The Wild West's Famous, Infamous, and Fictitious Associations with Nevada

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

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Despite its rich association with the Wild West, Nevada isn't often the setting of Western novels or films, perhaps because its settlement and development were late.

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The Transcontinental Railroad at Donner's Pass. Click the illustration to enlarge it.

Indeed, its final dimensions and borders weren't established until two years after the conclusion of the Civil War, although Nevada Territory became the nation's thirty-sixth state in 1864.

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Mining was a key factor in the state's development, causing boom towns to spring up overnight, especially in the western part of Nevada. The building of the Transcontinental Railroad, which occurred between 1863 and 1869, also contributed to Nevada's growth and development, as the Central Pacific Railroad crossed into the state in 1868; by the end of the next year, the railroad had crossed the state completely.

Goldfield, Nevada historical marker. Click the marker to enlarge it.

Manhattan, Golconda, Battle Mountain, Tonopah, Goldfield, Virginia City, and Pioche (one of the toughest towns in the West) are among the towns that owe their existence or expansion to mining, and Reno, Lovelock, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Beowawe, Elko, Halleck, and others were founded or benefited from railroad construction.

Mark Twain and his Enterprise desk. Click the picture to enlarge it.

In addition to Mark Twain, who wrote for the Territorial Enterprise newspaper while he lived in Virginia City, other names, famous and notorious, associated with Nevada are the ill-fated Donner party, the outlaw leader Butch Cassidy, and the legendary lawman Wyatt Earp and his nearly-as-famous brother Virgil.

The Donner Party. Click the drawing to enlarge it.

Almost eighteen-hundred miles lie between Independence, Missouri, the starting point of the original members of the ill-fated Donner Party, and their destination, California. The party entered Nevada on September 10, 1847, and crossed the Ruby Mountains, reaching the Humboldt River sixteen days later. Legends of America describes this part of the party's journey:

The Donner Party soon reached the junction with the California Trail, about seven miles west of present-day Elko, Nevada[,] and spent the next two weeks traveling along the Humboldt River. As the disillusionment of the party increased, tempers began to flare in the group.

On October 5 at Iron Point, two wagons became entangled and John Snyder, a teamster of one of the wagons began to whip his oxen. Infuriated by the teamster’s treatment of the oxen, James Reed ordered the man to stop and when he wouldn’t, Reed grabbed his knife and stabbed the teamster in the stomach, killing him. The Donner Party wasted no time in administering their own justice. Though member, Lewis Keseberg, favored hanging for James Reed, the group, instead, voted to banish him. Leaving his family, Reed was last seen riding off to the west with a man named Walter Herron.

The Donner Party continued to travel along the Humboldt River with their remaining draft animals exhausted. To spare the animals, everyone who could, walked. Two days after the Snyder killing, on October 7th, Lewis Keseberg turned out a Belgian man named Hardcoop, who had been traveling with him. The old man, who could not keep up with the rest of the party with his severely swollen feet, began to knock on other wagon doors, but no one would let him in. He was last seen sitting under a large sagebrush, completely exhausted, unable to walk, worn out, and was left there to die.

The terrible ordeals of the caravan continued to mount when on October 12th, their oxen were attacked by Paiute Indians, killing 21 one of them with poison-tipped arrows, further depleting their draft animals.

Continuing to encounter multiple obstacles, on October 16th, they reached the gateway to the Sierra Nevada on the Truckee River (present-day Reno) almost completely depleted of food supplies.

Butch Cassidy. Click the photograph to enlarge it.

The association of Robert LeRoy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, the leader of the Wild Bunch, with the Silver State is no less deplorable.

As reported in The Ely Times, on September 19, 1900, Cassidy's gang robbed the First National Bank of Winnemucca. The outlaws got away with $32,640 in gold coins.

Etta Place and the Sundance Kid. Click the photograph to enlarge it.

It's an interesting story. Unfortunately, there's not much truth to it: According to a Nevadagram article, “Butch Cassidy didn’t send that picture and the evidence is clear that he was never in Winnemucca in his life.” Although both the Nevadagram article and the The Ely Times article concede that the bank was robbed, both deny that Cassidy was directly involved, if he was involved at all.

Wyatt Earp. Click the photograph to enlarge it.

Virgil Earp. Click the photograph to enlarge it.

Wyatt Earp and his brother Virgil followed opportunity, traveling from one boom town to the next, often in the company of a female companion. Wyatt relocated from the Kansas cattle town of Dodge City to the silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona, the site of the famous Shootout at the OK Corral. After visiting the gold mines of the Yukon, he operated a saloon in Nevada before, eventually, retiring in California.

