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Tom Mix is Killed in a Freak Car Accident

On October 11, 1940, the famous cowboy actor Tom Mix is killed in a freak car accident near his ranch in Florence, Arizona. He was driving his single-seat roadster with luggage on the rear shelf of the car. Tom was traveling along a straight desert road, when he unknowingly came to a bridge spanning a shallow gully that was out. When his car went down into the gully a heavy suitcase flew off the rear shelf of his car and crushed him.

Tom Mix had been one of the biggest silent movies stars in Hollywood during the 1920’s, appearing in more than 300 westerns and making as much as $10,000 a week. Unlike most of the actors appearing in westerns, Mix had actually worked as a cowboy, and had been a Texas Ranger.

In 1906, Mix joined a Wild West show, and four years later he started acting in motion pictures. He helped define the classic image of the western movie cowboy as a rough riding, quick-shooting defender of right and justice, an image that would be copied by hundreds of other actors who followed him.

With the coming of talking pictures, Mix’s movie career stalled. When he died in 1940 at the age of 60, he had lost most of his wealth and was largely forgotten.

Today a black iron silhouette of a riderless bronco marks the site of Mix’s death on the highway about 17 miles south of Florence, Arizona.

March 11, 2025 | Categories: Old West Myth & Fact | Tags: Tom Mix is killed in a freak car accident | Comments Off on Tom Mix is Killed in a Freak Car Accident

Dalton Gang Robbery of Two Coffeyville, Kansas Banks

On October 5, 1892, the famous Dalton Gang robbery of two Coffeyville, Kansas banks at the same time. They wanted to do something no other outlaw gang had done. Instead, they were nearly all killed by quick-acting townspeople.

The gang rode into Coffeyville and tied their horses to a fence in an alley near the two banks and split up. Bob and Emmett Dalton headed for the First National, while Grat Dalton led Dick Broadwell and Bill Powers into the Condon Bank.

Unfortunately for the Daltons, they were recognized and the word quietly spread that the town banks were being robbed. The townspeople ran for their guns and surrounded the two banks. When the Dalton brothers walked out of the bank, a hail of bullets forced them back into the building. Regrouping, they tried to flee out the back door of the bank, but the townspeople were waiting for them there as well.

Meanwhile, in the Condon Bank a cashier had managed to delay Grat Dalton, Powers, and Broadwell with the claim that the vault was on a time lock and couldn’t be opened. That gave the townspeople enough time, and suddenly a bullet smashed through the bank window and hit Broadwell in the arm. The three men bolted out the door and fled down a back alley. But they were immediately shot and killed, this time by a local livery stable owner and a barber.

When the gun battle was over, the people of Coffeyville had destroyed the Dalton Gang, killing every member except for Emmett Dalton. But their victory was not without a price…The Dalton’s killed four of the townspeople.

February 27, 2025 | Categories: Old West History | Tags: Dalton Gang Robbery of Two Coffeyville, Kansas Banks | Comments Off on Dalton Gang Robbery of Two Coffeyville, Kansas Banks

Wild Bill Hickok’s First Job as Sheriff

How did Wild Bill Hickok’s first job as sheriff go for him? Well, on September 27 back in 1869, Ellis County Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok and his deputy responded to a disturbance by a local ruffian named Samuel Strawhun and several of his drunken buddies at John Bitter’s Beer Saloon in Hays City, Kansas. Hickok ordered the men to stop, Strawhun turned to attack him, and Hickok shot and killed him.

This was typical of Wild Bill’s approach to a confrontation. As one cowboy said, Hickok would stand “with his back to the wall, looking at everything and everybody under his eyebrows–just like a mad old bull.”

But some Hays City citizens wondered if their new cure wasn’t worse than the disease.

In September 1869, his first month as sheriff, Hickok killed two men. The first was Bill Mulvey, who was galloping through town on a rampage, drunk, shooting out mirrors and whisky bottles behind bars. Citizens warned Mulvey to behave, because Hickok was sheriff. Mulvey angrily declared that he had come to town to kill Hickok. When he saw Hickok, he leveled his cocked rifle at him. Hickok waved his hand past Mulvey at some supposed onlookers and yelled, “Don’t shoot him in the back; he is drunk.” Mulvey wheeled his horse around to face those who might shoot him from behind, and before he realized he had been fooled, Hickok shot him through the temple.

