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New town: John Grabill charted how towns such as Hot Springs, South Dakota, sprung up across the Midwest as the railways grew
Wagon train: Oxen lead out the wagons in a photograph titled 'Freighting in the Black Hills' taken between Sturgis and Deadwood
Braves: A portrait of a band of Big Foots (Miniconjou) at a Grass Dance on the Cheyenne River, watched by soldiers from the 8th U.S. Cavalry and 3rd Infantry
Peace council: The Indian chiefs who ended their war with the U.S. Army. Their names included Standing Bull, High Hawk, White Tail, Little Thunder and Lame
Progress: The people of Deadwood celebrate the completion of a stretch of railroad in 1888 with a parade along the town's Main Street
Army exercise: Soldiers from Company C of the 3rd U.S. Infantry carry their rifles as they spread out near Fort Meade
Happy band: Mining engineers with their wives and a couple of tame deer get together for an impromptu campside musical concert
Living side-by-side: A school for Indians at Pine Ridge, South Dakota. There is a small Oglala tipi camp in front the large government school buildings
As the railroads went further west, so the settlers followed. Grabill's image Horse Shoe Curve in the shadow of the Buckhorn Mountains
Most famous photo of the Wild West: 132-year-old shot of Billy the Kid up for sale... for $400,000
Outlaw: Henry McCarty, also known as Billy the Kid, depicted in this undated tintype photo, circa 1880
He went down in history as the most famous gun slinger in the Wild West, but little record exists of legendary outlaw Billy the Kid.
One single authentic photograph - that historians can agree on - remains. Now, it's set to be offered to the public for the first time ever.
Bids on the credit card-sized tintype photo is expected to fetch as much as $400,000 when it goes up for auction in Denver next week.
The photo was taken outside a saloon in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, when Billy the Kid, born William Henry McCarty and later known as outlaw William Bonney, was barely out of his teens.
Experts estimate it was taken around 1879. But 132 years later, it endures as the most recognisable photo of the American West.
The Kid gave it to his friend, Dan Dedrick, and it's been kept in the family for the last century, going on public display only once at Lincoln County Museum in New Mexico in 1986 to 1998.
It was famously featured a book by Pat Garrett, the sheriff who gunned Billy down on July 14, 1881 -130 years ago next month.
Relatively unknown during his own lifetime, he was catapulted into legend that year by Garrett's tome, The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid.
The photo will be up for auction at Brian Lebel's Old West Show & Auction at the Merchandise Mart in Denver, Colorado on June 25 and 26.
Auctioneers estimate it will bring in between $300,000 and $400,000, though some say it could fetch as much as $1million.
Up for auction: The Old West Show & Auction at the Merchandise Mart in Denver, Colorado, where the iconic image will go up for sale next Saturday
The New York Times reported that there will be 'armed guards' when the photo is previewed on Friday.
Other purported photographs of Billy the Kid have surfaced over the years, but none have ever been authenticated, Old West Auction founder, Brian Lebel says on the company's website.
'This is it,' he said. 'The only one.'
THE KID: HOW HE WENT FROM OUTLAW TO FOLK HERO
Billy the Kid has been described as a vicious and ruthless killer - an outlaw who died at the age of 21 having raised havoc in the New Mexico Territory.
It was said he took the lives of 21 men, one for each year of his life, the first when he was just 12.
The more likely figure was nine, but this and many more accusations of callous acts are merely examples used to create the myth of Billy the Kid.
In truth the Kid, born Henry McCarty but later known as outlaw William Bonney, was not the cold-blooded killer he has been portrayed as but a young man who lived in a violent world where knowing how to use a gun was the difference between life and death.
He was a master of his craft and enjoyed showing off his gun-twirling abilities to his friends, taking a revolver in each hand and spinning them in opposite directions. But in his quieter moments he would meticulously clean his firearms.
He was also good-natured and generous, but his reckless 'they’ll-never-catch-me' attitude would eventually lead to his his downfall.
Relatively unknown during his own lifetime, he was catapulted into legend the year after his death in 1881 when his killer, Sheriff Pat Garrett, published a sensationalised biography The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid.
After this, Billy the Kid grew into a symbolic figure of the American Old West.
On the run from his enemies and the law, the Kid had made a living by stealing horses and cattle, until his arrest in December of 1880. Five months later, after being sentence to death for the killing of Sheriff Brady during the Lincoln County gang war, the Kid broke out of jail by killing his two guards.
But he decided not the leave the territory after his escape when he had more than enough time to do so, allowing Garrett to catch up with him at the home of Pete Maxwell in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on July 14, 1881.
How the West was REALLY won: Early settlers on the coach to Deadwood and in pow-wows with the natives revealed in 19th century photographs
The Wild West as it really was rather than how Hollywood has imagined it is revealed in this extraordinary collection of pictures.
The grainy photographs, taken in the late 19th century in and around the notorious gold mining town of Deadwood, provide a unique, sepia-toned glimpse of the Wild West. The images were published in American papers this week after being released by the U.S. Library of Congress.