In Tonopah, Wyatt established a saloon, The Northern, with his common-law second wife, Josephine Marcus, the successor to Earps' first common-law wife Mattie Blaylock. He also hauled “ore and supplies” for the Tonopah Mining Company and did a stint as a deputy U.S. marshal. 

Virgil, who'd been with Wyatt in the shootout in Tombstone, died in Tonopah. Outlaws and ruffians had attempted to end Virgil's life numerous times before, but pneumonia claimed him.

The Northern Saloon.  Click the photograph to enlarge it.

* * *

To the exploits of the Donner Party, Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, and Butch Cassidy, we can add those of Nevadan Bane Messenger, the protagonist of the novels in my series An Adventure of the Old West. By turns, a Union veteran of the Civil War, a bounty hunter, a sheriff, and a U. S. marshal recruited by President Chester A. Arthur himself, and a friend and confidant of Allan Pinkerton, Bane's exploits are every bit as adventurous as those of any other Western hero, living or dead, historical or fictional.

 Click the image to order.

Nineteenth-Century Guns: What's in a Name (Part 1)

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Several weapons that first appeared during the days of the American Wild West are named for famous people.

The Armstrong breech-loading gun was named after its English designer Sir William Armstrong (1810-1900). In 1854, Armstrong sold the Secretary of State for War on making a rifled breech-loading three-pounder for testing purposes. Later models fired ammunition of higher calibers, including the largest among them, a 100-pounder. Although the guns were more expensive, they were also safer, but, ultimately, their design was found to be too complicated, and loading them was a time-consuming process involving several discrete steps. The Ordnance Selection Committee reported its conclusions:

The many-grooved system of rifling with its lead-coated projectiles and complicated breech-loading arrangements is far inferior for the general purpose of war to the muzzle-loading system and has the disadvantage of being more expensive in both original cost and ammunition. Muzzle-loading guns are far superior to breech-loaders in simplicity of construction and efficiency in this respect for active service; they can be loaded and worked with perfect ease and abundant rapidity.

As a result, the military resumed its use of muzzle-loading guns.

Sir William Armstrong

Armstrong, a man of many talents and abilities, is considered the father of modern artillery. A well-respected inventor and philanthropist,” he was knighted, and Queen Victoria later elevated him to the peerage as a baron (Robert P. Dod, The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland 93). In addition to the breech-loading gun named for himself, Armstrong also developed the hydraulic accumulator.

Samuel Colt

Samuel Colt began making weapons in the 1830s, securing a British patent for an improved revolver design in 1836. According to True West, the weapon that Wyatt Earp used during the 1881 Shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, Earp “probably” used a Colt single-action revolver with a ten-inch barrel. A Tactical Life article indicates that Bat Masterson “ordered a total of eight single-action revolvers from Colt’s,” the “most notable” of which was a customized “nickel plated short .45 calibre” (source's italics):

Bat Masterson

. . . make it very Easy on the trigger and have the front Sight a little higher and thicker than the ordinary pistol of this Kind. Put on a gutta percha handle and send it as soon as possible, have the barrel about the same length that the ejector rod is (source's italics).

Wild Bill Hickok

“The favorite sidearms” of Wild Bill Hickok, who earned his living as a lawman a bit earlier than Earp and Masterson, were a pair of “a pair of elegantly engraved, ivory-handled 1851 Navy Colt cap and ball .36 caliber revolvers [source's bold]. . . [the cylinders of which were] engraved with a naval battle scene between Texas and Mexico” (“Wild Bill's Colts”).

Employed by his father, Colt worked on several ideas for inventions, one of which was the first pistol he'd ever created. Unfortunately, when the weapon was fired, it blew up (R. L. Wilson, Colt: An American Legend 8). The rifle on which he was working at the same time fared better (Colt: An American Legend 8). Leaving his father's employ, he traveled across the United States and Canada, demonstrating the effects of nitrous oxide, calling himself the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New York, London, and Calcutta” (Gardner Soule, The Story of Sam Colt's Equalizer” in Popular Science. 179 (6): 89. 8).

After focusing on a handgun with one barrel, rather than multiple barrels, he managed to find a financial backer and was able to secure a patent in 1836 for the first model of his Colt revolver (Soule, 89). Eventually, with modifications and refinements, his revolver would become one of the most popular handguns in the Wild West.

In 1852, Henry Deringer gave the world the small handgun with a large bore that is named (but misspelled) for him. Muzzle loaded, the percussion-cap pistol fired one shot. Usually sold in pairs for $15 to $25 for both, these weapons were known in the Wild West as “boot pistols” (Gettysburg Museum), “Vest Pocket Pistols,” or “sleeve guns”

The Life and Death of Wyatt Earp

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Wyatt Earp

Obituaries. I never read them when I was younger. I don't read many of them now. Anyone who does, though, soon realizes what an odd, rather grotesque type of essay they are, part biography and part eulogy.

