118 Fun Facts About Wild West

Billy the Kid was born under what name?

Billy the Kid was born Henry McCarty in New York around 1859; he later used the aliases Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney.

Which sheriff shot and killed Billy the Kid at Fort Sumner in 1881?

Pat Garrett, sheriff of Lincoln County, shot the Kid in Pete Maxwell's darkened bedroom at Fort Sumner on 14 July 1881.

Billy the Kid rose to fame as one of the Regulators in which New Mexico conflict?

The Lincoln County War (1878) pitted the Regulators, formed to avenge the murder of English rancher John Tunstall, against the Murphy-Dolan faction.

The only authenticated photograph of Billy the Kid sold at auction in 2011 for how much?

The 1880 tintype of Billy the Kid fetched $2.3 million at a Denver auction in June 2011; the buyer was businessman William Koch.

The 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral actually took place in a vacant lot fronting which thoroughfare?

The fight happened on Fremont Street, in a narrow lot beside C. S. Fly's photography studio, six doors west of the corral's rear entrance.

Roughly how many shots were fired during the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?

About 30 shots were fired in roughly 30 seconds; Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers died, while an unarmed Ike Clanton ran.

The outlaw faction the Earps fought at the O.K. Corral was known by what name?

The Cochise County Cowboys were a loose gang of rustlers and smugglers; Tombstone's 1881 ordinance against carrying guns in town was aimed at them.

Which Earp brother was the town's city marshal and deputized Doc Holliday on the day of the gunfight?

Virgil Earp was Tombstone's city marshal and a deputy US marshal; he was maimed in a December 1881 ambush, and Morgan's murder followed.

Before becoming a gambler and gunman, Doc Holliday earned a degree in what?

He set up a practice in Griffin, Georgia, but tuberculosis, the disease that had killed his mother, drove him west.

Doc Holliday died in his bed at a hotel in which Colorado spa town?

Doc Holliday died of tuberculosis at the Hotel Glenwood in Glenwood Springs on 8 November 1887, aged 36.

Whose 1896 fight against Bob Fitzsimmons did Wyatt Earp referee, calling a foul many thought faked?

Earp refereed the Fitzsimmons–Tom Sharkey bout in San Francisco on 2 December 1896, awarding Sharkey the fight on a disputed low-blow foul.

What is unusual about Wyatt Earp's record across all his gunfights?

His brothers and his friend Doc Holliday were all hit; Wyatt walked away untouched every time.

Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead in 1876 while playing poker in which town?

Hickok was shot from behind by Jack McCall at Nuttal & Mann's saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, on 2 August 1876.

The 'dead man's hand' Hickok supposedly held when he died is traditionally what?

The dead man's hand is two black aces and two black eights; the link to Hickok was popularised by Frank Wilstach's 1926 biography.

What did Davis Tutt take from Hickok, sparking their 1865 Springfield duel?

Tutt seized Hickok's gold pocket watch over a gambling debt and wore it in public; their 21 July 1865 town-square shootout followed.

Which Kansas cattle town made Wild Bill Hickok its marshal in 1871?

Mayor Joseph McCoy, who had built Abilene into the first great railhead for Texas cattle, hired him.

Who shot Jesse James in the back of the head in 1882?

Robert Ford, a new recruit angling for the reward, shot James at his St. Joseph home on 3 April 1882 and was branded 'the dirty little coward'.

The James-Younger Gang fell apart after a botched 1876 bank raid in which Minnesota town?

At Northfield on 7 September 1876, townspeople shot back at the gang; the Younger brothers were captured two weeks later near Madelia.

Jesse and Frank James learned guerrilla warfare riding with which Confederate bushwhacker leaders?

Frank James rode with William Quantrill and both brothers with 'Bloody Bill' Anderson, whose men carried out the 1864 Centralia Massacre.

The Pony Express carried mail between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento in about how many days?

Riders relayed mail the roughly 1,900 miles from St. Joseph to Sacramento in about 10 days, from April 1860 to October 1861.

What killed the Pony Express after just 18 months?

The transcontinental telegraph was completed on 24 October 1861, and the money-losing Pony Express shut down two days later.

Buffalo Bill Cody launched his famous Wild West show in which year?

Buffalo Bill's Wild West opened in Omaha, Nebraska in May 1883; from 1887 it toured Europe, where Queen Victoria saw it in her Jubilee year.

