# Old West bullshit facts. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 23, 2018, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612 "2018-06-23T09:15:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/41 "2018-06-24T14:18:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Watching or reading westerns, you’d think every man back in the old west was a cowboy (unless they were a sheriff). But cowboy wasn’t all that common an occupation. There were more miners than cowboys and farmers outnumbered them both. To be fair, a movie about a guy getting up and plowing his field all day would be pretty boring. I’m not trying to thread shit but just pointing out that movies about gunslingers are not meant to be nor are portrayed as documentaries. Any more than movies about Superman are. It’s all entertainment. Plus I’m not sure that the average Joe on the street believed that Doc shot Ringo, even though it’s possible. No one knows. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/42 "2018-06-24T14:21:02Z")
At this point, I doubt the man in the street even knows who Ringo was. Hell of a drummer, though. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/43 "2018-06-24T15:07:57Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > To be fair, a movie about a guy getting up and plowing his field all day would be pretty boring. > > I’m not trying to thread shit but just pointing out that movies about gunslingers are not meant to be nor are portrayed as documentaries. Any more than movies about Superman are. It’s all entertainment. Plus I’m not sure that the average Joe on the street believed that Doc shot Ringo, even though it’s possible. No one knows. Yeah, going by American television you would think that New York City and Los Angeles homicide detectives solve a score of cases per year involving secret conspiracies, ingenious attempts at misdirection, or a serial killer’s rampage. When in reality 95% of homicides are domestic violence, drunken altercations around bars, and the steady toll of gang and narcotics killings. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/44 "2018-06-24T15:22:19Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > Teddy who? > [@DrDeth](#): > > Roosevelt. In his memoirs about Ranching & hunting there. Doug may be referring to the fact that Roosevelt hated the name Teddy, which the press imposed on him. He always called himself Theodore as did the people who knew him. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/45 "2018-06-24T16:41:59Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Tumbleweed, that iconic symbol of the Old West, is an invasive species that was accidentally introduced to the US in the 1870s. That’s not a bullshit fact. That’s factual bullshit! 😃 > [@Majestic\_Lee](#): > > Those saloon bar fights where folk get chairs and/or bottles broken over their heads have got to be fictional. There was one in the mid-80’s in Prescott, Arizona, that was just like the movies. 😉 > [@Scumpup](#): > > At this point, I doubt the man in the street even knows who Ringo was. Hell of a drummer, though. Eh, Good but not Best. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Majestic\_Lee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Majestic\_Lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Majestic_Lee)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/46 "2018-06-24T16:59:51Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > “It’s only a flesh wound.” So you just wrap a bandana around it and you are good to go. If it was really bad, the girl in the gingham dress might need to rip off a sleeve. The glug of whisky, the biting down on a rough cut piece of wood, the cutting out of the bullet with a rusty knife probably used to cut said piece of wood from the tree. Good job there were no dangerous pathogens in 19th century North America because there was no penicillin either…😉 ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/47 "2018-06-24T17:07:19Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Yeah, going by American television you would think that New York City and Los Angeles homicide detectives solve a score of cases per year involving secret conspiracies, ingenious attempts at misdirection, or a serial killer’s rampage. When in reality 95% of homicides are domestic violence, drunken altercations around bars, and the steady toll of gang and narcotics killings. And increasingly not that steady especially in New York. Although, TV shows about homicide detectives in Britain with case after case are just as stretched or more. And a recent article in the WSJ noted how more than one author sets murder mysteries in the Faroe Islands, which almost doesn’t have any murders. But real statistics show the murder rate in the ‘Old West’ was often in fact sky high, up to 100’s per 100,000 per year. But, besides the specific characteristics not matching classic westerns that well, a lot of them were also transracial or among Natives\*. Again at least that’s distinct from fiction which implies a high murder rate when it’s low. There was a recent discussion here which touched on that for the series “The Alienist”. The murder rate in mid 1890’s NY was in the same ballpark as now’s (ie much lower than say 1990’s). Books and shows which imply eastern cities in the Gilded Age were as violent as the West are also giving a distorted impression (give or take crimes reporting issues, but that doesn’t get you from a few per 100k to over 100). As long as people don’t try to seriously study history by watching TV and movies so what, but that is a lot of people’s source. It even IME creeps into the impressions of people who also read non-fiction history books. Can’t say it never does to me either. \*Roth in “American Homicide” gives the example of the Arizona Territory’s rate in 1869-70: 171 per 100k not including murders by Natives, 577 per 100k including murders by Natives. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/48 "2018-06-24T17:56:20Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Doug may be referring to the fact that Roosevelt hated the name Teddy, which the press imposed on him. He always called himself Theodore as did the people who knew him. Then, you know, he could have actually said so. I just assumed he wasnt up on American History. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/49 "2018-06-24T19:18:44Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > What about train robberies? You see it in movies a lot, where a gang of outlaws on horses will block the tracks to force a train to stop so they can rob it. In reality I would think a train running at full speed would just plow right through anyone stupid enough to try that, rather than stop. [This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeAutremont_Brothers) is from 1923, so not “Old” West, but it describes how the three DeAutremont brothers jumped onto a train in order to rob it. Trains moving over high western passes and some other situations are slow enough to be accessed this way. Also tracks can be blocked or torn up. But again picking a spot where the train is moving slowly helps keep the mayhem to a minimum. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/50 "2018-06-24T19:25:19Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > [This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeAutremont_Brothers) is from 1923, so not “Old” West, but it describes how the three DeAutremont brothers jumped onto a train in order to rob it. Trains moving over high western passes and some other situations are slow enough to be accessed this way. > > Also tracks can be blocked or torn up. But again picking a spot where the train is moving slowly helps keep the mayhem to a minimum. The Hole in the wall gang robbed a good number of banks and trains. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/51 "2018-06-24T19:30:31Z")