Most death notices also provide a handy, if not dandy, summary of the times in which the dearly departed lived. (In obituaries, almost all of the departed are “dear,” regardless of the what they may or may not have done during their lifetimes.)

Wyatt Earp's obituary.

The Internet Archives website stores the Los Angeles Times's January 14, 1929, obituary of Wyatt Earp. The death notice's headline reads, “Tamer of Wild West Dies.” The piece's subtitle offers a tad more information, even as it further characterizes the decedent: “Wyatt Earp, Picturesque Gun-Fighting Marshal of Frontier Days, Passes Without Boots On.”

Wild Bill Hickok

The article begins with name-dropping, as its anonymous author reminds the newspaper's readers that Earp was friends and “colleagues” with the likes of “Wild Bill” Hickok, Bill Tilghman, Ben Thompson, and “Bat” Masterson. (No mention is made of Earp's greatest friend and colleague, Doc Holliday.

Some of the information the obituary reports isn't altogether reliable. Earp may have met Hickok, but the marshal of Abilene, Kansas, wasn't a “friend” of Earp's, and, although Earp knew Thompson on a casual basis, the outlaw was far from one of Earp's pals.

Shootout at the OK Corral.

The obituary notes that Earp helped to bring “law and order into the rough cow camps of the West with .45-caliber bullets.” While it's true that Earp did exchange bullets with his adversaries in the Shootout at the OK Corral and during the equally famous vendetta ride that followed this event, he more often buffaloed his adversaries than shot them. However, it seems that the Times author wanted to sell his readers on the image of Earp as a “picturesque” figure; to do so, he apparently thought it necessary to exaggerate the facts a bit.

Doc Holliday

In mentioning the OK Corral gunfight, the writer makes no mention of Holliday, although the other participants are named. Perhaps the author supposed that a mention of Hickok would detract from the luster of Earp or would tarnish the carefully contrived image of the deceased that the author appears to have labored to depict.

Josephine ("Sadie") Earp

Another possibility might be that allusions to Holliday were omitted in deference to Earp's widow, who took pains to preserve a pristine, rather than a picturesque, view of her late husband. References to his association with a drunken, boozing gambler and gunfighter whose common-law wife had been (like Earp's own second wife) a prostitute might not fit with the idea that Earp was a heroic lawman who helped to “tame” the Wild West.

Bob Fitzsimmons (left) and Tom Starkey

Other of Earp's endeavors are cited, including his prospecting for gold in the Klondike; his controversial refereeing of the Fitzsimmons-Starkey boxing match in Oakland, California; his taming of Colton, California; and his management of the copper mine and “four oil wells . . . near Bakersfield,” California, that he owned and his “breeding of horses.”

As much a jack-of-all-trades in his advanced years as he'd been in his prime, Earp also offered “technical advice” to early Hollywood filmmakers concerning “their productions.”

William S. Hart

At the end of the obituary, the writer again drops a few names: actor “Bill” Hart, movie producer Wilson Mizner, boxing promoter Tex Rickard, Earp's widow Josephine (“Sadie”) Earp, and his sister Mrs. W. Edwards. Earp's “honorary pallbearers,” readers learn, included Hart and Mizner.

Milton Mizner

Tex Rickard

Spouses and Paramours of the Earp Brothers

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Sherry Monahan offers another interesting account of a different type of Western woman in her 2013 book, Mrs Earp: The Wives and Lovers of the Earp Brothers.” Among the women of whom Monahan provides profiles are Aurilla Sutherland (1850-1870), Sarah Haspell (1853-1919), Celia Ann “Mattie” Blaylock (1850-1888), and Josephine Sarah Marcus (1861?-1944), identified, collectively, as “Mr. & Mrs. Wyatt Earp”; Magdalena C. “Ellen” Rijsdam (1842-1910), Rozilla Draggoo (1853-1870?), and Alvira “Allie” Packingham Sullivan (1851-1947), identified, collectively, as “Mr. & Mrs. Virgil Earp”; Louisa A. Houston (1855-1894), the wife of Morgan Earp; Bessie Catchim (1840-1887) and Mrs. H. J. Earp, identified, collectively, as “Mr. & Mrs. James Earp”; and Kate Sanford (1855-?), the wife of Warren Earp.

More has been written about some of these wives and lovers than about others, mostly because little is known about the second group. Here are a few of the facts that are known about the latter group of ladies. Unfortunately, no known photographs of the Rozilla Draggoo has been authenticated.