Cody won the exclusive right to the name 'Buffalo Bill' in an eight-hour shooting match against whom?

Cody killed 68 buffalo to Comstock's 48, using a Springfield rifle he named Lucretia Borgia.

Annie Oakley's real first name was what?

Born Phoebe Ann Mosey in Ohio, she was shooting game to feed her family before she was ten.

Sitting Bull, her fellow performer, gave five-foot-tall Annie Oakley which nickname?

Sitting Bull called her Watanya Cicilla, rendered 'Little Sure Shot' on the show's posters, after watching her shoot in 1884.

Calamity Jane's real name was Martha Jane what?

She was born in Princeton, Missouri in 1852 and, at her dying request, was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery next to Wild Bill Hickok.

Butch Cassidy's real name was what?

Born Robert LeRoy Parker in Utah in 1866, he took 'Butch' from a stint as a butcher in Rock Springs, Wyoming and 'Cassidy' from mentor Mike Cassidy.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are believed to have died in a 1908 shootout in which country?

The pair are believed to have died at San Vicente, Bolivia in November 1908 after a payroll robbery; they had first settled in Argentina with Etta Place.

The Sundance Kid took his nickname from a town in which state, where he served 18 months?

He was captured in Miles City, Montana, but the town of Sundance is in Wyoming's northeast corner.

The Colt Single Action Army revolver, adopted by the U.S. Army in 1873, is famous under what nickname?

The Colt Single Action Army of 1873 became known as the Peacemaker, the classic .45 six-shooter of the frontier.

Chisholm Trail herds crossed which river out of Texas into Indian Territory?

Herds forded the Red River at Red River Station, Texas, then crossed Indian Territory to railheads such as Abilene on the Kansas Pacific.

Jesse Chisholm, namesake of the cattle trail, was of Scottish and which Native American descent?

Jesse Chisholm, son of a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother, was a trader whose 1864–65 wagon route into Indian Territory the cattle drives later followed.

The Black Hills gold camp sat on Lakota land guaranteed by an 1868 treaty signed where?

The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie reserved the Black Hills for the Lakota; Custer's 1874 expedition announced gold there and the rush overran it.

Dodge City, Kansas was staked out in 1872 on which line of longitude?

Dodge City lies on the 100th meridian, the western boundary of the Fort Dodge military reservation; it first traded in buffalo hides and bones.

Which Kansas town had the first frontier 'Boot Hill' cemetery, before Dodge City?

Hays City's Boot Hill, in use from 1867, predates Dodge City's; the name evoked men who 'died with their boots on'.

Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876 is known to the Lakota as the Battle of what?

The Lakota call it the Battle of the Greasy Grass, after their name for the Little Bighorn River; Crow scouts, old Lakota rivals, rode with Custer.

Comanche, the only documented survivor from Custer's immediate command at Little Bighorn, was what?

Comanche was Captain Myles Keogh's horse; found badly wounded on the field, he was nursed back to health and became the 7th Cavalry's mascot.

Before the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull had a vision of soldiers falling into camp 'as thick as' what?

At a June 1876 Sun Dance, Sitting Bull saw soldiers falling upside down into camp 'like grasshoppers', read as a promise of victory.

Sitting Bull was killed in 1890 by Indian agency police on which reservation?

Sitting Bull was shot by Indian agency police at his Grand River cabin on the Standing Rock Reservation on 15 December 1890, amid the Ghost Dance scare.

Geronimo died in 1909 as a prisoner of war at which Army post?

Geronimo died of pneumonia on 17 February 1909 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, four years after riding in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade.

Although never a chief, Geronimo held what role among his Apache band?

Geronimo was a shaman, or medicine man, credited with spiritual powers; his gift for leading raids drew parties of 30 to 50 warriors to follow him.

Under the 1862 Homestead Act, how long did settlers have to live on the land to gain title?

Homesteaders had to live on and improve their 160 acres for five years to gain title; about 1.6 million homesteads, a tenth of US land, were granted.

Homesteading ended in the lower 48 states in 1976, but continued until 1986 in which state?

The 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act repealed the Homestead Act but allowed claims in Alaska for ten more years, until 1986.

Roughly how many arrests is pioneering Black deputy US marshal Bass Reeves credited with?

Bass Reeves is credited with more than 3,000 arrests across 32 years in Indian Territory, and once had to arrest his own son for murder.