Deadwood — recently brought to life in an acclaimed TV drama series of the same name, starring Ian McShane — has gone down in legend as a riotous and lawless town that was home to the likes of ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok, Calamity Jane and Wyatt Earp.
And yet many of the pictures, taken by the pioneering photographer John C.H. Grabill, show how the reality was rather different to the traditions instilled by decades of Hollywood Westerns.
The bushy-bearded old timers are pictured panning for gold, native American Indian chiefs are seen posing solemnly in full headdress. There is the ugly scar of a mining town on a hillside and the tepee encampments of ‘hostiles’ such as the Lakota Sioux.
The expressions of weather-beaten earnestness on the faces of frontiersmen and Native Americans alike are what we have come to expect, but there is barely a six-shooter to be seen hanging from anyone’s hip, the wagon trains are pulled by oxen, not horses, and everyone on the Deadwood Stage is wearing a jacket and tie, dressed more for a business meeting than a Sioux attack.
THE LEGEND OF DEADWOOD
In 2004 a three-series TV Show based on the early days of Deadwood was aired in the U.S.
The first season was based on the founding of the town in 1876, soon after Custer's Last Stand, and shows the lawlessness of Deadwood where greed and corruption are rife.
It also introduced well-known characters such as Wild Bill Hickok, Colonel Custer, the Sundance Kid and Calamity Jane.
Season two represents life a year after the first season and marked the arrival of the telegraph and showed the town progressing in early 1877 with new conveniences including a bank.
The architecture of the town starts to take shape with inhabitants moving out of walled tents and into more permanent structures.
The final season concentrated on the establishment of law and commercialisation before Deadwood is brought into the Dakota territory.
When it was finished there was talk of TV movies being filmed but they are yet to come to fruition.
Between 1887 and 1892, Grabill sent 188 photographs — taken using an early technique that used albumen, or egg white, to bind together the chemicals — to the Library of Congress for copyright protection.
Deadwood in South Dakota was founded shortly after the discovery of gold in the neighbouring Black Hills in 1876.
As miners flocked to the town and its population quickly grew to 5,000, the wagon trains brought in not only supplies but gamblers, prostitutes and gunfighters.
Grabill (who also famously photographed the aftermath of the Wounded Knee massacre in which the U.S. Seventh Cavalry killed up to 300 Native American men, women and children) chronicled the settlement’s rapid expansion from a collection of tents to a fully-fledged town that celebrated the completion of a connecting railway with a parade down its main street in 1888.
Long before the arrival of the white man, the land was home to the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Pawnee, Crow and Sioux (or Lakota) Indians.
The settlement of Deadwood began in the 1870s, despite the town lying within the territory granted to Native Americans in the 1868 Treaty of Laramie, which guaranteed ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota tribes.
However, in 1874, Colonel George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Hills and announced the discovery of gold on French Creek.
This triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush and gave rise to the town of Deadwood, which quickly reached a population of around 5,000.
In early 1876, frontiersman Charlie Utter and his brother Steve led a wagon train to Deadwood containing what were deemed to be needed commodities to bolster business. The wagon train also brought gamblers and prostitutes, helping the town to boom - but with a bawdy reputation.
As the economy changed from gold rush to steady mining, Deadwood lost its rough and rowdy character and settled down into a prosperous town. One of the subjects of Grabill's photographs is the last survivor from the battle of Little Bighorn - a horse called Comanche.
The battle took place between soldiers under the command for General Custer and the combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho people
Every soldier in the five companies under Custer was killed and Comanche, who belonged to Captain Keogh, was found wondering the battlefield.
It is thought, however, that the Indians may have captured some of the American army's animals.
Other images chronicle a time otherwise only imagined on film; from prospectors panning for gold to the early interactions between settlers from the East and the native Americans who inhabited the Midwest.
Little is known about Grabill’s life before or after his work in the Midwest.
There is speculation that he moved to Colorado - Denver Public Library is in possession of some of his work - or that he moved back to Chicago.
What is surprising is that a man who dedicated his life to charting people and communities left no self portrait, memoir or anything else with which to remember Grabill the man.
Legendry: Deadwood has long captivated the imagination of writers. In 1953 Doris Day starred in the Wild West themed film musical, Calamity Jane (left). Then, 51 years later Ian McShane played Al Swearengen, the owner of the Gem Saloon, a popular brothel in the centre of the town
Rebel: A native American named Little, leader of the Oglala band, started the 1890 Indian Revolt at Pine Ridge. He sat for this studio portrait between two Euro-Americans
Two faces of the native American: Oglala chiefs Red Cloud in full headdress and American Horse wearing western clothing and gun-in-holster. Women and children seated inside an uncovered tipi frame in an encampment near Pine Ridge Reservation.
Unforgiven: Legendary gun slinger Billy the Kid denied a pardon 130 years after death
No forgiveness: Henry McCarty, known as Billy the Kid, will not have his name cleared after 130 years after his death
Billy the Kid, one of the New Mexico's most famous Old West Outlaw's, will not be given a posthumous pardon, it was revealed today.
He killed at least three lawmen and tried to cut a deal from jail with territorial authorities nearly 130 years ago.