Rozilla Draggoo

Virgil Earp

Rozilla Draggoo, who was born in France “around 1853)”; Virgil Earp's father, Nicholas Porter Earp (1813-1907), a justice of the peace, performed the ceremony in which the couple were lawfully wed on May 30, 1870. For a time, the newlyweds lived in Lamar, Missouri, “with Virgil's parents” and Virgil's siblings, Adelia (1861-1941) and Warren (1855-1900); brother Wyatt (1848-1929) and “his first wife, Aurilla” (c. 1849-1870) lived “nearby” (65).

Magdalena “Ellen” Rijsdam

A bit of a scandal and a lot of pathos surround Virgil's marriage to “his first wife, Magdalena 'Ellen' Rijsdam,” whom Virgil “secretly married” in 1860 (59). Ellen “was underage,” as was Virgil, and, presumably for this reason, both Virgil's and Ellen's parents opposed the couple's union (59-60).

Nineteenth-century Utrecht, Netherlands

Born in Utrecht, Netherlands, she immigrated with her parents, Gerritt Rijsdam and Magdalena Catrina Van Velzen, to the United States on November 25, 1842, living in Baltimore, Maryland, and Pella, Iowa, where the Earps then lived (59).

Although an 1889 newspaper article states that the couple lived apart, Virgil and Ellen produced a daughter, “Virgil's only known child,” Nellie Jane Earp, who was born on January 7, 1862 (60). At the time, the mother was seventeen years old—eight months the senior of her husband, which, Monahan speculates, may explain “why her father was so upset” (60). When “Ellen's pregnancy began to show,” the couple “announced their marriage” (60).

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Virgil joined the Union Army, and the elder Rijsdams told Nellie that her father had been killed in combat (60). Ellen, Nellie, and Ellen's parents then moved to the Oregon Territory, apparently without notifying Virgil; when he returned home to Pella, he “discovered Ellen was gone,” Monahan reports, but “whether he thought she abandoned him or died is unknown” (60).

Monahan's book is replete with other intriguing accounts of the Earp brothers' spouses and paramours and, like Roach's volume concerning authentic cowgirls of the American Wild West, provides historical facts and psychological and sociological insights into these special ladies and their times.

Another Great (But Dated) Source for Fans, Readers, and Writers of Westerns

The Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters by Bill O'Neal provides a wealth of information concerning (among many others—the book includes 587 of them!) Robert A. Clay Allison, Deputy U. S. Marshal Samuel Bass, William Morton Breckenridge, William F. (“Billy the Kid”) Clairborne, Joseph Isaac (“Ike”) Clanton, Florentine Cruz, George (“Big Nose”) Curry, Bob Dalton, Emmett Dalton, Grattan (“Grat”) Dalton, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, Warren Earp, Wyatt Berry Strapp Earp, Robert Ford, Patrick Floyd Garrett, William (“Curly Bill”) Brocius, John Wesley Hardin, James Butler (“Wild Bill”) Hickok, John Henry (“Doc”) Holliday, Thomas (“Black Jack”) Ketchum, Nashville Franklin (“Buckskin Frank”) Leslie,” Harvey (“Kid Curry”) Logan, Frank McLaury, Thomas McLaury, Sherman McMasters, Edward J. Masterson, James P. Masterson, William Barclay (“Bat”) Masterson, Dave H. (“Mysterious Dave”) Mather, “Johnny Behind the Deuce” O'Rourke, Commodore Perry Owens, Robert LeRoy (“Butch” Cassidy”) Parker, William F. (“Little Bill”) Raidler, John Ringo, David Rudabaugh, Thomas J. (“Bear River Tom”) Smith, Henry (“The Bearcat) Starr, Frank C. Stilwell, Ben Thompson, James Younger, John Younger, Robert Younger, and Thomas Coleman Younger.

Although dated (it debuted in 1940), this volume, published by the University of Oklahoma Press, offers a treasure trove of information for readers and writers alike. Not the least of this information are the photographs of the gunfighters: there are nearly sixty of them.

In his “Introduction,” O'Neal discusses the difficulties of defining the term “gunfighter” and in determining which criteria should be used to identify them.

In the process, he disabuses his readers of some of the myths, or mistaken beliefs, that have collected about Western gunfighters, often as a result of their glamorization.

For example, O'Neal says, “The primary misconception . . . concerns the fast draw” (3). In fact, “the speed of the draw was insignificant” (4). The technique of fanning a gun's hammer was never used, because “a snap shot rarely hits anything but the ground or the sky” (4). 