Which fictional hero has been linked to Bass Reeves as a possible real-life inspiration?

Historian Art T. Burton argued Bass Reeves may have inspired the Lone Ranger, citing his Native American posse partners and souvenir silver dollars.

Stagecoach robber Black Bart was famous for leaving what at two of his crime scenes?

Charles Boles, 'Black Bart', left taunting poems signed 'the PO8' at two of his 28 Wells Fargo coach robberies, and never fired his shotgun.

What clue finally led detectives to Black Bart?

Detective Harry Morse visited every laundry in San Francisco to trace the mark F.X.O.7.

The Dalton Gang was wiped out in 1892 trying to rob two banks at once in which Kansas town?

At Coffeyville on 5 October 1892 townsmen killed four gang members; only Emmett Dalton survived, served 14 years, and later sold real estate in Los Angeles.

After his lawman days, Bat Masterson spent his last two decades in New York City working as what?

Bat Masterson became a sportswriter and boxing columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph, dying at his desk there in October 1921.

Bat Masterson was born in which country?

Bat Masterson was born in Henryville, Quebec, Canada in 1853 to an Irish family and baptized Bartholomew, before drifting to the plains as a buffalo hunter.

Belle Starr, the 'Bandit Queen', was convicted in 1883 of what crime?

Belle and Sam Starr were convicted of horse theft by Judge Isaac Parker in 1883 and jailed in Detroit; she was shot dead, unsolved, in 1889.

Joseph Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois patented the modern form of which frontier-changing product in 1874?

Glidden's 1874 patent for barbed wire fenced the open range; Texas fence-cutting wars followed until the state made cutting a felony in 1884.

Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis received their 1873 patent for reinforcing work pants with what?

The 1873 patent covered copper rivets at the stress points of work pants; Davis, a Reno tailor, could not afford the fee and partnered with Strauss.

Henry Wells and William Fargo founded Wells Fargo in 1852 to serve which booming market?

Wells Fargo opened in San Francisco in 1852 to carry gold and express for gold-rush California after their American Express board declined the venture.

The Pinkerton detective agency's open-eye logo came with which slogan?

Pinkerton's open-eye logo and 'We Never Sleep' motto gave us 'private eye'; agent Kate Warne helped smuggle Lincoln through Baltimore in 1861.

The English word 'cowboy' was first used in print in 1725 by which writer?

Jonathan Swift used 'cow-boy' in 1725 for a lad who tended cows; the American cowboy's skills came instead from Mexican herders.

In trail-drive slang, what was a 'remuda'?

A remuda, from the Spanish for 'exchange', was the herd of spare saddle horses a trail crew drove along, each cowboy using several mounts.

The Texas Rangers were founded in 1823 by which colonizer's call to arms?

Stephen F. Austin called for ten men to 'act as rangers' in 1823; the force was formally organised in 1835 and later produced Frank Hamer, who hunted Bonnie and Clyde.

Gunfighter John Wesley Hardin claimed to have killed how many men?

Hardin claimed 42 killings, though newspapers credited him with 27; he studied law in prison and was shot dead in an El Paso saloon in 1895.

The first transcontinental railroad was completed with a ceremonial spike at which Utah site?

At Promontory Summit on 10 May 1869, Central Pacific president Leland Stanford tapped in the gold 'Last Spike' with a silver hammer.

Ed Schieffelin named his 1877 Arizona silver claim after a warning that the only rock he'd find would be what?

A soldier at Camp Huachuca warned Schieffelin he would find only his own tombstone; he named his claim Tombstone, and the district yielded tens of millions in silver.

John Butterfield's 1858 stage service ran from St. Louis to San Francisco in how many days?

Butterfield's first westbound coach reached San Francisco in just under 24 days in October 1858; the mail contract allowed 25.

Roughly how many settlers lined up for the Oklahoma Land Run on April 22, 1889?

An estimated 50,000 people raced for 2 million acres of the Unassigned Lands at noon on 22 April 1889, at the sound of army guns and bugles.

In 1877 Chief Joseph led the Nez Perce on a fighting retreat of roughly how many miles?

The Nez Perce covered roughly 1,200 miles before surrendering at Bear Paw, Montana, about 40 miles short of the Canadian border, in October 1877.

Nicodemus, an all-black town founded in 1877 and linked with the Exodusters, is in which state?

Nicodemus, in Graham County, Kansas, was founded in 1877 by Black settlers from Kentucky; the larger Exoduster migration to Kansas followed in 1879.

