From Appaloosa (2008):
*[after a shoot-out- the protagonists are down, but surprisingly, alive]
Everett Hitch: That was quick.
Virgil Cole: Yeah, everybody could shoot. *
Who actually lived there for three years and ran a working ranch, not to mentioned hunted before and after that?
Look, he was a period & respected writer.
Which jammed or misfired more? I thought smaller guns jammed a lot more often back then than rifles.
What’s your source on cowboys wearing bowlers when they were working?
It’s portrayed pretty much like that in the movie Tombstone. It’s chaotic, not what various characters expected, and over quickly.
Whether you want to trust Wikipedia is up to you, but what they say here is the same as what many articles say. I’ve not seen many authentic photos of working cowboys, I don’t know if many exist, but it doesn’t seem to be controversial that bowlers were common, and that Stetsons were rare or non-existant until after the frontier period.
Louis L’Amour books are fairly accurate depictions of life in the old west.
He lived that life, for a short time, as a teenager in the 1920’s. He had the opportunity to meet and hear stories from older men that had lived in the West in the 1880’s, 90’s, and 00’s.
I’ve read his autobiography three times. He had a fascinating life. L’Amour spent a lot of time researching the old west. He visited many places where real events happened.
Wikipedia has a good bio and the various jobs he held before becoming an author.
Bowlers were worn by men who were businessmen- bankers, storekeepers, etc.
Cowboys wore slouch hats or Cavalry hat or wide brimmed straw hats or even sombreros. Stetsons came a little later and were the mark of a ranch owner, etc.
Google cowboy photographs:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwinpvaSi_DbAhVRNH0KHWCSATEQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Flongstreet.typepad.com%2Fthesciencebookstore%2F2012%2F01%2Fon-the-history-of-the-word-cowboy.html&psig=AOvVaw3n3HnhZ8vK1DkrDia4Zj9i&ust=1530059772435404
https://www.google.com/url?
sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiYkbqci_DbAhXlHjQIHV7sAwAQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cascity.com%2Fforumhall%2Findex.php%3Faction%3Dprintpage%3Btopic%3D20372.0&psig=AOvVaw3n3HnhZ8vK1DkrDia4Zj9i&ust=1530059772435404
https://www.google.com/search?q=cowboy+photographs&tbm=isch&tbs=rimg:CVt-fXb868dlIjhdKXkwOwKh2furYJZcTgRZuG3_10cH_1i8xlTPl6WCV7rpGOofCP0z-UzmEkUJ3VvYpqK3PRKRVArCoSCV0peTA7AqHZEa8I0YcN6bZjKhIJ-6tgllxOBFkRx2q6_1LrjMaEqEgm4bf_1Rwf-LzBGg6-srhb8wJioSCWVM-XpYJXuuEfnkXherj4jHKhIJkY6h8I_1TP5QRRMzElJIoJf0qEgnOYSRQndW9ihGq-5wMUKPNvCoSCWorc9EpFUCsEYW7Xlk02akp&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinpvaSi_DbAhVRNH0KHWCSATEQ9C96BAgBEBs&biw=1617&bih=877&dpr=1
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjXx9G4i_DbAhXQFjQIHW1xCQAQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpetticoatsandpistols.com%2F2011%2F10%2F28%2Fstrap-em-on-cowboy%2F&psig=AOvVaw3U5br4dU7CY-fANJ4MD9Hc&ust=1530059874725085
and you wont see cowboys wearing bowlers, except when posing for pictures in their Sunday suits.
Some guy started the "cowboys wore bowlers’ and the “Bowler was the hat that won the west” meme a little while ago, without any documentation at all. He used Billy the Kid as a example- but Billy is wearing a slouch. And Butch Cassidy- but that photo is indeed a posed photo in a studio, with the men wearing suits, etc.
Once we reached the era of centerfire cartridges, misfires became much less common than in the muzzle loading days. Jams, depending on what you mean by the term, varied by make and model and ammunition manufacturing techniques. Also keep in mind that large numbers of muzzle loading guns remained in use or underwent period conversion to use cartridges. The cartridge conversions are interesting mechanically, but they are all basically kludges.
I’m not suggesting movies get it right but as a fan of westerns I’ve never seen it portrayed as a 20 minute fight. John Ford?
To fix a helpful image, National Geographic once published a beautiful photograph of an Hispano or Latino vaquero in New Mexico. Google hasn’t found me the picture yet, but he was shown relaxing with a drink and wearing silver conchas. The article may have been “New Mexico: Between Frontier and Future” in the November 1987 issue.
Fun fact: the word ‘buckaroo’ is a corruption of vaquero.
Or the one brought a knife.
In Supernatural episode 6.18 “Frontierland,” Sam & Dean time-travel to the Old West, go into a saloon, and are dismayed to find the whiskey is horrible and the friendly prostitutes have big obvious chancres on their mouths. Dean’s Old West illusions are cruelly dashed.
In a similar vein, I thought Unforgiven did the all-time best job of deconstructing Western tropes.
Googling “historic cowboy photos” almost entirely shows them wearing wide-brimmed hats (not necessarily Stetsons), not bowlers. People appear wearing bowlers in town, or in formal portraits. Now perhaps people are less likely to label photos of guys wearing derbies as cowboys, but I’d be interested in seeing photos of working cowboys wearing derbies. So far googling hasn’t revealed any. You would think if it were common there would be some.
Actually, if you read the actual article by Lucius Beebe cited in Wiki, not one of the examples he gives of someone wearing a derby is of a cowboy. They are miners, engineers, law officers, and holdup men, but not cowboys.
A quote from the article (bolding mine):
So the article cited by Wiki itself confirms that cowboys in various areas did wear Stetsons and other wide-brimmed hats rather than derbies. Wiki says they were favored “by cowboys and railroad workers,” but provides no citation for that statement.
Certainly other types of hats than the Stetson were worn in the Western US in the nineteenth century. However, it seems both from Beebe’s statement and photos that wide-brimmed hats were popular among cowboys.
I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say there probably weren’t a whole lot of Old West Native Americans of Italian descent. And I’m a little dubious of Native Americans hop-skipping around a bonfire, clapping hand-to-mouth, chanting, Woo woo woo woo, Woo woo woo woo, Woo woo woo woo.
And, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess most Wild West shootouts were not noble face-to-face type duels at noon on main-street, but rather one shit-faced cowboy shooting another shit-faced cowboy in the ass because he made fun of him riding a donkey, or a mule, or a camel, or an ostrich, instead of a manly horse … as he attempted to flee out the swinging doors of the saloon, screaming all the way.
Want to see an accurate portrayal of a Native American on TV? Look no further than Philadelphia’s Chief HalfTown. 100% Seneca Indian. Hosted the longest running children’s TV show in the history of the world. And he was a damned fine bowler!
On prices.
I’m not sure where to find it anymore but there used to be digital copies of old Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogs from around 1900. Catalogs made things much cheaper than buying from local merchants.
Interestingly I found saddles were always expensive. So like $50 dollars for a wagon but $100 for a saddle.
I would guess that pistols misfired more than rifles. Misfired as opposed to jammed. Earlier pistols didn’t have bullets, but cap and ball or ball and powder. If the ball wasn’t packed tight enough, or the powder got wet, good like in a shootout.
That is why Wild Bill Hickok was so deadly a shot. It took forever to load an old navy colt reolver, so when someone drew on him quick, Bill would take his time and actually aim, not to waste ammo or miss.
“Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” had a long shoot out.