Furthermore, O'Neal observes, “gunfighters frequently did not even carry their weapons in holsters. Pistols were shoved into hip pockets, waistbands, or coat pockets and a rifle or shotgun was almost always preferred over a handgun” (3).

Another false belief among many fans of Westerns is that gunfighters were serial killers, most having many victims to their credit. In reality, O'Neal points out, “most gunfighters killed but few men during their careers” (4). According to O'Neal's estimates, Masterson killed only one man; Billy the Kid, perhaps four; and Clay Allison, no more than a dozen (4).

Gunfighters, O'Neal found, fought for and against the law, often earned their living in professions requiring skill with a gun, such as “a law officer, detective, buffalo hunter, or army scout, or a rustler, thief, or hired killer.” In addition, some “men became gunfighters by accident” (4).

As a result of his research, O'Neal decided, “with some exceptions” and “somewhat arbitrarily,” that, for his purposes, a gunfighter had to have “been involved in at least two verifiable shootouts—usually but not necessarily fatal ones” between 1861 to 1900 (4).

His “Introduction” also includes a list of the 33 deadliest, or “greatest,” gunfighters. Here, I include only the top ten. (The number in parentheses after the gunfighter's name represents the number of men he's known to have killed.) The list may surprise some readers:

Jim Miller

1. Jim Miller (12)
2. Wes Hardin (11)
3. Bill Longley (11)
4. Harvey Logan (9)
5. Wild Bill Hickok (7)
6. John Selman (6)
7. Dallas Stoudenmire (5)
8. Cullen Baker (5)
9. King Fisher (5)
10. Billy the Kid (4)

Wild Bill Hickok

In the case of a tie in regard to the number of gunfighters' victims, it's unclear how O'Neal ranked the killers. He includes the numbers of gunfights in which the gunfighters were involved, but he doesn't use this additional information to rank the men.

For example Wes Hardin (i. e., John Wesley Hardin) was involved in 19 gunfights, during which he killed 11 men, which equals a kill ratio of 57.8%: 11/19 = 57.8), but Bill Longley participated in 12 gunfights, killing 11 of his opponents, which equals a much higher kill ratio than that of Hardin: 11/12 = 91.6, or 91.6%. Why, then, is Hardin ranked above Longley?

Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Earp, who was a participant in five shootouts, occupies the next-to-lowest (32^nd) place on O'Neal's list of the “greatest gunfighters” (6), because he killed no one (although Earp took credit for killing Billy Clairborne, is said to have killed Curly Bill Brocious, and may have killed Frank Stilwell and others during his vendetta ride). 

Doc Holliday, killed two men in eight shootouts (a 25% kill ratio), but is ranked in 19^th place, just ahead of Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid's killer. The list is obviously controversial, but it does give fans, readers, and writers of Westerns some data upon which to reflect and about which to debate.

The Hanging of Black Jack Ketchum

O'Neal's research also allows him to draw a few more conclusions regarding gunfighters. Most were born and died in Western states. A third died peacefully, the others violently, by gunshot, lynching, or suicide. On the average, their lifespan was 47 years.

Gunfighters earned their living in a variety of ways, often devoting themselves to several careers at different times over the years: law enforcement (110 of O'Neal's 587 gunfighters were lawmen at one time or another), cowboys (75 of 587), ranchers (54 of 587), farmers (46 of 587), rustlers (45 of 587), hired gunmen (35 of 587), soldiers (34 of 587), bandits (26 of 587), gamblers (24 of 587), laborer (22 of 587), saloon owner (19 of 587), clerks (14 of 587), train robbers (14 of 587), miners (10 of 587), and/or prospectors (10 of 587) (8).

Other professions in which gunfighters earned a living at one time or another are in the single digits. Nine out of the 587 gunfighters were army scouts, stagecoach robbers, or teamsters (8).

Eight were bank robbers or buffalo hunters. Seven were range detectives or stagecoach drivers (8).

Six were actors, ranch foremen, or railroad employees (8).

Five were bartenders or bronco busters (8).

Four were butchers, freighters, livery-stable owners, or criminals (8).

Three were bounty hunters, cafe owners, carpenters, hotel owners, lawyers, politicians, private detectives, racketeers, sportsmen, or whiskey peddlers (8).

Two were con men, counterfeiters, customs collectors, dance-hall owners, dispatch riders, horse breeders, hunters, printers, school teachers, speculators, or surveyors (8).