But a campaign led by Albuquerque attorney Randi McGinn to have the outlaw has failed after Governor Bill Richardson decided it was not warranted.
It had been claimed that Henry McCarty - known as Billy the Kid - was shot dead by Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881 despite being promised clemency for testifying in a murder case.
He was killed a few months after escaping from jail.
Territorial Governor Lew Wallace allegedly offered the pardon in return for evidence.
But Governor Bill Richardson said on ABC's Good Morning America today that the notorious outlaw would not be forgiven.
According to legend, the outlaw killed 21 people, one for each year of his life. But the New Mexico Tourism Department puts the total closer to nine.
Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador and Democratic presidential candidate, waited until the last minute to announce his decision. His term ends at midnight tonight.
Staff members have said there were no written documents 'pertaining in any way' to a pardon in the papers of the territorial governor, Lew Wallace, who served in office from 1878 to 1881.
Unforgiven: Outgoing governor Bill Richardson waited until his final day in office to say he was not giving the outlaw a pardon
Governor Richardson's office set up a website and e-mail address to take comments on a possible posthumous pardon for the outlaw. Some 430 argued for forgiveness and 379 opposed it.
The site was set-up after Albuquerque attorney Randi McGinn submitted a formal petition for a pardon.
McGinn argued that Lew Wallace had promised to pardon the Kid for testifying about the 1878 killing of Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady.
She said the outlaw kept his end of the bargain, but the territorial governor did not.
Governor Richardson said today he had decided against forgiving Billy 'because of a lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity as to why Governor Wallace reneged on his promise.'
'We should not neglect the historical record and the history of the American West,' Richardson said.
The grandson of Sheriff Pat Garrett, who shot the outlaw, and the great-grandson of Lew Wallace reacted with outrage when it was suggested Billy should have been given a pardon.
The Kid was a ranch hand and gunslinger in the bloody Lincoln County War, a feud between factions vying to dominate the dry goods business and cattle trading in southern New Mexico.
Governor Richardson has said the Kid is part of New Mexico history and he's been interested in the case for years. He's also pointed to the 'good publicity' the state received over the pardon.
William Wallace, great-grandson of Lew Wallace, said his ancestor never promised a pardon and that forgiving the Kid 'would declare Lew Wallace to have been a dishonorable liar.'
Wallace, apparently told Kid: 'I have authority to exempt you from prosecution if you will testify to what you say you know.'
THE KID: HOW HE WENT FROM OUTLAW TO FOLK HERO
Legendary: The Kid was a ranch hand and gunslinger in the bloody Lincoln County War
Billy the Kid has been described as a vicious and ruthless killer - an outlaw who died at the age of 21 having raised havoc in the New Mexico Territory.
It was said he took the lives of 21 men, one for each year of his life, the first when he was just 12.
The more likely figure was nine, but this and many more accusations of callous acts are merely examples used to create the myth of Billy the Kid.
In truth the Kid, born Henry McCarty but later known as outlaw William Bonney, was not the cold-blooded killer he has been portrayed as but a young man who lived in a violent world where knowing how to use a gun was the difference between life and death.
He was a master of his craft and enjoyed showing off his gun-twirling abilities to his friends, taking a revolver in each hand and spinning them in opposite directions. But in his quieter moments he would meticulously clean his firearms.
He was also good-natured and generous, but his reckless 'they’ll-never-catch-me' attitude would eventually lead to his his downfall.
Relatively unknown during his own lifetime, he was catapulted into legend the year after his death in 1881 when his killer, Sheriff Pat Garrett, published a sensationalised biography The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid.
After this, Billy the Kid grew into a symbolic figure of the American Old West.
On the run from his enemies and the law, the Kid had made a living by stealing horses and cattle, until his arrest in December of 1880. Five months later, after being sentence to death for the killing of Sheriff Brady during the Lincoln County gang war, the Kid broke out of jail by killing his two guards.
But he decided not the leave the territory after his escape when he had more than enough time to do so, allowing Garrett to catch up with him at the home of Pete Maxwell in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on July 14, 1881.
few metres away from me, in the centre of a grassy field, six Cherokee warriors are performing a dance.
It is, unquestionably, an impressive sight. Loud war cries fill the air. Tomahawks are wielded. And there is a sense of panther-like power and stealth about their movements as, dressed in deerskins and moccasins, faces daubed in bright paint, they prowl in a circle.
Warrior line-up: Cherokees (left to right) Mi Gi Ko Ga, Antonio Grant and Sony Ledford perform a dance to commemorate the annual Fall Festival at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee
It is not, I must admit, what I had expected of my first journey into Tennessee. Here is a corner of the USA well known in tourism terms, but mainly for the music – woozy blues and cowboy-hat country – that emanates from its noisy, celebrated cities of Memphis and Nashville. The sufferings of the continent’s indigenous people, on the other hand, are – it is probably fair to say – rarely listed as a reason why you might visit the Deep South.
But this is changing. The Cherokee dance I am witnessing is part of the annual Fall Festival at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum – an institution (near the Cherokee National Forest in Vonore County, towards the lower edge of Tennessee) that attempts to safeguard the history and culture of a people who have not always been treated fairly in the land of their origin.