Which Montana vigilante group of cattlemen killed up to 20 rustlers and squatters in 1884 alone?

Stuart's Stranglers, led by rancher Granville Stuart, hanged or shot suspected rustlers along the Musselshell and Missouri rivers in 1884.

The last stagecoach robbery in the frontier West took place in December of which year, in Nevada?

The Jarbidge, Nevada stage robbery of 5 December 1916, in which driver Fred Searcy was killed, is counted as the West's last stagecoach hold-up.

The first Beadle dime novel, from 1860, was Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the what?

Ann S. Stephens's Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter launched Beadle's Dime Novels in June 1860 and sold around 65,000 copies.

Which symbol of the Old West is really an invasive plant that arrived in the 1870s in flaxseed from Russia?

Tumbleweed is mostly Russian thistle, which appeared in South Dakota when imported flaxseed turned out to be contaminated. Once dry, the plant snaps off at the root and scatters its seeds as it rolls.

In the 1850s the US Army imported which animals as an experiment in hauling supplies across the American Southwest?

Camels landed in Texas in 1856 with the backing of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. The Civil War interrupted the experiment, and the Army sold the animals at auction.

Which future US president ran a cattle ranch in Dakota Territory in the 1880s after his wife and mother died?

Theodore Roosevelt sank $14,000 into the cattle business and built Elkhorn Ranch north of Medora. He turned those years into three books on ranching and hunting.

Which author first signed his famous pen name in 1863 while reporting for a Virginia City, Nevada newspaper?

Mark Twain turned to journalism at the Territorial Enterprise after failing as a miner. His years in the West later became the travel book Roughing It.

Margaret Brown, whose husband struck it rich in the mines of Leadville, Colorado, became famous for surviving what?

The Titanic sinking earned her the nickname 'Unsinkable Molly Brown' after she urged the crew of Lifeboat No. 6 to turn back for survivors. The family's wealth came from the Little Jonny Mine in 1893.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West crossed the Atlantic in 1887 and gave a command performance for which European monarch?

Queen Victoria saw the show in London in her Golden Jubilee year and enjoyed meeting the performers. A second command performance followed for her visiting royal guests.

Most of the workers who built the Central Pacific Railroad across the Sierra Nevada came from which country?

China supplied some 12,000 of the railroad's laborers by 1868. Unlike white workers, who were fed at the company's expense, they had to pay for their own food.

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley, a star of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, was born in a log cabin in which state?

Ohio's Darke County is where she learned to shoot, hunting as a child to provide for her impoverished family. She came home in the end, dying in Greenville, Ohio, in 1926.

Settlers who slipped into Oklahoma's Unassigned Lands before the 1889 Land Rush began earned which nickname?

Sooners got their name from the 'sooner clause', which denied a claim to anyone who entered before the opening time. The University of Oklahoma's football team took the nickname in 1908.

Which word for an independent-minded rebel comes from a Texas landowner whose cattle roamed unbranded?

Maverick comes from Samuel Maverick, a Texas lawyer whose small herd was left to wander unbranded. Cowhands took to calling any unmarked stray calf a maverick.

Which visiting writer appeared at the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado, on an 1882 lecture tour?

Oscar Wilde brought his talks on the Aesthetic Movement to the silver boomtown. American newspapers were already caricaturing him as a dandy decked in sunflowers and lilies.

Wyatt Earp, the last survivor of the O.K. Corral gunfight, died at home in 1929 in which city?

Los Angeles put the old lawman near Hollywood, where he made friends with screen cowboy Tom Mix and other Western actors. He hoped they would get his story told on film.

One-armed Civil War veteran John Wesley Powell led a three-month river expedition in 1869 through which landmark?

The Grand Canyon run capped a trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, the first official government-sponsored passage. Powell had lost his right arm below the elbow at the Battle of Shiloh.

Which Missouri town, later home to President Harry Truman, was a famous jumping-off point for the Oregon Trail?

Independence was nicknamed the 'Queen City of the Trails' because three great overland routes set out from it. The first organized migrant wagon train formed there in 1836.

The sprawling 'Mystery House' in San Jose was built by the widow of a magnate from which frontier rifle company?

Winchester heiress Sarah Winchester designed the mansion's rooms one by one and supervised the building herself. It opened as a tourist attraction within a year of her death in 1922.

