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| August / 2008 | No. 1 | Page 1 |
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The Old West Gazette is devoted to all the little incidents and facts that, to me, really make the 19th century fascinating. My hope is that you will find these anecdotes both
enlightening and as much fun as I do. By the way, if you have something about your local area that you would like to see here, send me an e-mail and I will try to include it. I’ve included my sources at the bottom so that you can read more about any of these subjects.
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1837
The First Big Cattle Drive
For 19 long weeks, drovers pushed 800 head of wild
Longhorn cattle over 700 tortuous miles of swollen river, dense underbrush and steep mountains. “Another month like the last, God avert!” wrote one weary cowpuncher.
The Chisholm Trail? Nope. The West’s first great cattle drive crawled from Mexico’s San Francisco Bay to the Willamette Valley. The settlers in Oregon needed the cattle to break the Hudson’s Bay Company'‘s monopoly on meat sales in the region. (1)
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Where Are They Now?
Buffalo Bill
Died January 13, 1917
Buried: Lookout Mountain
Golden, Colorado
“Texas Jack” Omohundro
Died June 28, 1880
Buried: Leadville, Colorado
Cole Younger
Died March 21, 1915
Buried: Lee’s Summit, Missouri
John Wesley Hardin
Died Aug.19, 1895
Buried: El Paso, Texas
Calamity Jane
Died Aug. 3, 1903
Buried: Deadwood, South Dakota
Bill Tilghman
Died Nov. 1, 1924
Buried: Cromwell, Oklahoma |
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Buffalo Bill’s
Deadly Companion
Over the course of several decades, Buffalo Bill had been portrayed dispatching both villains and buffalos with his trusty Winchester. So, what was his real choice of weapons ?
After failed ventures as an inn keeper, land speculator and a short stint as an army scout, Buffalo Bill decided to go to work for the Kansas Pacific Railroad as a buffalo hunter.
“At the outset he procured a trained buffalo-hunting horse, which went by the unconventional name of Brigham, and from the government he obtained an improved breech-loading needle-gun [mod. 1866 Springfield], which, in testimony of it’s murderous qualities, he named Lucretia Borgia.”(3)
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Sources
1. Great and Minor Moments in
Oregon History (pp 64)
by Dick Pintarich
New Oregon Publishers 2003
2. The Rawhide Years (pp 166-167)
by Glenn R. Vernam
Doubleday & Co. 1976
3. Last of the Great Scouts (pp 150)
by Helen Cody Wetmore
University of Nebraska Press 1971
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1872
The Founding of a
Linguistic Legend
Dodge City was founded in 1872 to give aid and comfort to Fort Dodge. It, also, gave us several slang terms we still use. The term Boot Hill was first used there for it’s cemetery for unwanted riffraff. The term “stiff” was first used there to describe dead men, found stretched out cold and stiff on the street before breakfast. “Stinker” was first used there as a name for odorous hide hunters. The term “Joints”, as a term for saloons, brothels and such, saw it’s first appearance in the Dodge City Times.
The infamous “Red Light District” comes from a brothel on the south side of Dodge City’s railroad tracks. The owner wanted to make it stand out so she install a window of red glass. The place soon became known throughout the territory as the Red Light House. (2)
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