She was called May by her family. Her father, John Shirley, thrived raising wheat, horses, corn, and hogs, though he was viewed as…
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The United States Army Executed By Hanging Four Native Americans Found Guilty of Killing American Civil War General Edward Canby during the Modoc War in Oregon. October 3, 1873.
Image: Major General Edward Canby (Public Domain). On this day in history, October 3, 1873, the United States Army executed by hanging four Native Americans found guilty of killing American Civil War general Edward Canby during the Modoc War in Oregon. Canby was the highest-ranking army officer and the only general ever murdered by Native…
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Wild West Wednesday, Part 4 – The Death of Billy the Kid
Image: The only surviving authenticated portrait of Billy the Kid, 1880. This tintype portrait sold at auction in June 2011 for USD $2,300,000 to William Koch. (Public Domain.) On April 9, 1881, after a one-day trial, Henry McCarty, aka “Billy the Kid,” or William H. Bonney, was found guilty of murdering the Lincoln County, New…
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Wild West Wednesday – Part 3 – “Black Jack” Tom Ketchum
Image: “Black Jack” Tom Ketchum. (Wikimedia Commons.) “Black Jack” Tom Ketchum was an American cowboy who later in life became an outlaw. He was hanged in 1901 for attempted train robbery. The execution was bungled; he was decapitated because the executioner used a rope that was too long, and the lubricated rope was too thin…
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Wild West Wednesday (a day late) Part 2 – The Death of Outlaw Johnny Ringo
On July 14, 1882, Wild West outlaw Johnny Ringo was found dead, apparently caused by a self-inflicted gunshot, in Turkey Creek Canyon, Arizona. John Peters Ringo, known as Johnny Ringo, was an American Old West outlaw associated with the Cochise County Cowboys in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. He participated in the Mason County War in Texas,…
History Daily With Francis Chappell Black 