One was an arsonist, an author, a baker, a blacksmith, a building contractor, a businessman, a cattle broker, a dentist, a doctor, an engineer, an express-company superintendent, a ferryman, a gunsmith, a harness maker, an Indian agent, an Indian fighter, an inspector, an insurance executive, an inventor, an irrigation manager, a jailer, a jeweler, a lecturer, a livery-stable employee, a movie producer, a movie scenarist, a newsboy, an oil wildcatter, a packmaster, a page, a postmaster, a prison warden, a racetrack employee, a railroad guard, a realtor, a sailor, a salesman, a school superintendent, a sheepherder, a shotgun guard, a showman, a slave trader, a spy, a stagecoach contractor, a stage-station employee, a telegraph runner, a tinsmith, a trail boss, a train brakeman, a trapper, a wheelwright, a whiskey smuggler, a Wild West show performer, and/or a woodcutter (8-9).

Bob and Grat Dalton

As O'Neal points out, a number of gunfighters were also brothers, brothers-in-law, cousins, nephews, parents and children, in-laws, or other relatives of shootists.

Brothers were often involved in gun play as a team: the Beckwiths, the Clantons, the Daltons, the Earps, the Horrrells, the Jameses, the Logans, the Mastersons, the McCluskies, the McLaurys, the Olingers, the Tewksburys, the Thompsons, and the Youngers, among them (9).

Most gunfights between 1861 and 1900 occurred in Texas (160), but Kansas and New Mexico (each with 70 gunfights to its credit) were not far behind, and all the Western states were prone to such violence, O'Neal observes (10).

O'Neal's “Chronology of the Gunfighters' West,” another intriguing table in his “Introduction,” offers brief (usually a sentence) accounts of the gunfights his encyclopedia treats in detail in the articles that follow (10-14). The first summary indicates the nature of the others:

1861    Shootout between the “McCanles Gang” and Wild Bill Hickok (July 12, Rock Creek Station, Nebraska).

Bear River Tom

Nicknames were plentiful among Western gunfighters, O'Neal says, many deriving from “physical characteristics and appearance” (Cockeyed Frank Loving); from “personality traits” (Mysterious Dave Mather); from “locations” (Bear River Tom); or from “occupational tendencies” (Doc Holliday) (14-16).

Following his “Introduction,” O'Neal begins his profusely illustrated accounts of the 587 gunfighters whose stories make up his encyclopedia.

All in all, it's a fascinating, rich treasury of facts and lore concerning one of the most intriguing groups of men to have inhabited America's nineteenth-century Wild West.

Tombstone Entertainment: The Birdcage Theater

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

One of the challenges faced by Billy Hutchinson and his wife Lottie, the owners of The Birdcage Theater in nineteenth-century Tombstone, Arizona, was how to make their business appealing to their customers, the region's miners, cowboys, and ranchers.
 

In 1881, before wedding Lottie, Billy had spent considerable money—$600—to build the theater. Now, he had to offer incentives to customers to keep them coming back for more. Fortunately, Billy had worked in show business, and he had the answer: “entertaining shows, refreshing drinks, games of chance, dancing, private conversation[,] and adult comfort.”

The eclectic “entertainment” offered by the theater wasn't exclusively theatrical. Prostitutes, who worked behind the drawn curtains of the “elevated boxes” suspended from the ceiling, also kept the establishment's patrons entertained at $25 per night. (Private rooms in the basement went for $40 per night.) 

Uncle Tom's Cabin was performed at The Birdcage in June 1882. Not all of the action went as written in the script:

Chaos occurred when little Eliza was being pursued by Simon Legree and his bloodhound while crossing the icy river. An inebriated cowboy, caught up in the drama, pulled his sixgun and plugged the dog. The audience was outraged and pounced on the clueless cowboy who was finally rescued by a peace officer and hauled off to jail. The next day the cowboy, now sober and repentant, offered his horse to the troupe as recompense for the dog.

In addition, The Birdcage Theater featured wrestling matches, one of which, between Peter Schumacher and Professor Dan Milo, occurred on February 6, 1886, each party receiving $100. Admission to the floor was 50 cents; for reserved seats, a dollar. The match was advertised in the town's famous newspaper, The Tombstone Epitaph, two days before the event took place.

The variety of entertainment that The Birdcage featured virtually guaranteed there was something for everyone, “including leg shows, bawdy humorists, and fast-paced variety acts.” The variety acts featured such performers as The Happy Hottentots and their “Grotesque Dancing, Leg Mania, and Contortion Feats”; Mademoiselle De Granville, “The Female Hercules,” who claimed to have “an iron jaw” and picked “up heavy objects with her teeth”; comedians, including “the Irish comic duo of John H. Burns and Matthew Trayers, the comic singer Irene Baker,” and comedienne Nola Forest; “a serious opera singer” Carrie Delmar; acrobats and trapeze artists; Ella Richter, aka Mademoiselle Zazel, “the Human Cannonball”; masquerade balls attended by transvestite entertainers David Walters and Will Curlew; and “The Flying Nymph,” who “flew” across the theater “on a rope.” 