Which mountain man and Army scout, a dime-novel hero in his own lifetime, gave his name to Nevada's capital city?

Kit Carson became a frontier legend through news articles and wildly exaggerated dime novels. Carson City and the Carson River both carry the trapper and guide's name.

Which wagon train took the untested Hastings Cutoff in 1846 and was trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada all winter?

The Donner Party lost so much time on the shortcut that it reached the mountains too late. Of its 87 members, 48 survived, some only by resorting to cannibalism.

The all-Black 9th and 10th Cavalry, formed after the Civil War to serve on the frontier, went by which nickname?

Buffalo Soldiers is a name the troopers are said to have been given by the Native warriors they fought. One museum account traces it to the Cheyenne in the winter of 1877.

Which Lakota war leader, who avoided cameras all his life, has been carved into a Black Hills mountain since 1948?

Crazy Horse refused to be photographed, so the giant portrait is imagined. The monument stands about 17 miles from Mount Rushmore and remains far from completion.

The Army's attempt to disarm a Lakota camp on December 29, 1890 ended in a massacre at which South Dakota site?

Wounded Knee Creek lies on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where the 7th Cavalry surrounded the camp with a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns in support.

Which hit 1903 Edison Western, long mislabeled the first of its genre, was filmed in New Jersey and New York?

The Great Train Robbery was shot by Edwin S. Porter in November 1903 and was widely distributed and copied. Later legend wrongly crowned it the first Western, or even the first film with a plot.

Which disease killed up to 3 percent of Oregon Trail travelers in the epidemic years between 1849 and 1855?

Cholera spread because thousands of wagon parties shared the same campsites with no sewage treatment. The travelers had no idea it came from contaminated water.

On the treeless Great Plains, Oregon Trail families gathered dried bison dung, nicknamed 'chips', to use as what?

Cooking fuel was so scarce without trees that collecting chips became a regular chore, one that often fell to the women of the wagon train. The Platte River valley offered a steady supply.

Which church president, sometimes called the 'American Moses', led the Mormon pioneers west to the Salt Lake Valley?

Brigham Young succeeded Joseph Smith and quizzed trappers and mountain men about the Great Basin before choosing it. About 70,000 people eventually made the journey.

Mountain men like Jim Beckwourth ranged the Rockies between 1820 and 1840, making a living by trapping which animal?

Beaver pelts drew about 3,000 trappers into the mountains at the trade's peak. Their living had largely gone by the late 1840s, undone by the fur trade's collapse and the rise of silk.

Allan Pinkerton, whose detective agency pursued Butch Cassidy across the West, was born in 1819 in which country?

Scotland's Glasgow was his birthplace: he trained there as a barrel maker and joined the Chartist reform movement. He later claimed to have foiled an 1861 plot to kill Abraham Lincoln.

The North American cowboy's gear and methods descend from which mounted cattle herders of colonial Mexico?

Vaqueros worked cattle in New Spain with methods brought over from Spain, and became the foundation for the cowboy. Great Basin cowhands still call themselves 'buckaroos', possibly a corruption of the word.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed Union Pacific trains around 1900 as members of which outlaw gang?

The Wild Bunch took its name from an earlier outlaw gang. With detectives closing in, Cassidy and Sundance fled in 1901 to Argentine Patagonia.

Roy Bean, the Texas saloon-keeper judge styled the 'Law West of the Pecos', named his bar after which actress?

Lillie Langtry, the British stage star known as the Jersey Lily, gave the Jersey Lilly saloon its name. In her autobiography she said she visited only after his death.

Which card game, not poker, was played in almost every Old West gambling hall and nicknamed 'bucking the tiger'?

Faro got the nickname from early card backs that showed a Bengal tiger, and some houses hung a tiger picture in the window to advertise a game. Poker overtook it only in the early 20th century.

Which Black Texas cowboy invented bulldogging, the rodeo skill of wrestling a steer to the ground by its horns?

Bill Pickett's method was to bite the animal on the lip and fall backward. In 1972 he became the first African American man inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame.

Which dime novelist made Buffalo Bill Cody the hero of an 1869 serial and later put him on stage in a play?

Ned Buntline first planned to make Cody a sidekick to Wild Bill Hickok, then decided the scout was the more interesting character. The serial began running in the New York Weekly in December 1869.

Which Texas rancher invented the chuckwagon in 1866 by refitting an Army-surplus wagon for a cattle drive?

