Buzz
The Wild West may have faded away over a century ago, but its legendary figures continue to captivate through pop culture. The enduring appeal of these lawmen, outlaws, frontiersmen, and folk heroes who carved their names into history is undeniable. Naturally, we’ve romanticized the era over time, with Hollywood playing its part, so our view of the Old West might not be entirely true to history.
Despite the myths and embellishments, the Wild West still holds significant fascination for history enthusiasts. Like many other historical periods, new revelations occasionally surface, shedding light on matters once thought to be long forgotten.
10. No Forgiveness for Billy The Kid
In 2010, the Governor of New Mexico raised the idea of potentially pardoning one of the nation's most infamous outlaws—Billy the Kid.
This discussion stemmed from a pardon that Billy the Kid was supposedly promised in 1879 by Lew Wallace, who was then the Governor of the New Mexico Territory—and, interestingly, the author of Ben Hur. The agreement was made in exchange for Billy testifying before a grand jury about a murder he had witnessed. While Billy upheld his end of the bargain, Wallace never fulfilled his part. In the final days of his tenure in 2010, Governor Bill Richardson believed it might be the right moment for the state to grant Billy the Kid the pardon that had long been denied.
Even after more than 130 years, this proposal ignited a passionate debate. Opposing the pardon were descendants of Sheriff Pat Garrett, the legendary lawman who had shot and killed Billy. They argued that Billy, in the end, was a cop killer and expressed concerns that granting him a pardon would harm their ancestor’s legacy.
Governor Richardson ultimately rejected the pardon. He acknowledged that there was sufficient historical evidence to confirm that Wallace had struck a deal with Billy, but he could not understand why his predecessor had rescinded the offer. Richardson also considered the fact that Billy had continued his criminal activities and had killed two lawmen after the deal fell apart.
9. Uncovering the Murder Weapon in the Deep Creek Murders
In 2013, Max Black, a former Idaho representative and amateur historian, uncovered what is likely the murder weapon used in a double homicide that occurred over 120 years ago.
The crime took place in 1896, during a minor sheep war in Twin Falls County, located near the border between Idaho and Nevada. A sheep war refers to a violent conflict between shepherds and cattlemen over grazing land. In this instance, two Mormon sheepherders, Daniel Cummings and John Wilson, ventured into Cassia County to graze their flock, even though it was cattle territory. Their bodies were discovered weeks later.
The main suspect in the murders was Jackson Lee Davis, better known as “Diamondfield Jack.” He was quickly convicted and sentenced to hang. However, just before the execution, two other men, Jim Bower and Jeff Gray, confessed to the crime, claiming they acted in self-defense after being attacked by the sheepherders.
In modern times, Black turned to court records to pinpoint the crime scene. Armed with a metal detector, he found a .44 caliber slug. Taking it to a local firearms expert for age verification, the expert revealed that a rusted 1878 Colt Frontiersman had also been discovered nearby. Black became convinced that this was Jim Bower’s gun, which he had reportedly lost during the shoot-out. The weapon matched the description, including a filed-off sight.
8. The Execution of Wild Bill Longley
Wild Bill Longley boasted of having killed 32 people, though he was known for spinning many tall tales about his exploits. It’s difficult to separate fact from fiction in his stories. One account claimed he shot eight black men after losing a bet on a horse race. Another tale had him escaping a lynching attempt when a shot fired at him severed the rope he was hanging from.
Longley was allegedly executed in Giddings, Texas, in 1878. By that time, he had converted to Roman Catholicism and reduced his self-admitted kill count to just eight. Legend has it that his family bribed the local sheriff, who used a trick rope during the hanging. The casket was supposedly filled with stones, and in an intriguing twist, the real Longley supposedly lived out his remaining years in Louisiana under an assumed name.
Forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley began looking into this story in 1986. The main challenge was finding Longley’s casket, as he had been buried outside the town’s cemetery in an unmarked grave. It took 15 years, but Owsley eventually succeeded with the help of geologist Brooks Ellwood. Upon opening the casket, it was filled with bones rather than stones, which was a promising sign. Owsley then enlisted the help of a DNA lab, where they successfully extracted a sample from the skeleton’s tooth and matched it to Helen Chapman, one of Longley’s sister’s granddaughters.
Moreover, the casket was found to contain a Catholic medal and a celluloid flower—both items that Longley had carried with him to the scaffold. There was no question about it: Wild Bill Longley had been executed that day.
7. Did Butch Cassidy Escape Bolivia?
As one of the most legendary figures of the Wild West, Butch Cassidy, leader of the infamous Wild Bunch, naturally became the subject of many stories. Particularly, numerous tales surfaced after his death, which remains somewhat mysterious to this day.