The persecution of the native population of America in the 19th century (and subsequently) is a dark stain on a country that touts itself as the ‘land of the free’.
Already pushed inland by the arrival of colonial Europeans, the fate of the tribes who occupied the fertile soil of what is now the Deep South took a terrible turn in 1838. The Indian Removal Act, pushed through by then-president Andrew Jackson, started a decade-long process that saw the ejection of Native Americans from the lands east of the Mississippi (the modern states of Tennessee and Georgia especially), and their transfer to less coveted terrain further west (in particular modern Oklahoma).
Native spirit: Kody Grant (left) and Mi Gi Ko Ga (right) brandish war clubs and tomahawks
Several tribes were directly affected – including the Seminole, Choctaw, Creek and Chickasaw. But – as I absorb them at the museum – it is the bare statistics of the Cherokees’ removal that leaves me stunned.
The vast area they inhabited – originally comprising 40,000 square miles across eight states, and prized for its river access – was desired by settlers, traders and gold seekers. Jackson’s aggressive legislature was initially resisted by around 80 per cent of the tribe, with only 2,000 of the 16,000 Cherokee population agreeing to make the journey west voluntarily, deeming it futile to stay and fight. The rest, once the deadline for leaving had passed, were rounded up by the army and marched into concentration camps. From there, they were forced to make the almost 900-mile journey west by foot, boat or wagon.
The Cherokees called their removal ‘Nunna daul Isunyi’ (the trail where they cried). Almost two centuries on, the routes taken by the seven clans which made up the Cherokee Nation are now collectively known as the Trail Of Tears – a reminder of one of the greatest tragedies that the United States has ever inflicted upon a minority population.
The removal does not sit easily with many Americans. But this bleak period is increasingly being acknowledged in Tennessee – as I quickly discover.
Dr Daryl Black believes the 1836 Indian Removal Act can be likened to ethnic cleansing - but says the Cherokees have rebounded with 'great success'
Seventy miles south-west of Vonore County, the pretty riverside city of Chattanooga is also doing its bit, as home to the USA’s largest public art project celebrating the tribe’s history and culture.
The Passage is certainly a striking sight. A pedestrian link between the centre of the city and the banks of the River Tennessee, it attempts to commemorate what happened to the Cherokees here – and does so to dramatic effect. Designed to mark the start-point of the Trail Of Tears, it features a ‘weeping wall’ that pours through the exhibit towards the river – representing the tears shed as the Cherokees were driven from their homes, often at the end of a bayonet. Above, seven six-foot ceramic seals symbolise the clans that were forced out. It is hard not to be moved by the knowledge of what happened here.
The monument is located on the spot where 800 Cherokees were herded onto a steamboat at Ross’s Landing – named after the Cherokee leader of the time, Principal Chief John Ross, who watched aghast and powerless, as his people were forced onto the vessel. The unfortunate 800 were then ‘escorted’ west in what was to become the first stage of removal on June 6, 1838. Up to 8,000 Cherokees are believed to have died on the Trail Of Tears.
I learn more about these sorrowful days of the 1830s from Dr Daryl Black of the Chattanooga History Centre.
He paints a nightmarish picture of the scene, (he goes as far as to liken the Indian Removal Act to ethnic cleansing, citing Kosovo as a comparison), describing how the chief could hear the beams of the boat cracking under the weight of those crammed on board. The sadness in the air would have been palpable. Not only were the Cherokees being ripped from their homeland, but the direction in which they were travelling had dark connotations for them. According to Native American lore, dead souls head west – making the removal even more poignant.
“In 19th century America, the cultural notion of a white man’s nation predominated in most discourses about the national future,” Dr Black explains. “The inclusion of ‘inferior races’ was anathema to the vast majority of American citizens.
“When the idea of racial inferiority combined with economic interests, the stage was set for a concerted effort to whiten the eastern United States and remove people who used the land in a way that white American culture defined as wasteful.”
Humbling: The Passage marks the origin of the Trail of Tears in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and features ceramic seals to symbolise the seven clans who were forced out
However, the story has taken a positive turn of late. Dr Black considers the recovery of the Cherokee since 1838 “a great success”.
“The Cherokee have been adaptive and have successfully preserved a distinctive culture,” he continues. “They have kept their language alive, and have continued to work to protect the integrity of their nation politically, economically and socially.
“In Chattanooga, the efforts to embody Cherokee memory have sprung from a sense among many that the events that unfolded in and around Chattanooga were a shameful period in United States history.
“The moves to inscribe Cherokee memory moved forward as an act of contrition and reconciliation. The City of Chattanooga went so far as to issue a formal apology to the Cherokee Nation for the Trail Of Tears. At the same time, tremendous Cherokee input went into creating the primary carrier of this memory – the Passage public art installation.”
This spirit of collaboration and forgiveness is firmly in evidence at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, where I find myself caught up in a whirl of Native American food, arts and crafts, demonstrations, music and historical re-enactments. A group of Cherokees talk me through their use of weaponry – including axes and war clubs designed to kill a man with one blow. They also explain the significance of their clothing – and laughingly dismiss the Western assumption that they live in tee-pees.
