70 Fun Facts About Wild West

Billy the Kid was born under what name?

He used William H. Bonney as an alias; the New York-born outlaw was dead at 21.

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

Garrett went on to write a book about the Kid and later received a federal appointment from Theodore Roosevelt.

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

The Regulators were formed to avenge the killing of English rancher John Tunstall, the Kid's employer.

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

The buyer was businessman William Koch, and the small tintype remains one of the most valuable photographs ever sold.

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

The lawmen and Cowboys faced off in a vacant lot next to Fly's photography studio, six doors west of the corral's rear entrance.

Roughly how many shots were fired at the O.K. Corral gunfight, all in about thirty seconds?

Three Cowboys died: Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers. Ike Clanton, who had started the trouble, ran off unarmed.

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

They rustled cattle across the Mexican border, and Tombstone had just passed an ordinance banning guns in town to rein them in.

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

Virgil was later maimed by ambush and Morgan was murdered, setting off Wyatt's vendetta ride.

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?

He was 36, killed by tuberculosis rather than a bullet, in the town best known for its hot springs.

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

A police captain disarmed Earp of a large pistol before he stepped into the ring.

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?

The killer, Jack McCall, shot him from behind; Hickok had unusually sat with his back to the door.

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

The 1907 edition of Hoyle's Games called the dead man's hand jacks and eights; nobody tied the phrase to Hickok until the 1920s.

Hickok's 1865 showdown with Davis Tutt in Springfield, Missouri began over what he lost in a poker game?

The two faced off sideways in the town square in what is often called the first true quick-draw duel.

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?

Ford was a new gang recruit hoping for a reward and amnesty; he was later celebrated and reviled as 'the dirty little coward'.

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

Townspeople fought back with whatever guns they had, and the Younger brothers were captured within two weeks.

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

They were accused of taking part in the 1864 Centralia Massacre in Missouri.

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

It lasted only 18 months before the transcontinental telegraph made it obsolete in October 1861.

What killed the Pony Express after just 18 months?

Despite a heavy subsidy it never made money, and it went bankrupt as soon as the wires reached California.

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

He took the company to Europe from 1887, where Queen Victoria attended a performance during 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?

The Lakota name he gave her was Watanya Cicilla, which the show's posters translated for the crowds.

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?

He picked up 'Butch' from a brief stint working for a butcher in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and 'Cassidy' from an old mentor.

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

They had fled first to Argentina with Etta Place; the exact circumstances of their deaths remain murky.

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.

Butch Cassidy's gang used a natural rock formation as a hideout. What was it called?

Robbers Roost in Utah and Brown's Hole on the Colorado-Utah line were also stops on the gang's 'Outlaw Trail'.

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

Serial number 1, lost for decades, turned up in a barn in Nashua, New Hampshire in the early 1900s.

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

The drives ended at railheads on the Kansas Pacific line, where the cattle were loaded and shipped east.

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

His wagon road, blazed around 1864, ran between his trading posts, and only later became a cattle highway.

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

Custer's 1874 announcement of gold in the Black Hills triggered the rush that overran the treaty.

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

The town sat at the legal western edge of the Fort Dodge reservation and first traded in buffalo bones and hides.

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

The name suggests men who 'died with their boots on', though it may simply have referred to paupers.

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

The fight took place on the Crow reservation in Montana Territory; the Crow, old rivals of the Lakota, scouted for the Army.

The only documented survivor from Custer's immediate command at Little Bighorn was Comanche. What was Comanche?

The wounded animal was nursed back to health and became the 7th Cavalry's regimental mascot.

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

The upside-down soldiers were read as a promise of a great victory, which Custer's annihilation seemed to fulfil.

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

Authorities feared he would throw his weight behind the Ghost Dance movement; he had toured with Buffalo Bill's show a few years earlier.

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

Four years earlier the Indian Office had lent him out to ride in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade.

Geronimo was not a chief of his Apache band. What was his actual role?

He was nonetheless such a gifted raid leader that parties of 30 to 50 warriors followed him.

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

About 1.6 million homesteads were granted, covering nearly a tenth of the entire United States.

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

The 1862 act was signed by Lincoln only after the seceding Southern delegates, who had blocked it, left Congress.

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

He worked Indian Territory for 32 years 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 Burton points to Reeves' Native American partners and his habit of handing out souvenir silver dollars.

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

He robbed Wells Fargo coaches at least 28 times, always fled on foot because he feared horses, 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?

Only Emmett Dalton survived; he served prison time and later moved to Hollywood as a real-estate man and writer.

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

He died at his desk at The Morning Telegraph in 1921, having been one of Theodore Roosevelt's 'White House Gunfighters'.

Bat Masterson was born in which country?

He was born in Quebec 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?

She was shot dead in 1889 in a case that remains officially unsolved.

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

Ranchers and farmers fought the Fence Cutting Wars over it until Texas made fence-cutting a felony in 1884.

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

Davis, a Reno tailor, could not afford the patent fee himself and offered Strauss a partnership instead.

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

Their other company, American Express, had declined to serve California, so they started a new one.

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

The agency hired women as spies almost from its founding; Kate Warne helped smuggle Lincoln safely to Washington in 1861.

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

In Britain it described boys minding the village cows; the American cowboy tradition came instead from the Mexican vaquero.

The cowboy word 'buckaroo' is an anglicization of which Spanish word?

Today 'buckaroo' is heard mostly in the Great Basin and California, while Texans say 'cowpuncher'.

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

They were formally constituted in 1835, and later famously helped hunt down Bonnie and Clyde.

At his 1877 sentencing, gunfighter John Wesley Hardin claimed to have killed how many men?

Newspapers credited him with 27; he studied law in prison and was shot in an El Paso saloon within a year of his release.

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

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

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

The mining district went on to yield tens of millions of dollars in silver bullion.

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

The southern route was abandoned in 1861 when Texas joined the Confederacy, and Wells Fargo became the main operator on a central route.

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

Washington had opened 2 million acres of unoccupied land, and the 'boomers' charged 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?

Only about 200 warriors fought some 2,000 soldiers in eighteen engagements before being surrounded near the Canadian border in Montana.

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

The Exodusters were lured west by cheap Homestead Act land and the hope of better treatment.

'Stagecoach Mary' Fields earned her nickname as the first woman in the West to do what?

Mary Fields was also known as a brawler and a shotgun rider on the Montana routes she worked.

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

Range wars over open grazing land multiplied after the Civil War, from Johnson County to Pleasant Valley.

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

By then barbed wire, railroads and farms had long since closed the open range almost everywhere else.

The first dime novel, published in 1859, was titled Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the what?

The most successful of all dime novels was Edward S. Ellis's Seth Jones of 1860.