While fleeing from the law in South America, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were believed to have died in a 1908 shootout with Bolivian police. However, the local authorities never identified the bodies as anything other than two bandits who had recently robbed a payroll transport. They were buried in unmarked graves in San Vicente, and repeated efforts to locate their remains and conduct DNA testing failed. This sparked rumors that Cassidy survived the shootout and lived for many years under a new identity.
In the 1970s, a new theory emerged, largely popularized by author Larry Pointer, which suggested that Cassidy had assumed the name “William T. Phillips.” Phillips was an author who published a biography on Butch Cassidy in 1934, titled The Bandit Invincible. Supporters of this theory believed the book contained personal details that could only have been known by the notorious outlaw himself.
The theory remained popular for many years, but in 2012, Pointer finally revised his view. It was then that researcher Jack Stroud introduced the notion that William T. Phillips was actually the alias of someone who had shared a prison cell with Cassidy at Wyoming State Prison—one William T. Wilcox. In addition to the obvious similarity in names, a strong resemblance between Wilcox’s mugshot and later photographs of Phillips further bolstered this new theory.
6. Where Should John Wesley Hardin Be Laid to Rest?
John Wesley Hardin was far from a kind man. In fact, he is regarded as one of the most dangerous gunfighters of the Old West, with a body count of up to 42. One notorious story tells of Hardin shooting a man simply because he was snoring. In the end, Hardin was gunned down in 1895 by John Salmon in El Paso, Texas, and buried in the city’s Concordia Cemetery.
A century later, a strange legal battle unfolded over his remains. A group from the small town of Nixon, Texas, arrived at the El Paso cemetery with a disinterment order, hoping to exhume what remained of Hardin and reburied him in their town. They were met with resistance from local officials and historians, who obtained an injunction to halt the exhumation. This led to years of lawsuits and appeals, eventually culminating in a court ruling to keep Hardin’s remains in El Paso.
The group from Nixon claimed to represent Hardin’s descendants, though none of them lived in the town. They argued that Hardin, as a family man, should be buried in the town where he had married his first wife and raised his children. More significantly, they asserted that it was the right of the family to decide where their relative would be buried.
The El Paso group dismissed this as a mere publicity stunt designed to draw tourists to Nixon. Regarding the law of survivors, they contended that since Hardin’s lover, Beulah Morose, had covered the costs of his funeral, her descendants should have the final say in his resting place.
5. Who Was Responsible for Pat Garrett’s Death?
The death of Sheriff Pat Garrett has always been shrouded in uncertainty, with many, including his own descendants, casting doubt on the official account of what transpired.
Garrett was killed on February 29, 1908, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was accompanied by two men, Jesse Wayne Brazel and Carl Adamson, as they attempted to settle a land dispute. Garrett had leased a ranch to Brazel, who, despite Garrett’s objections, used the land for goat grazing. The two men eventually agreed to cancel the lease if they could sell Brazel’s goat herd, which led to Adamson’s involvement.
For reasons unknown, Brazel shot Garrett and then surrendered, claiming it was in self-defense. However, he was acquitted after a brief trial, and Adamson, the only person who had witnessed the event, was never called to testify.
This version of events raised suspicion, leading to speculation that Garrett’s death might have been part of a larger plot, possibly orchestrated by rancher W.W. Cox, who stood to gain from the land. Jim Miller, a notorious gunman-for-hire, was also thought to have been waiting in ambush. Historian Leon Metz suggested in his 1974 biography that Garrett’s family believed Carl Adamson was the actual killer. Regardless of the true culprit, many believed Brazel took the fall because of his credibility and unblemished record.
In 2017, a significant new development in the case emerged: the long-lost coroner’s report on Pat Garrett’s death. It was discovered by an employee of the Dona Ana County Clerk’s Office while going through old records. The report, signed by seven members of the coroner’s jury, concluded that Wayne Brazel had killed Garrett. It remains uncertain whether this newfound evidence will bolster the validity of the official version of events.
4. How Did Davy Crockett Meet His End?
Known as the “King of the Wild Frontier,” Davy Crockett stands as one of America’s most iconic folk heroes. His grand adventures were initially popularized through newspapers, almanacs, and plays, with his legend further magnified by a 1950s Disney miniseries.
Crockett’s death became an integral part of his legend. At the Battle of the Alamo, the frontiersman is said to have fallen heroically while fighting against Mexican forces. However, in 1955, an author named Jesus Sanchez Garza introduced a different narrative. His book, purportedly based on the memoirs of Mexican officer Jose Enrique de la Pena, claimed that Crockett had been captured along with other men and executed.