Grab your partner: A barefoot Sara Nelson joins in a traditional Cherokee dance in the midst of a steamy Tennessee thunderstorm
Ready for battle: Mi Gi Ko Ga shows off his red war paint - made from crushed ochre
Then the dancing begins, accompanied by jovial remarks that – despite the sudden, freak thunderstorm that has just broken overhead, what is to come is not a rain dance. Visitors are encouraged to take part and before long – despite being something of a self-confessed wallflower – I am dragged from my ringside seat to join in the fun. I quickly find myself in the midst of a playful buffalo dance, barefoot in the pouring rain and loving every minute of it.
During a breather, I get to chatting to 28-year-old Mi Gi Ko Ga, a young man from the Cherokee mother town of Kituwah.
“To me, to be Ani Kituwah Gi [the Cherokee name for people from Kituwah], is priceless,” he smiles. “We are so fortunate to still have our language, culture, history, our stories, dances, our whole identity.
“Not only are we educating ourselves, we are also simultaneously ensuring our future as a people through speaking our language, presenting our dances and sharing the elements of our history and culture through a strong oral tradition.
“We’ve been here for many years, we are here now and we shall continue to be.”
Mi Gi Ko Ga also shares with me the significance of the red paint on his face – a daubing made from crushed ochre, a mineral that occurs in different hues throughout the world.
The Cherokee traditionally used only use black and red tints, he explains. Red paint would be worn on a day-to-day basis, and was also used to paint the dead before burial.
“Warriors would paint their bodies with black and red prior to war, with the red representing blood and life, and the black death and anger,” he adds. “The particular paint schemes of the individual warrior also established his identity on the battlefield.”
There are further sights on my Tennessee tour that give me added insight into the resurgence of the Cherokee Nation: Fort Loudoun (a Cherokee-British outpost in the southern Appalachian mountains which the tribe burned to the ground after relations soured); Birchwood (the site of Blythe's ferry, from where 10,000 Cherokees were transported across the Tennessee river); Red Clay State Park (the last seat of Cherokee government before the Indian Removal Act came into force) and Cleveland (home of the Cherokee National Forest).
At every stop there is a fierce pride that the Cherokee story is now being told – a pride that is reinforced by the fact that, with a population of around 250,000, the Cherokees make up the largest American Indian group in the United States.
To the thousands of indian warriors howling their murderous war cries, it was just like hunting buffalo.
Before them, hundreds of American soldiers were retreating in disarray, stumbling and dying on the grassy slope above the Little Bighorn River.
These were no longer government troopers but terrified members of a desperate mob.
The indians, on foot and on horseback, riddled them with bullets, pummelled them with stone hammers and shot them down with arrows.
Heroic: A traditional portrayal of General Custer in the 1970 film Little Big Man
One solder was hit in the back of the head with an arrow and kept riding with the shaft rooted in his skull until another arrow hit him in the shoulder and finally he toppled from his horse.
So it was that Custer's famous Last stand turned from a battle into a bloody rout. In retreat, the troopers were being herded to a fording point across the river that was to become the scene of even worse slaughter as they floundered through the fast-flowing current.
There was a 15ft drop down the bank to the river. The slap of the horses' bellies as they hit the water reminded one indian warrior, Brave Bear, of 'cannon going off'.
But the way out of the river on the other side was even more difficult - a V-shaped cut that barely accommodated a single horse.
As mounted soldiers leapt lemming-like into the river, the crossing became jammed with a desperate mass of men and horses, all of them easy targets for the warriors now gathered on both banks.
'The indians were shooting the soldiers as they came up out of the water,' Brave Bear later recalled. 'I could see lots of blood in the water.'
Private William Meyer was shot in the eye and killed instantly. Private Henry Gordon died when a bullet went through his windpipe.
Soon after entering the river, adjutant Benny Hodgson was shot through both legs and fell from his horse.
Like all the other men who followed Custer that day, he perished beneath the burning sun, his consciousness slipping away under the blows of a merciless indian assault...
The carnage of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in the Black Hills of Montana - where 'General' George Armstrong Custer led his 750 men of the 7th U.s. Cavalry into a massacre by more than 3,000 warriors of the sioux and Cheyenne tribes - is etched into America's soul as one of the most iconic events of the romantic old West.
The traditional story has the dashing, golden-haired, buckskin-wearing Custer bravely making his Last Stand, holding out with awesomely courageous men who refused to back down against impossible odds.
Victorious: Sitting Bull pictured in 1885. The Indian leader led a furious and savage attack on American forces
Cherished as a charismatic hero with an aura of righteous determination, in defeat he achieved the greatest of victories - for he would be remembered for all time.
But the truth, as the riveting new book The Last stand by award-winning historian Nathaniel Philbrick reveals, is rather different.
Philbrick suggests that while Custer may have been brave, he was also reckless - an impetuous and vain romantic with a narrow-minded nostalgia for a vanished past, whose ego meant he ignored orders and took appalling risks with his men's lives.