The Human Fly was certainly “one of the most unusual” performances:

. . . women (dressed in the usual theatrical tights and abbreviated costumes) walked upside-down on the ceiling over the stage. It was not an illusion—they actually were suspended above the stage . . . . The trick was that their shoes had special clamps on them that fitted into holes bored into the ceiling to support them . . . . In another version “the human fly” women wore suction cups on their feet as they walked up and down on a platform high above the stage.

As one might suppose, such acts were dangerous. In both versions, one or more of “the human fly” performers died when equipment failed.

Among the other unusual entertainments the theater boasted was a 24-hour poker game that continued non-stop for eight years, five months, and three days, during which $10 million were bet. To be admitted to the game, a player had to be willing to spend at least $1,000. Those who tried their hands at the game include Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Diamond Jim Brady, and George Hearst. The house took 10 percent of the winnings, so, over the years that the game lasted, The Birdcage received a whopping $1 million! 

Eddie Foy, Sr.

Lotta Crabtree

Among other entertainers who performed at The Birdcage were Eddie Foy, Sr., Lotta Crabtree, Lily Langtree, and Lola Montez. However, despite the entertainment the theater offered, the frequent shootings and low company prevented many women from patronizing the establishment, and, despite the weekly Ladies' Nights on which women were admitted free of charge, “respectable ladies in Tombstone never went near the Bird Cage.”

Lillie Langtree

 

Lola Montez

The Birdcage Theater is something of a time capsule. Located at the corner of Allen Street and Sixth Street, it survived the devastating fire that swept through Tombstone in the early 1880s because it was built entirely of concrete, and, “when it closed its doors in 1889, everything inside was left in place”; in 1934, when the doors were opened again, “Tombstone found itself with a perfect window into its past.”

 

AUTHENTICATED: New Tintype of Morgan Earp, Louisa Earp, Doc Holliday, and Mary Katherine Horony

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Seated, second row, second to left, Morgan Earp; beside him, to his left, Louisa Earp; to Louisa's left, "Big Nose Kate"; to her left, Doc Holliday. Souce: Bidsquare.

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The recent authentication of an April 24, 1881, tintype showing Morgan Seth Earp (1851-1882), Morgan's wife Louisa Alice Houston (1855-1894), Doc Holliday (1851-1887), and Doc's common-law wife Mary Katherine (“Big Nose Kate”) Horony (1850-1940) has excited Western historian, novelists, and fans. The tintype may have been taken on Morgan's thirtieth birthday.

The rare tintype, measuring 4.875 inches long by 3.375 inches wide, was authenticated by forensic expert Kent Gibson of Los Angeles, California, using facial-recognition software.

Gibson has also authenticated images of other figures of the Old West, including those of Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Pat Garrett, Jesse James, Frank James, Butch Cassidy, The Sundance Kid, Doc Holliday, John Wilkes Booth, Fred Waite, Fred Noonan, Bat Masterson.

Morgan Earp. Source: Find-a-Grave.

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Six months after the tintype was taken, the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral occurred, on October 26, 1881, at 2:30 PM. Morgan and Doc fought alongside Morgan's brothers, Wyatt and Tombstone marshal Virgil, against Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, and Billy Clanton. The next year, on March 18, Morgan was assassinated in Campbell & Hatch's saloon and billiard parlor, an incident that precipitated Wyatt Earp's and Doc Holliday's vendetta ride.

Soiled Doves of the American West, Part II

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Two of the Earp brothers' common-law wives were once prostitutes; one returned to the profession after giving it up when she elected to settle down with her man—after he left her for another woman. Nellie Bartlett “Bessie” Catchim was James Earp's wife; Celia Ann "Mattie" Blaylock was Wyatt's spouse. In addition, their friend, Doc Holliday, had a common-law wife known as “Big Nose Kate,” who also worked as a prostitute.

Nellie Earp

Nellie Earp

Born in New York City, Nellie (“Bessie”) Catchim (or Ketchum) (1840-1887) married James (1841-1926) in Illinois on April 18, 1873, and remained wed to him until her death in California, in 1887.

Before marrying James, she'd been a single mother, having had a son named Frank by her first husband, William Calhoun Land (1835-1916). Nellie also had a daughter, Harriet B. Catchim Land (1863-1934). Her son was killed by Apaches, but her daughter married a wealthy and influential cattle baron, William Land, of Douglas Arizona.