> [@Majestic\_Lee](#): > > The glug of whisky, the biting down on a rough cut piece of wood, the cutting out of the bullet with a rusty knife probably used to cut said piece of wood from the tree. Good job there were no dangerous pathogens in 19th century North America because there was no penicillin either…😉 The civil war battles in the Western Theater produced less incidence of tetanus in the wounded than the battlefields in the East, which had been fertilised with animal manure for generations. Most period images of people living and working on the frontier, if they have a gun at all, show them with it tucked in the waistband of their trousers (held up by suspenders), if they have a holster it’s probably a closed-flap one. The Hollywood ‘fast-draw’ rig seems to have been unknown until the frontier era had closed - John Wesley Hardin makes no mention of the notion of the ‘fast-draw’. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/52 "2018-06-24T20:06:38Z")
Western violence. I dont know but probably quite high. Remember you’ve got mostly men with few women. Lots of “rot gut” high alcohol content booze. Few diversions such as sports to “let off steam”. Many young men who go into town “looking for fun” which often meant looking for a fight. As for racism, if a white person killed an indian, black person, or chinese would they have even reported it as a murder? ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/53 "2018-06-24T20:09:05Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The Hole in the wall gang robbed a good number of banks and trains. Well done them - re the trains, at least. In the interests of science, do we know how they did it (ie, were the trains obstructed etc?) Of course, the facts will make no difference to my childhood memories of black-and-white-TV cowboys galloping alongside a train, firing pistols in in the air to make it stop. I assume that’s a BS fact? j ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/54 "2018-06-24T20:15:30Z")
The myths of the Old West are oddly tenacious. I lived for a time in Cody, Wyoming, a small town founded by and named after William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, the man who made himself into a legend. The fact he was a less-than-admirable figure in many ways doesn’t seem to have dissuaded people from buying the myth. Literally millions of tourists from all over the world visit there every year, in part because it’s en route to Yellowstone, but in part because the town encourages the same mythical Old West that Cody built into a thriving enterprise and that so many have rightfully debunked here. The town had, until recently, a staged gunfight every summer evening outside the Irma Hotel, which was established by Buffalo Bill and named for his daughter. Of course, the gunfight used local actors, and the bullets were blanks–until one wasn’t, the reason (liability) it got shut down. Thar’s gold in them thar tourists, and pushing the myth brings them in. The town depends on tourism and has a vested interest in keeping the myth alive. I guess a lot of us LIKE the myths of the Old West. I think it’s the white hat/black hat simplicity, so much kinder than the dirty, desolate, isolated reality. In my experience, you can tell people the age of the cowboy was in fact very brief, that at least 1 in 5 were Black (but paid less than their white counterparts) and many were Hispanic, and the listeners register interest and disappointment, then go right back to imagining dancing girls in spangled skirts, necks of bottles of Red Eye broken against the bar, and bad guys dying on dusty streets, never to trouble the good townsfolk again. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/55 "2018-06-24T20:46:39Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > Well done them - re the trains, at least. In the interests of science, do we know how they did it (ie, were the trains obstructed etc?) > > Of course, the facts will make no difference to my childhood memories of black-and-white-TV cowboys galloping alongside a train, firing pistols in in the air to make it stop. I assume that’s a BS fact? > > j > **[10 Great Train Robberies](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/25825/10-great-train-robberies)** > > Nothing like a train heist to grab out attention. There's a reason they called it the Wild West. _4. The Wilcox Robbery The Wild Bunch, with infamous members Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, went out with a bang for their final train robbery. On June 2, 1899 around 2:30 AM, the Union Pacific Overland Flyer No. 1 was flagged down by two men with warning lights. The men overtook the first engine and made the engineer disconnect the second part of the train, which had its own engine. Then they blew up a small wooden bridge after the first engine had passed over, to prevent anyone in the second section from following. Forcing the trainmen over to the mail car to begin their raid, three of the bandits blew the door off of the car with dynamite. Not satisfied with what they found, the gang continued on to the express car. There they found the express car messenger. When he refused to open the door for the robbers, they opened it themselves with more dynamite. The blast left the messenger stunned and unable to relay the combination, so they blew the safe open with more dynamite, using such an excessive amount of the “giant powder” that the entire car was destroyed. They escaped on horses they had hidden nearby with over $50,000 in loot._ ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/56 "2018-06-24T21:06:47Z")
^ Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/57 "2018-06-24T21:10:46Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Did bars really have the double swinging doors that opened onto the sidewalk in your typical old western town? Previous discussions of this question. [Saloon Doors.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=328146) [Alleged saloon doors of the wild west.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=11690) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/58 "2018-06-24T21:39:24Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > ^ Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch? The film was rather surprisingly accurate, as those things go. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2018, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/59 "2018-06-24T21:39:52Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > ^ Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch? I use this line all the time. 😃 Also,\* “This might be the garden spot of the whole country. People may travel hundreds of miles just to get to this spot where we’re standing now. This might be the Atlantic City, New Jersey of all (where ever I happen to be) for all you know.”\* And, _“Morons. I’ve got morons on my team.”_ I have to use this one more than I’d like. :o ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2018, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612/60 "2018-06-25T00:35:51Z")
In regard to the Wilcox Robbery > [@](#): > > _They escaped on horses they had hidden nearby with over $50,000 in loot._ Depending on what inflation calculator you use, that comes out to about $1.5 million in today’s money. Not a bad haul, even after deducting expenses (all those explosives and oats for the horses)! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-west-bullshit-facts/816612.md?page=4)