He was not a general as the legend anointed him; technically, he was a lieutenant colonel, one who at West Point military school had finished bottom of his class.
His career, after some distinction in the American Civil War during the 1860s, was on the slide, so he was desperate for a quick victory to re-establish his reputation and restore his ailing finances.
As for his army, far from being craggy-faced Marlboro men, nearly half were immigrants from England, Ireland, Germany and Italy.
They were nervous, ill-trained and overly fond of the bottle. The American plains - now South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana - would have been as strange to them as the surface of the moon.
In June 1876, when Custer and his army met their grisly end, there were no farms, ranches, towns or even military bases in the plains. This was deep into indian territory.
But, two years earlier, gold had been discovered in the nearby Black Hills by none other than Custer himself during a reconnaissance mission.
As prospectors flooded into the region, the U.s. government decided it had no option but to acquire the hills - by force if necessary - from the indigenous indians.
Thus, the campaign against the sioux and Cheyenne tribes in the spring of 1876 was hardly an effort to defend innocent American pioneers from indian attack. It was an unprovoked military invasion.
While Custer and the U.S. military believed it would be a walkover, they had not reckoned on their implacable opponent, Sitting Bull, the 45-year-old sioux leader, a man whose legs were bowed from a boyhood of riding ponies and whose left foot had been maimed by a bullet in a horse-stealing raid.
Sitting Bull was determined that his people would never give up their revered lands without a bitter fight.
After a series of increasingly bloody skirmishes in the Black Hills in May and June of 1876, the U.S. military decided only a 'severe and persistent chastisement' would bring the indians to submission.
And so Custer and 750 men were sent out as an advance party from their base camp at Fort Lincoln to locate the villages of the sioux and Cheyenne responsible for the Black Hills insurrections.
Crucially, they were under strict orders not to attack until they were joined by thousands of cavalry reinforcements who would follow later.
Fictional tale: Errol Flynn stars as Custer, surrounded by the bodies of his dead soldiers
Custer's men marched in sweltering heat for five weeks amid a pungent stench of horsehair and human sweat. As they went, they raped indian women and desecrated indian graves as they found them.
It was in the early morning of June 25 that Custer's Crow indian scouts peered out into the dawn sunlight from the rocky peak known as the Crow's Nest and tried to make sense of what they could see in the far distance of the Little Bighorn Valley.
The scouts insisted they saw a 'tremendous indian village' some 15 miles away. Sure enough, camped by the Little Bighorn River was the biggest gathering of indians any white man had ever seen: 8 ,000 men, women and children.
More than a 1,000 gleaming white tepees filled an area two miles long and a quarter-of-a-mile wide, while behind them swirled a constantly moving reddish-brown sea of 15,000 ponies.
Under his command, sitting Bull had at least 3,000 warriors, all armed with bows, but many with repeat-action rifles far superior to the single-action carbines carried by the men of the 7th.
Sitting Bull's strategy was not to go looking for a fight with the white man, but to be ready to fight back if they were attacked.
Fatally, and in defiance of his orders, Custer made the decision to do just that. it was only the first of a series of disastrous tactical errors he would make that day, many prompted by Custer's ignorance of his enemy's true strength and by his misplaced fear that they would simply run away and deprive him of a glorious victory that would revive his career.
The next blunder came after an advance of only a few miles. Angered by the fast pace set by the regiment's senior captain, Colonel Fredrick Benteen, Custer ordered Benteen to take three of the regiment's companies on a reconnaissance mission.
Custer had just reduced the size of his main force by 20 per cent.
American hero: General George Custer has been revered as a brave leader, but there is evidence to show he was reckless with his men's lives
But he didn't stop there. His second-in-command, Major Marcus Reno, was ordered to take three more companies - nearly 100 men - and ride down the left bank of a tributary of the Little Bighorn river.
Custer himself led the remaining five companies down the right.
But there was a problem: unbeknown to Custer, Reno was drunk. Things quickly got worse: one of his men galloped to the top of a ridge and yelled that he could see indians running away.
'Running like devils,' he yelled, waving his hat. What the man could actually see is unclear, but Reno was quickly summoned from the other bank and given clear orders: 'Charge as soon as you find them.'
But Reno's advance over the ridge was a disaster. When he saw the awesome size of the indian encampment, he told his men to dismount and form into a skirmish line.
They advanced about 100 yards, planted their company flags in the soil and began firing their carbines.
Standing among his warriors, sitting Bull watched Reno advancing. When the soldiers dismounted, the chief thought it was a prelude to negotiations and sent his nephew One Bull and his friend Good Bear Boy out to talk.
Unarmed, and carrying a special shield purportedly blessed with spiritual powers, the pair rode towards the skirmish line.
When they were 30ft away, however, bullets smashed though both Good Bear Boy's legs. One Bull was enraged.
By this time, Sitting Bull had mounted his favourite horse, but when two bullets felled it from underneath him the Sioux leader quickly abandoned all hopes of peace.
'Now my best horse is shot,' he shouted, 'it is like they have shot me. Attack them.'
Sitting Bull's warriors - some 500 alone in the first wave - charged towards Reno's soldiers.