As a madam, Nellie operated a brothel in Wichita, Kansas, before she and James relocated to Tombstone, Arizona, where the Earps shot it out with Billy Clanton (1862-1881), Frank McLaury (1849-1881), and Tom McLaury (1853-1881) on October 26, 1881, at the OK Corral.

James Earp

In 1882, she and her sisters-in-law left Tombstone for California, the state in which Nellie lived out the remainder of her days with her husband, whose pet name for her was the “beautiful brunette.”

The wives accompanied their husbands, James and Virgil Earp, as they escorted the body of their slain brother Morgan home to the men's parents for burial after he was assassinated following the shootout in which Morgan, Virgil, Wyatt, and their friend Doc Holliday had participated.

Mattie Earp

Mattie Earp

Wyatt's wife, Celia Ann (“Mattie”) Blaylock (1850-1888), was born in Monroe Township, Iowa. She took up prostitution after she ran away from home at age sixteen with her younger sister Sarah, who returned home before the year was up.

Although Mattie was a seamstress, she soon discovered that the Western frontier didn't offer many opportunities for work for most women. In 1872, in Fort Scott, Kansas, she became a prostitute, a profession she continued later in Dodge City, even after she and Wyatt became a couple in 1873. Later, she and Wyatt moved to Tombstone.

Wyatt Earp

She accompanied the other Earp wives to California, waiting, in Colton, for a telegram from Wyatt, instructing her as to where to meet him, but the message never came. Wyatt had left her for Josephine (“Sadie”) Marcus, Tombstone lawman Johnny Behan's former common-law wife, with whom Wyatt now lived in San Francisco.

Remembering that Pinal City (Globe), Arizona Territory, had been a boom town when she had visited the place with Wyatt (1848-1929) in 1879, Mattie moved there. She took up prostitution again briefly, but died of an overdose of laudanum, and the coroner, Thomas H. Kennaird M.D, ruled her death a “suicide by opium poisoning.”

Big Nose Kate

"Big Nose" Kate Horony
 

Mária Izabella Magdolna Horony (“Big Nose Kate”) (1850-1940) was the common-law wife of Wyatt's friend, John Henry (“Doc”) Holliday (1851-1887).

She was born in Érsekújvár, Hungary, the eldest daughter of a physician and a teacher. In 1860, her father, his children, and his second wife traveled to New York aboard the German ship Bremen.

At age seventeen, Kate ran away from home to start her life anew “as a dance hall girl and a prostitute” after discovering that, for women, opportunities to earn a livelihood on their own were restricted to working at such occupations as the ones she chose or to those of “domestic servant, dressmaker, laundress, milliner . . . seamstress, teacher,” or waitress.

She probably met Holliday in 1877, in Fort Griffin, Texas. According to John Jacobs, one of her acquaintances at the time, Kate was a “notoriously lewd character” who, in a fight with Lottie Deno, a rival for Holliday's affection, pulled a gun on her when Deno first pulled a firearm on her, calling Kate a “low-down, slinkin' slut” and telling her that she would not condescend to wipe her foot on “that bastard” Holliday, should she (Deno) “step in soft cow manure.” According to Jacobs, Holliday saved the day by stepping between the two armed women.

Doc Holliday

Author Ben T. Traywick recounts how Kate rescued Holliday after he'd been arrested for drinking while gambling in a Fort Griffin saloon in which these two activities, performed together, were illegal. After his arrest, Traywick says, Kate lit a fire in town, as a diversion, and she and Holliday escaped together, defying her arrest on a complaint of arson, for which a warrant was issued following the incident.

Dodge City, Kansas

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From there, they traveled to Dodge City, Kansas, where Kate used “a meat cleaver to fend off some bothersome men.” Next, the traveling couple showed up in Tombstone, Arizona.

Tombstone, Arizona

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After she and Holliday separated, toward the end of her days as a prostitute (she remained one, even after becoming Holliday's common-law wife), rather than committing suicide as Mattie had done and as was common among such women when they'd come to the end of their careers, Kate married a blacksmith; as his wife for eleven years, she worked as a cook and a shop owner.

Arizona Pioneers Home, Prescott, Arizona

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Afterward, she earned her keep as a cleaning woman, before petitioning for, and winning, a place as a resident in the newly opened Arizona Pioneers Home, where she “lived out her days “in relative comfort,” “a ward of the state.”

How did she acquire the nickname “Big Nose Kate”? Patrick A. Bowmaster explains, in “A Fresh Look at 'Big Nose Kate,'” an article that appeared in Quarterly of the National Association for Outlaw and Lawmen History, Inc: “Her nose was . . . not that much larger than the norm,” but it “started very high on her face and therefore was enormous in 'height' rather than in length.”