Initially, the book went unnoticed. But two decades later, when it was translated into English, it ignited a wave of controversy in the U.S. Historians swiftly rallied to defend Crockett’s honor, highlighting several inconsistencies that cast doubt on Garza’s story. For one, the book was self-published, and Garza never clarified how he obtained de la Pena’s memoirs. Additionally, the timing of the publication, just after the release of the Disney show and at the height of Crockett’s fame, raised further questions about its authenticity.
These factors led many historians to dismiss the account as fabricated. However, in 2000, a forgery expert affirmed the memoir's authenticity. David Gracy, from the University of Texas at Austin, examined the materials and watermarks on the pages, concluding they matched the type of paper used by the Mexican Army at the time. Additionally, he found no evidence of tampering throughout the 680 pages. While this doesn’t necessarily confirm the memoir’s contents as true, it does suggest they belong to someone who was there to witness the events.
3. Who Was Responsible for Johnny Ringo's Death?
Johnny Ringo was a notorious outlaw and the leader of the Cochise County Cowboys, a loosely affiliated group of gunslingers. The Cowboys are most famous for their conflict with the Earp brothers, particularly the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, where three of the Cowboys perished. Less than a year after this shoot-out, Johnny Ringo was found shot in the head. The question of who killed him still remains a mystery.
Wyatt Earp was long considered a top suspect. He had a clear motive, as Ringo might have been involved in the murder of Morgan Earp and the attempted killing of Virgil. In the 1920s, an aging Earp even confessed to the killing to several writers. However, the timelines don’t quite match up: when Ringo was killed, Earp had already fled Arizona following his infamous Vendetta Ride. Some believed it was Doc Holliday seeking revenge for his friend, but the timeline places him in Colorado at the time. Two other suspects—“Buckskin” Frank Leslie and Michael O’Rourke—also emerged, but only hearsay backs their involvement.
The coroner’s inquest concluded that Ringo’s death was a suicide. However, many rejected this explanation, viewing it as a simple closure for the case of a violent criminal. Several inconsistencies seemed to contradict the suicide theory. Why was his cartridge belt positioned upside down? Why was there a small patch of scalp missing? Most importantly, why were there no powder burns on his temple?
In 2002, author Steve Gatto released his biography on Johnny Ringo, in which he supported the suicide conclusion but provided possible explanations for the oddities. He suggested that Ringo’s upside-down belt was due to him being drunk. The man who discovered Ringo’s body, John Yoast, might have taken a piece of scalp as a memento. Gatto also pointed out that the coroner’s report did not mention powder burns, likely because the body had already begun to decompose and turn black.
2. Did Jesse James Fake His Death?
Much like Butch Cassidy, Jesse James became so famous that rumors of his survival began circulating after his death. James was shot and killed in 1882 by Robert Ford, a former member of his gang, who hoped to collect the bounty placed on James’ head.
Public opinion was split on the death of Jesse James. Many viewed Ford as a coward, accusing him of betraying his “friend” by shooting him in the back. Ford met his own violent end a decade later, gunned down by Edward Capehart O’Kelley.
A theory emerged suggesting that Jesse James had faked his death with Ford’s help in order to escape justice. The hypothesis proposed that the body shown in photographs wasn’t actually James’ but that of another man. This theory gained attention in the late 1940s when J. Frank Dalton, a centenarian, claimed to be the infamous outlaw.
Although many historians and biographers dismissed the idea that Jesse James survived, the theory remained widely believed. In 1995, the controversy led to the exhumation of James’ body for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) testing. Despite the poor condition of the remains, two teeth and two hairs were enough to provide mtDNA samples that matched DNA from two of Jesse James’ maternal relatives.
The notion continued to stir debate. In 2000, after years of appeals, a judge authorized the exhumation of J. Frank Dalton’s body. However, due to a mix-up with the headstone, the wrong body was exhumed. A second order has not yet been issued. For some, the mystery endures.
1. The Mummy Of The Wild West
In the 1970s, the production team behind the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man was searching for a place to film scenes in a long-abandoned carnival. They chose The Pike, an old amusement park in Long Beach. During the shoot, crew members needed to shift a mannequin suspended from the gallows in the House of Horrors. When they tugged on it, an arm detached, revealing a human bone inside. To their horror, they realized that the mannequin was actually a mummified corpse.
The mummified body was identified as Elmer McCurdy, an outlaw from the dying days of the Old West. McCurdy had met his end in 1911 in a shootout after a failed train robbery. With no one to cover his burial costs, the embalmer who preserved him decided to display the body to make money back. The display earned McCurdy the nickname of “The Embalmed Bandit.”
For decades, McCurdy appeared in various carnivals and sideshows. Over time, his skin became rigid, his body shrank to the size of a child, and he was coated in multiple layers of glow-in-the-dark paint. This is the state in which the TV crew found him in 1977. Ultimately, McCurdy was laid to rest in the Boot Hill section of Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma, alongside fellow outlaw Bill Doolin.