'They tried to cut through our skirmish line,' Sergeant John Ryan would later recall: 'We poured volleys into them, repulsing their charge and emptying many saddles.'
But it was a moment of false hope. As the Indians regrouped, Reno's soldiers soon realised the terrible danger they were in.
Even the most inexperienced among them had heard of the terrible tortures the Indians inflicted upon their prisoners, and they all knew the old soldiers' saying: 'Save the last bullet for yourself.'
Deafened by gunfire and war-cries, Reno's men began a retreat towards the river, with their drunken commander leading the way.
Observing from his position on high ground, Custer now realised his mistake in dividing his forces against such a vast number of Indians.
At once he dispatched a messenger to find Colonel Benteen and tell him to come quickly and bring ammunition packs.
Then Custer and his troops spurred forward into the fray.
No white man would ever see him, or his men, alive again.
Countless numbers died during Reno's shambolic retreat, including Bloody Knife, a U.S. scout who was shot in the back of the head, covering the panicking Reno in blood and brains.
By now, Reno's horse was plunging wildly. Waving his six-shooter, his face smeared with gore, Reno shouted: 'Any of you men who wish to make their escape, follow me.'
Among those who didn't get away was Isaiah Dorman, a translator married to a Sioux woman - and thus known to the Indians he was fighting.
His body would later be found propped up with his coffee pot and cup by his side. Both were filled with his blood.
His penis had been hacked of f and stuffed into his mouth and his testicles staked to the ground.
Another singled out for particular attention was Lieutenant Donald McIntosh, who was part-Indian and last seen surrounded by more than 25 warriors.
Lasting tribute: Visitors look at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument set on the site of Custer's Last Stand
His body could later only be identified by a distinctive button that had been given to him by his wife.
Slowly, Reno' s shattered band regrouped on a hill on the far side of the river that would later bear his name and where, eventually, they were joined by Benteen and his three companies.
One brief but abortive attempt was made to ride to Custer's aid as his main force forged down the slope of a hill called Greasy Grass, but Reno and Benteen and their companies were beaten back by scores of charging Indians and were forced to hold out for two days under siege until reinforcements finally arrived.
For that reason, no one is quite sure what happened to Custer and his men.
Indians reported that Custer was shot down early in the battle during an attempt to ford the Little Bighorn River and take thousands of Indian women and children on the other side hostage.
That would certainly explain the speed at which his force was overcome.
It would also explain the random, disorganised positions in which their bodies were later found after the remnants of the battalion retreated to what became known as Last Stand Hill, where the last of them met their end.
When the Indian warriors closed in to engage Custer's soldiers in hand-to-hand fighting, many of the troopers were said to be so confounded by their ferocity that they simply gave up, throwing their guns away and pleading for mercy.
One warrior, Standing Bear, later told his son that 'many of them lay on the ground, with their blue eyes open, waiting to be killed'.
Some were shot by rifles, other by arrows. Some were battered to death with stone clubs.
Custer's brother Tom is thought to have been the last to die, killed by the Cheyenne Yellow Nose who, having lost his rifle, was fighting with an old sabre.
As Yellow Nose charged, Tom pulled the trigger of his revolver. Click. He was out of bullets.
There were tears in the soldier's eyes, Yellow Nose recalled, but 'no sign of fear'.
When his body was found two days later, Tom Custer's skull had been pounded to the thickness of a man's hand. A hundred yards to the West lay the bodies of a third Custer brother, Boston, and the brothers' nephew, Autie Reed.
When the fighting came to an end, Custer's Last Stand was over. The reinforcements from Fort Lincoln who eventually relieved Benteen and Reno found several hundred bodies, hacked to pieces and bristling with arrows, putrefying in the summer sun.
Amid this scene of 'sickening, ghastly horror' they found Custer - who was just 36 years old - lying face-up across two of his men with a smile on his face.
Custer's body had two bullet wounds, one just below the heart and one to the left temple, the latter possibly evidence of a final act of mercy, carried out by his brother Tom, to stop a wounded Custer falling into Indian hands.
His smile in death could have been manufactured post-mortem by Indians who, despite scalping, stripping and mutilating most of the bodies, let Custer's off relatively lightly - busting his eardrums with a spiked weapon called an awl and jamming an arrow into his genitals.
Perhaps it had been a final smile of reassurance to a brother about to commit the most harrowing act of mercy.
Or maybe it was the last rueful smile of a buccaneering adventurer who finally realised that his luck had well and truly run out.
At 6ft 7 inches tall, the imposing sight of the Sioux warrior on the battlefield would have been enough to instil the enemy with fear.
In 19th Century Salford, the towering warrior with his solemn name Surrounded By The Enemy was a source of fascination and mystery.
Surrounded, as he was better known, succumbed to a chest infection in his teepee on the chilly Salford Quays in 1887 and died.
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The warriors: Part of the 97-strong force of red indians line up for Buffalo Bill's Salford show in 1887
His body was taken to Hope Hospital, where it promptly vanished.
There was no official burial, there is no record of it being moved, and nobody admitted to taking it.