Charles Goodnight built the rolling kitchen to feed cowboys driving cattle from Texas to New Mexico. He became known as the 'father of the Texas Panhandle'.

Which Central Pacific Railroad president, later founder of a famous university, drove the golden spike in 1869?

Leland Stanford tapped the spike into a tie of polished laurel with a silver maul. It is now displayed at the university he and his wife Jane founded and named after their late son.

Which painter of cowboys and cavalry, born in upstate New York, sculpted the 1895 bronze 'The Bronco Buster'?

Frederic Remington made it his first sculpture, and it remains the most popular of them all. He specialized in Western subjects despite being born in the town of Canton, New York.

Which religious movement, begun in 1889 by the Paiute prophet Wovoka, promised an end to westward expansion?

The Ghost Dance grew out of the traditional circle dance. Wovoka taught that practicing it properly would reunite the living with the spirits of the dead and bring peace and prosperity to Native peoples.

The frontier 'Hanging Judge', who sentenced 160 people to death, held court in which Arkansas border town?

Fort Smith's federal court also had jurisdiction over the neighboring Indian Territory, the future Oklahoma. Of the 160 people the judge sentenced to death, 79 were executed.

Because the Conestoga was too heavy for the long trek, Oregon Trail families used which lighter covered wagon?

Prairie schooner covers of white canvas reminded travelers of a ship's sails crossing a sea of grass. Many were simply ordinary farm wagons fitted with a cover.

In the slang of cowboys on a Texas cattle drive, a 'dogie' was which kind of animal in the herd?

A motherless calf was a dogie in cowboy slang, a term first recorded in 1887. Where the word came from is uncertain.

Buffalo Bill Cody won which decoration as an Army scout in 1872, lost it in 1917 and had it restored in 1989?

The Medal of Honor was rescinded from Cody and 910 others in 1917; civilian scouts were ruled ineligible because they were neither officers nor enlisted soldiers. An Army review board restored his in 1989.

Which Oglala Lakota chief gave his name to an 1860s war that closed the Bozeman Trail and its Army forts?

Red Cloud's alliance of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho won control of the Powder River country. He later led his people into reservation life and became one of the most photographed Native leaders of his century.

Which alias was outlaw Jesse James living under in St. Joseph, Missouri, when he was shot dead in 1882?

Thomas Howard was the name he lived under with his family in St. Joseph. He was killed in that house by a new gang recruit who hoped to collect the reward on his head.

Which Indiana outlaws staged America's first peacetime train holdups, starting at the Seymour depot in 1866?

The Reno brothers and an accomplice boarded their first target as it pulled out of the station one October evening. Vigilante mobs ended the outfit's short career in 1868 by lynching ten members.

Big Nose Kate, longtime companion of gunfighter Doc Holliday, was born in which European kingdom?

Hungary was her homeland: she was born Mária Izabella Magdolna Horony and emigrated to America with her family as a child. In the American West she was known as a gambler.

The Concord stagecoach, slung on leather thoroughbraces, was first built by Abbot-Downing in which state?

New Hampshire's capital, Concord, gave the coach its name. The leather suspension let the body sway instead of jolt, absorbing shocks on rough ground and easing the ride for passengers.

Which woman became notorious in 1899 for holding up an Arizona stagecoach on the road between Globe and Florence?

Pearl Hart committed one of the last recorded stagecoach robberies in the United States, and it was her gender that made the crime national news. She was held in Yuma Territorial Prison and later pardoned.

Which outlaw was accidentally decapitated at his 1901 hanging in New Mexico because the rope was too long?

Black Jack Ketchum was caught after a conductor shot him in the arm as he approached a moving train; the arm had to be amputated. He was executed for attempted train robbery.

Which 1902 Owen Wister novel about a ranch cowboy was a landmark in lifting the Western above the dime novel?

The Virginian never gives its cowboy hero a name. Wister built the novel out of short stories he had published in Harper's Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post.

Which wilderness became the first national park in the US under an act President Ulysses S. Grant signed in 1872?

Yellowstone is also widely understood to be the first national park in the world. The act set the land apart as a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.

Which frontiersman served Tennessee in Congress, opposed the Indian Removal Act and died at the Alamo in 1836?

Davy Crockett vehemently opposed many policies of President Andrew Jackson during his time in Congress. He joined the Texas Revolution in early 1836, the last venture of his life.