Ep. 01: When Gunfighters Stalked the Old West

Gunfighters

In the first episode of 'Gunfighters,' author Bryan Burrough introduces the epic story of the Old West's gunfighter era, spanning from 1865

Key takeaways

• Gunfights on the frontier were often less about crime and more about defending personal honor, echoing Southern dueling traditions.
• Many famous gunfighters exaggerated or fabricated their exploits for public fame, especially when appealing to Eastern audiences.

Main topics

• Origins of the Gunfighter Era (1865–1901)
• Wild Bill Hickok's first known gunfight

Notable quotes

"You don't want me to give him my honor, do you? No, Bill. You must keep your honor."

Conclusion

Burrough sets up the central thesis of the series: that the rise of gunfighters

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Speaker 2 (0:05) What's long been considered the very first gunfight of the old western frontier took place three months after Appomattox, that is, three months after the end of the Civil War, on July 21, 1865. It happened in the scraggly village of Springfield, Missouri, down toward the state's southwest corner, just before 6 o'clock at the beginning of a warm Friday evening. Around the town square, a crowd had formed. As everyone watched, Two men stepped out into the open. Both were gamblers in town. They had argued over a pocket watch one of them seized from the other to satisfy a poker debt. The man who took the watch was a tough character named Davis Tut. The other gentleman, the one who wanted his watch back, had greasy, shoulder-length hair and a nose so long it almost reached his upper lip. His name was James Hickok. Later, once he got famous, he acquired the nickname you might know him by, Wild Bill, Wild Bill Hickok. They stood maybe 75 yards apart. Hickok hollered for Tut to return his watch. History doesn't record Tut's reply, but the watch, shall we say, was not forthcoming. The two men, both wearing holstered pistols, Tut in a leather duster, stood frozen for a long moment. Suddenly, without a further word or exchange between them, Both threw their guns and fired. This is Gunfighters, brought to you by Toccovas, good boats for good times. My name is Brian Burra, and I'll tell you how this all ended in just a second. But first, I want to introduce myself and try and explain what we're up to here. Speaker 2 (1:58) I'm the author of eight books, and I've been a writer at places like the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and Texas Monthly for going on 40 years now. I've been fascinated by the gunfighters of the Old West since I was in sixth grade, when I was like 11. What started it for me was a bunch of movies I saw around then. This would be in the early 1970s. The most important being Paul Newman and Robert Redford. In 1969's very popular, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I thought it was a super film, and believe me, it holds up well. Give it a shot. It's Redford at his best. But what preoccupied me, really what fascinated me, was the question of how much of it could possibly be true. My little 11-year-old's world was full of rules, you know. When to eat, when to study, when to throw my paper out. Was there really a time when grown men seemed to run around with, like, almost no rules at all? Shooting and robbing banks and trains seemingly at their leisure? It wasn't that I wanted to be an outlaw or a criminal. I was just startled that parts of America could have been that different, and not so long before. Anyway, I had to know. I had been to the library in my Texas hometown many times by then, but this began a period where I pretty much lived there, at least after school was out, reading everything I could find on Butch and Sundance and other frontier gunfighters. Once the librarians began ordering books from other libraries for me, I began showing up with real anticipation to see if I had a new book to read. I guess I was pretty surprised how much of that movie ended up being true. All except the most famous parts, which totally weren't. I'll tell you more about that when we get to the episode on Butch. What really changed everything for me was understanding what the frontier, what 19th century America, was actually like. The way men back then were expected to behave. The way life, yeah, was maybe a little cheaper back then. A time when people didn't live as long as we do now. Plus, living in a world where so many things could kill you. Speaker 2 (4:05) From Butch and Sundance, I plunged into the stories you'd expect. Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, all the big names. And then in time, I began digging down into the careers of gunfighters I'd never heard of. Maybe you haven't either. Men who were every bit as deadly as, say, Billy the Kid, but just never got a lot of love or newspaper coverage, which is how you became famous. Or didn't. I'll tell you stories in this podcast about all sorts of dimly remembered men. from the Texas rancher Pink Higgins to characters like mysterious Dave Mather, who killed several men in and around Dodge City before, poof, disappearing into the ether. Once you understand the context and the background of all this, so many of these stories are even wilder than what you see in the movies. I've known for at least 20 years that I wanted to write a book about these gunfighters. But it needed to be a single story, not like 18 chapters on 18 different gunfighters. I mean, that's pretty lame. It took me 13 years to figure out how to do it. So in 2018, I began the actual research. It took seven more years to finish. When it finally came out in 2025, the gunfighters was, well, I don't want to brag too much. Let's just say the sales and reception were pretty generous. The folks at MeatEater thought enough of the book to suggest we try and make a podcast of it. That's what you're listening to now. So, why do this now? Why delve into all this again after 150 years? Well, candidly, while there have been good books published on gunfighters this century, especially on Wyatt Earp, a lot of this literature simply hadn't been updated for a good 50 years. And I thought it was just way past time to do it. I mean, so many of these guys are just disappearing from the public consciousness. When I was a kid, someone like Bat Masterson was pretty much a household name. He was in movies and on TV. Now, ask 10 friends who Bat Masterson was. I doubt more than one can tell you. I guess I wanted to rescue some of these guys from history's dustbin. And oh, so at this point, if you're new to all this, you're probably wondering what exactly was a gunfighter. Good question. As the term is used these days, it refers to just about any civilian out on the 19th century frontier who was involved in a memorable exchange of gunfire with another civilian. So nothing involving soldiers or Native Americans. That's considered another kind of Old West violence, which still leaves room for many different flavors of gunfighter. In practice, a gunfighter could work as just about anything. An officer of the law, of course. like Wyatt Earp or Bat Masterson, or an outlaw, like Sam Bass or Joaquin Murrieta. Some were gamblers, like Duck Holliday or Ben Thompson, or cattlemen, like New Mexico's infamous Clay Allison, a man you didn't want to get angry. When he went to a dentist and the