Kid Soldiers, Dapper Dans & Legendary Gunfighters All Got Their Start In Missouri

 October 12, 2023

   Quite a few Old West gunfighters cut their teeth on the crooked forks of the Missouri River.

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"A Kid Soldier of The Civil War"

(holding a Whitney)

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"A Barefoot Reb"

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"A Bushwhacker Goes Heeled"

   And one of these kid Bushwhackers grew up to be a handsome galoot.

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"A Saint Jo Dapper Dan"

(alias Jesse James)

A Missouri Founding

   Yes, many of those boy soldiers of the Civil War created the prototype of the gunslinging rider and they carried this tradition and style out West. If you doubt this, think about the fight on the Springfield, Missouri Square that is THE prototype of the Western gunfighter showdown with Wild Bill Hickok vs. Tutt, the prototype writ large. 

James Butler Hickok

Just down the road Wyatt Earp gets his first lawman gig in Lamar, Missouri and then bails on that gig and mysteriously steals some horses, breaks jail and goes West.

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"Wyatt Earp Horse Thief"

   So, as you can see, some mighty big legends cut their teeth on those Missouri breaks. And, if today's headlines seem harsh or brutal, it is all too familiar for those of us who study history.

"Times here are very had: robbing, murdering, burning and every kind of of measure on every side."

—Mrs. Margaret J. Hayes, in a letter to her mother in 1862, after  she was "jayhawked" on her farm near Kansas City.