The film and print media glorifies a bar room brawl where guns are drawn, over the flimsiest of reasons, a shootout ensues and cowboys are killed.
Is there any historically accurate count of how many such cowboy deaths could be attributed to bar room shootings. If the fight was taken outside the bar that counts as well.
The “Wild West” wasn’t anywhere near as wild as Hollywood would have you believe. Actual gunfights in saloons were pretty rare, though they did happen. I don’t know of a definitive list of saloon gunfights, but Wikipedia’s list of gunfights has these. Note that some of the listed gunfights are just shootings that took place in a saloon and would not count as a typical Hollywood bar room brawl.
Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight Deaths: 4
Variety Hall shootout Deaths: 1
Trinidad Gunfight Deaths: 1
Vaudeville Theater ambush Deaths: 3
Hunnewell gunfight Deaths: 2
Big Fight at the Jenkins Saloon Deaths: 4
A man named Luke Short was involved in a couple of saloon fights. Deaths: 2
Tunnel Saloon shootout of 1888 Deaths: 1
The Battle of Ingalls started when outlaws fired from a saloon. The battle then moved out onto the street. Deaths: 5
Ed Drew was shot and killed in a saloon. Deaths: 1
There is a book called Bad History, and it states most cowboys couldn’t even afford a gun (it cost about 9 months salary). It further states you were more likely to be shot in London than on the Western Frontier and while there were shoot outs, they were usually initated by drunks.
Despite what Hollywood tells us about bandits robbing banks hell, west and crooked, between 1859 and 1900 twelve banks were robbed on the Western Frontier.
The most famous barroom shooting is the death of Wild Bill Hickok, shot while playing poker. He was shot in the back, and didn’t get a chance to return fire. Not sure if you would count that as a fight/ shootout.
The book’s title is apt - that’s some bad history. A handgun cost anywhere from $5 to $17 new in the 1870’s, for a typical working sidearm like a Colt Single Action Army or a Colt Peacemaker - the most common handgun types around. At the time, working cowboys made around $1 to $2 per day, and workers in a town in a factory or doing specialized work might earn $4 per day.
So a cowboy could buy a brand new Colt Peacemaker with a decent holster rig and a few hundred rounds of ammo for about a month’s pay, or less. And of course there would have been a large market in used guns, and I’m guessing you could get a decent serviceable used handgun back then for a couple of day’s pay.
BTW, cowboys had guns for many reasons. Cowboys drove cattle, and cattle were worth a lot of money. So being armed protected them from rustlers. But back then the wilderness was pretty wild, and guns were useful against snakes, mountain lions, bears, wolves, and other non-human predators. They can also provide food while on long trips by horseback.
Guns were probably used about like police weapons are today - most police officers never fire their guns in the line of duty, or even remove them from their holsters in the line of duty… They exist as a deterrent and a last-resort edge when things go pear-shaped.
I’ve read that cowboys were paid 25 to 30 dollars a month, plus meals.
Even for that era, cowboys were poor. I guess few had families, living in a bunkhouse with a bunch of guys isn’t family friendly. I’ve hunted, own pistols, but I don’t think they did a lot of hunting with them. I know one of my grandfathers farmed all his life, he had a .22 rifle, single shot, and a 16 gauge shotgun. A gun was a tool to him, pistols weren’t useful to him.
Gun cost was dealt with, in fact the population on the frontier was heavily armed, that’s no myth.
And it’s also completely wrong to say the murder rate wasn’t sky high on the Western Frontier, it was. The scenario’s of the killings might or might not match fictional portrayals (depending which portrayal, and do murder mystery shows set in present day London, or NY for that matter, given an accurate impression of the typical circumstances, or frequency, of murders?) but the rate was phenomenally high.
In “American Homicide” in a footnote on p. 569 Randolph Roth gives the following for homicide rate in 1869-70: NV 55 per 100,000 per yr; Arizona 137 (577 counting homicides by Native Americans); south and west TX 268. NM’s was 93 in 1869-70 rising to 210 in 1879-80. Whereas it’s apparent from the book’s over voluminous statistics that the homicide rate in NY in that era wasn’t much different than now’s* in NY and US as a whole: single digits per 100,000. Although Baltimore’s rate recently is also around 55, overlapping the bottom end of Wild West rates and you don’t see a murder every time you go to Baltimore, like there is in every Western show and movie, but again there’s a murder in every episode of NYPD detective shows too 
. So what’s an example of a realistic portrayal of the frequency of violence in movies and shows about violent incidents? But there was loads of violence in the West relative to what’s considered at all tranquil now, that’s no myth.
*which is more seriously at odds with movies like ‘Gangs of NY’ or TV shows like ‘Copper’ set in 1860’s NY than Western TV/movies in terms of basic frequency of violence.
On a side note, my understanding is that more cowboys died in stream crossings than from all other causes combined.
Should have listened to Spengler.
I would have figured disease.
Or liver disease.
But river crossings in the old west were no joke, as at high elevations and with mountain runoff water, hypothermia can get you. And in winter, breaking through the ide or falling into a river in November would be an unpleasant way to die.
OK, but was it really cowboys who tended to be involved in these killings? We’re talking about hired animal herdsmen here, not professional hitmen. I can understand that livestock theft might have been an occasional or even rampant problem in the Old West, but how often would this have involved shootouts in saloons rather than on ranches?
But was Hickok a cowboy?
Interesting Wikipedia read on the Cochise County Cowboys (the red sash-wearing Cowboys portrayed in the film Tombstone). Apparently the term “cowboy” only come into wider usage in the 1970s and was associated with rustlers and stagecoach robbers.
Or dysentery!
For those who like me went :dubious:: according to the link, 1870s (shtoopid typos…).
I’d refer you back to this part of what you quoted:
" The scenario’s of the killings might or might not match fictional portrayals (depending which portrayal, and do murder mystery shows set in present day London, or NY for that matter, given an accurate impression of the typical circumstances, or frequency, of murders?) but the rate was phenomenally high."
And AFAIK a lot of Western fiction involves violence committed or instigated by black hat bad guys, not necessarily rank and file cowboys from the bunk house. But did the ‘hired guns’ or ‘saddle tramps’ never work as cowboys?
The question becomes unanswerable if you keep peeling down the onion to some particular scenario. The underlying fact is that the ‘Wild West’ was very violent, and statements like ‘as likely to be shot in London’ are completely inaccurate from the statistics we have. That doesn’t mean anywhere near everybody was involved in this activity. A murder rate of 100 per 100k per yr is, obviously, just 0.1% of the population being victims of homicide in a given year. Likewise in current day places with similar rates (some whole countries in Central America have had rates not far below 100 in recent years, particular cities in those countries well over 100). It’s not remotely near everybody involved, and especially not people in normal law abiding employment as instigators but they can be victims. Anyway the rate is still extremely high compared to more tranquil real world places.
Wild Bill Hickok
James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as “Wild Bill” Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his work across the frontier as a drover, wagon master, soldier, spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor.
I’d call that a big yes.
That was mainly on the Oregon Trail.
Okay.