Volume 43- No. 46
November 14, 2013
by lyle e davis
Ah, if only we could go back to yesteryear and relive the colorful, exciting and glamorous years of the old west! Life was simpler then.
Good guys wore white hats. Bad guys wore black hats.
Good guys were slim, trim, finely muscled. Bad guys had unkempt mustaches or beards, ugly. loose fitting flannel shirts, and rode ugly horses. "When you call me that, smile," the hero said to the bad man in that first of thousands of cowboy novels, Owen Wister's "The Virginian." Even before that book's publication in 1902, the cowboy had become a part of the American psyche. This iconic figure of the old west -- tall in the saddle, alone, facing danger, one man against nature's vast, treeless plains and humanity's outlaws—that appealed to people and made the cowboy a folk hero, a halfreal, half-mythological symbol of the American West. A lone rugged figure swaggers into a saloon, a sneer on his weathered face. This image has thrilled families for generations. From his ten gallon hat to his low-slung gun belt and shiny spurs, the larger-thanlife cowboy owns his status in books and on movie screens as a legend of the American West. However, as with any legend, myth has mixed in with his real and fascinating history. Let's rustle up the truth behind the myth.
Western Novels featuring legendary heroes have been popular for a long time. The precursor to the western paperback was the Dime Novel developed in America during the 1800s. In these stories, the hero was the man of action who rescued innocent maidens in distress and righted wrongs like the knights in the Age of Chivalry. Honor was the most important attribute a man could have. Stanford's Dime Novel and Story Paper Collection flourished in America and England with national circulations greater than any other newsThe Paper - 760.747.7119
website:www.thecommunitypaper.com
email: thepaper@cox.net
paper or magazine, some reaching 400,000 copies sold per issue. Many were Wild West adventures. In America, many of the heroes in Dime Novels were based on real men of the West. James Butler Hickok aka Wild Bill Hickock was featured in a
series of Dime Novels. In real life, he started out as a scout for the Union Army. He later gained a reputation as a marksman from his encounters with outlaws while serving as a frontier marshal at Fort Riley, Hays City, and Abilene, Kansas. He became a legend, especially after he was mur-
“Cowboy!”
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dered, shot from behind by Jack McCall in Deadwood’s Saloon. He was sitting at a poker table at the time. In his hand he held two pairs: aces and eights, which became known as the "Dead Man’s Hand." Kit Carson is another living legend made more famous by