70 free Wild West trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
62 free Wild West trivia questions with answers. The Wild West of the movies is mostly invention, and the real thing is stranger. Wyatt Earp finished his days trying to sell his story in Hollywood, Bat Masterson died at his desk as a New York sportswriter, and the most famous stagecoach robber in California was afraid of horses and always ran off on foot. This quiz covers the outlaws and lawmen everyone has heard of, from Billy the Kid and Jesse James to Butch Cassidy and Doc Holliday, alongside the cattle trails, boomtowns, railroads and Native leaders that shaped the frontier: Deadwood, Dodge City, the Chisholm Trail, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and the Homestead Act. It starts with easy warm-ups and builds to genuinely hard questions about laundry marks, meridians and eight-hour buffalo-shooting contests. Every answer was checked against reference and primary sources rather than frontier legend, so it works for a saloon-themed party, a classroom, or settling arguments at pub trivia.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Billy the Kid was born under what name?
Henry McCarty
He used William H. Bonney as an alias; the New York-born outlaw was dead at 21.
Q 02Which sheriff shot and killed Billy the Kid at Fort Sumner in 1881?
Pat Garrett
Garrett went on to write a book about the Kid and later received a federal appointment from Theodore Roosevelt.
Q 03Billy the Kid rose to fame as one of the Regulators in which New Mexico conflict?
Lincoln County War
The Regulators were formed to avenge the killing of English rancher John Tunstall, the Kid's employer.
Q 04The only authenticated photograph of Billy the Kid sold at auction in 2011 for how much?
$2.3 million
The buyer was businessman William Koch, and the small tintype remains one of the most valuable photographs ever sold.
Q 05The 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral actually took place in a vacant lot fronting which thoroughfare?
Fremont
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.
Q 06Roughly how many shots were fired at the O.K. Corral gunfight, all in about thirty seconds?
30
Three Cowboys died: Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers. Ike Clanton, who had started the trouble, ran off unarmed.
Q 07The outlaw faction the Earps fought at the O.K. Corral was known by what name?
The Cochise County Cowboys
They rustled cattle across the Mexican border, and Tombstone had just passed an ordinance banning guns in town to rein them in.
Q 08Which Earp brother was the town's city marshal and deputized Doc Holliday on the day of the gunfight?
Virgil
Virgil was later maimed by ambush and Morgan was murdered, setting off Wyatt's vendetta ride.
Q 09Before becoming a gambler and gunman, Doc Holliday earned a degree in what?
Dentistry
He set up a practice in Griffin, Georgia, but tuberculosis, the disease that had killed his mother, drove him west.
Q 10Doc Holliday died in his bed at a hotel in which Colorado spa town?
Glenwood Springs
He was 36, killed by tuberculosis rather than a bullet, in the town best known for its hot springs.
Q 11Whose 1896 fight against Bob Fitzsimmons did Wyatt Earp referee, calling a foul many thought faked?
Tom Sharkey
A police captain disarmed Earp of a large pistol before he stepped into the ring.
Q 12What is unusual about Wyatt Earp's record across all his gunfights?
He was never wounded
His brothers and his friend Doc Holliday were all hit; Wyatt walked away untouched every time.
Q 13Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead in 1876 while playing poker in which town?
Deadwood
The killer, Jack McCall, shot him from behind; Hickok had unusually sat with his back to the door.
Q 21What killed the Pony Express after just 18 months?
The telegraph
Despite a heavy subsidy it never made money, and it went bankrupt as soon as the wires reached California.
Q 22Buffalo Bill Cody launched his famous Wild West show in which year?
1883
He took the company to Europe from 1887, where Queen Victoria attended a performance during her Jubilee year.
Q 23Cody won the exclusive right to the name 'Buffalo Bill' in an eight-hour shooting match against whom?
William Comstock
Cody killed 68 buffalo to Comstock's 48, using a Springfield rifle he named Lucretia Borgia.
Q 14The 'dead man's hand' Hickok supposedly held when he died is traditionally what?
Black aces and eights
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.
Q 15Hickok's 1865 showdown with Davis Tutt in Springfield, Missouri began over what he lost in a poker game?
A gold watch
The two faced off sideways in the town square in what is often called the first true quick-draw duel.
Q 16Which Kansas cattle town made Wild Bill Hickok its marshal in 1871?
Abilene
Mayor Joseph McCoy, who had built Abilene into the first great railhead for Texas cattle, hired him.
Q 17Who shot Jesse James in the back of the head in 1882?
Robert Ford
Ford was a new gang recruit hoping for a reward and amnesty; he was later celebrated and reviled as 'the dirty little coward'.
Q 18The James-Younger Gang fell apart after a botched 1876 bank raid in which Minnesota town?
Northfield
Townspeople fought back with whatever guns they had, and the Younger brothers were captured within two weeks.
Q 19Jesse and Frank James learned guerrilla warfare riding with which Confederate bushwhacker leaders?
William Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson
They were accused of taking part in the 1864 Centralia Massacre in Missouri.
Q 20The Pony Express carried mail between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento in about how many days?
10
It lasted only 18 months before the transcontinental telegraph made it obsolete in October 1861.
Q 24Annie Oakley's real first name was what?
Phoebe
Born Phoebe Ann Mosey in Ohio, she was shooting game to feed her family before she was ten.
Q 25Sitting Bull, her fellow performer, gave five-foot-tall Annie Oakley which nickname?
Little Sure Shot
The Lakota name he gave her was Watanya Cicilla, which the show's posters translated for the crowds.
Q 26Calamity Jane's real name was Martha Jane what?
Canary
She was born in Princeton, Missouri in 1852 and, at her dying request, was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery next to Wild Bill Hickok.
Q 27Butch Cassidy's real name was what?
Robert LeRoy Parker
He picked up 'Butch' from a brief stint working for a butcher in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and 'Cassidy' from an old mentor.
Q 28Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are believed to have died in a 1908 shootout in which country?
Bolivia
They had fled first to Argentina with Etta Place; the exact circumstances of their deaths remain murky.
Q 29The Sundance Kid took his nickname from a town in which state, where he served 18 months?
Wyoming
He was captured in Miles City, Montana, but the town of Sundance is in Wyoming's northeast corner.
Q 30Butch Cassidy's gang used a natural rock formation as a hideout. What was it called?
Hole-in-the-Wall
Robbers Roost in Utah and Brown's Hole on the Colorado-Utah line were also stops on the gang's 'Outlaw Trail'.