The second man killed by Hickok was the aforementioned Samuel Strawhun, a cowboy, who was causing a disturbance in a saloon at 1:00 am on September 27, when Hickok and Lanihan went to the scene. Strawhun “made remarks against Hickok”, and Hickok killed him with a shot through the head. Hickok said he had “tried to restore order”. At the coroner’s inquest into Strawhun’s death, despite “very contradictory” evidence from witnesses, the jury found the shooting justifiable.

On July 17, 1870, Hickok was attacked by two troopers from the 7th U.S. Cavalry, Jeremiah Lonergan and John Kyle (sometimes spelled Kile), in a saloon. Lonergan pinned Hickok to the ground, and Kyle put his gun to Hickok’s ear. When Kyle’s weapon misfired, Hickok shot Lonergan, wounding him in the knee, and shot Kyle twice, killing him. Hickok again lost his re-election bid to his deputy.

During the regular November election later that year, the people expressed their displeasure, and Hickok lost to his deputy, 144-89. Though Wild Bill Hickok would later go on to hold other law enforcement positions in the West, his first attempt at being a sheriff had lasted only three months.

February 14, 2025 | Categories: Old West Myth & Fact | Tags: Wild Bill Hickok's First Job as Sheriff | Comments Off on Wild Bill Hickok’s First Job as Sheriff

Hopalong Cassidy Films Live on Forever

California Carlson and Hopalong Cassidy

After almost 40 years of riding across American TV and movie screens, the cowboy actor William Boyd, best known for his role in Hopalong Cassidy films as Hopalong Cassidy, died on September 12, 1972 at the age of 77.

His greatest achievement was to be the first cowboy actor to make the transition from movies to television. After World War II Americans began buying television sets in large numbers for the first time, and soon I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners were standard evening fare for millions of families. But despite their proven popularity in movie theaters, westerns were slow to come to TV. Many network TV producers scorned westerns as lowbrow “horse operas” unfit for their middle- and upper-class audiences…As if I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners was highbrow.

Hopalong Cassidy and Robert Mitchum

During the 1930’s, William Boyd made more than 50 successful “B-Westerns” starring as Hopalong Cassidy. After the war, Boyd recognized an opportunity to take Hopalong into the new world of television, and he began to market his old “B” westerns to TV broadcasters in Los Angeles and New York City. A whole new generation of children thrilled to “Hoppy’s” daring adventures, and they soon began to ask for more.

Rethinking their initial disdain for the genre, producers at NBC contracted with Boyd in 1948 to produce a new series of half-hour westerns for television. Soon other TV westerns followed. In 1959, seven of the top-10 shows on national television were westerns. The golden era of the TV western would finally come to an end in 1975 when the long-running Gunsmoke left the air, three years after Boyd died.

February 4, 2025 | Categories: Film & TV | Comments Off on Hopalong Cassidy Films Live on Forever

John Wesley Hardin Kills Sheriff

August 23, 1877 climaxed probably the most dramatic manhunt in the Old West. Although John Wesley Hardin had killed a number of men, on May 26, 1874 Hardin kills Sheriff Charles Webb in Texas and killing a lawman couldn’t be overlooked. Hardin was told that Webb wanted to kill him and capture his friend Jim Taylor. The encounter between Hardin and Webb was brief – a few words between the two men, an exchange of bullets, then Webb fell dead near the door of the Jack Wright Saloon. Hardin was wounded but escaped. For three years Hardin was able to elude the Texas Rangers by using an alias and keeping a low profile. He also moved to Florida.

But, the Rangers discovered where he was, and even though they had no authority in Florida, sent John Armstrong after him. Acting on a tip, Armstrong spotted Hardin in the smoking car of a train stopped at the Pensacola station. Local deputies were stationed at both ends of the car, and the men burst in with guns drawn. Hardin reached for the gun holstered under his jacket. The pistol caught in Hardin’s fancy suspenders, this allowed Armstrong time to club Hardin with his long-barreled .45 pistol instead of having to shoot him.

They spirited Hardin back to Texas on the next train. Hardin was tried and found guilty of killing Sheriff Webb and sentenced him to life in the Texas state prison at Huntsville. He served 15 years before the governor pardoned him.

January 4, 2025 | Categories: Old West History | Tags: John Wesley Hardin Kills Sheriff | Comments Off on John Wesley Hardin Kills Sheriff