Now, 120 years later the mystery may yet be solved, with the start of excavations on the site that experts hope might just uncover the once impressive warrior's final resting place.
It was in November of 1887 - during the reign of Queen Victoria - that Surrounded left his South Dakotan homeland to make the long journey to Britain with Buffalo Bill's famed Wild West Show.
The horseman, a member of the Oglala Lakota Warriors, had been recruited by the American army scout, who formed a travelling company of 97 Native Americans, 180 bronco horses and 18 buffalo.
To the people of Salford and Manchester it must have seemed the greatest show on Earth as Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World Show (to give it its full name) set up camp on the freezing banks of the River Irwell, staying for five months.
The British tour had started in London where Queen Victoria, in her Jubilee Year, demanded several performances and adored the chief Red Shirt.
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The favourite: Chief Red Shirt caught Queen Victoria's eye
It stopped at Birmingham before reaching Salford.
They performed nightly to vast crowds, staging a 'Cowboys and Indians' show of classic gunslinging and acts of horsemanship in a massive indoor arena built on what is now Salford Quays, two years before the canals were even built.
The company raced their broncos against English thoroughbreds over a 10-mile course.
The broncos won with 300 yards to spare.
Sadly for Surrounded - thousands of miles from home - it was to be the site of his death when aged 22 he died of a lung infection.
Despite the mystery over his resting place, it thought he was probably buried in a traditional Sioux ceremony conducted by fellow famed warriors Black Elk and Red Shirt.
They too were Lakota (northen) Indians from the Oglala tribe of the Sioux Nation - who counted Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse among their numbers.
Many of the Sioux were veterans of the Battle of Little Big Horn - where General George A Custer had his last stand. Salford was a long way from the Old West, but all the better for some of the Sioux, who found themselves on the run from the US cavalry because they had been involved in the demise of Custer and his Seventh Cavalry.
Black Elk, a medicine man, and later a Roman Catholic, was interviewed in 1931 and a subsequent book, Black Elk Speaks, became a classic of Native American writing.
Black Elk and several other Sioux visitors found themselves lost in Manchester and had to make their own way back to South Dakota when the show departed.
Many years later in 1990 the Oglala Sioux were depicted in the 1990 film 'Dances with Wolves'.
Salford councillor Steve Coen is hoping that work on the foundations of a new BBC centre will uncover the remains of Salford's remaining Sioux warrior and finally solve the riddle of Surrounded.
He said: "He was the only member of the tribe to die while they were in Salford and his official records can still be traced today.
"But his body was never recovered or recorded in a church burial and it is rumoured that it could still be somewhere in the Salford Quays area."
Mr Coen, who has visited the Oglala tribe, plans another visit to the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota, to try to trace the descendants of the 'Salford Sioux'.
He believes that there may be people living in Salford today who have Native American ancestry.
"It is possible there may be descendants as they were here for a long time and they were certainly friendly with the local population," he said.
One Sioux baby was born in Salford and was baptised in St Clement's Church before slipping out of the history books. The Sioux connection still lives on in Salford, with street names such as Buffalo Court and Dakota Avenue.
?When there were not enough buffalo left to hunt, William Cody turned to showbusiness. The man nicknamed Buffalo Bill joined forces with another legend, "Wild Bill" Hickok, and formed a travelling circus.
In 1870 he created Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World and the show took off. He was invited to England in 1887 to be the main American contribution to Queen Victoria's-Golden Jubilee celebration. The entertainment always started with a parade and ended with a melodramatic reenactment of Custer's Last Stand, with Cody playing Custer.
In some performances Sitting Bull, who wiped out Custer, played himself. Other stars included Annie Oakley, who put on shooting exhibitions with her husband Frank Butler. Buffalo Bill died peacefully in 1917.
| Between 1887 and 1892, John C.H. Grabill sent 188 photographs to the Library of Congress for copyright protection. Grabill is known as a western photographer, documenting many aspects of frontier life — hunting, mining, western town landscapes and white settlers’ relationships with Native Americans. Most of his work is centered on Deadwood in the late 1880s and 1890s. He is most often cited for his photographs in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
1
Title: "The Deadwood Coach" Side view of a stagecoach; formally dressed men sitting in and on top of coach. 1889. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #
2
Title: Villa of Brule A Lakota tipi camp near Pine Ridge, in background; horses at White Clay Creek watering hole, in the foreground. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #
When the West was wild: Fascinating 19th century photographs reveal the brawl-heavy, liquor-filled world of cowboy saloons
- The bars were often the first establishments to open up in the frontier boomtowns of the American West
- Their clientele would feature a mix of cowboys, miners, fur trappers and gun-toting gamblers
- Two drinks of hard liquor could be bought for a quarter - but often cut with ammonia or even gunpowder
- The vice and violence of saloons became so notorious an 'Anti-Saloon League' was formed in 1893
Billy the Kid poses with the lawman who would kill him months later: Fourth known image of the notorious outlaw is bought at a flea market for $10
- The black and white image, taken in August 1880, shows the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid with a gang of men
- One of the men in the photois Sheriff Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid's former friend and the man who killed him
- It's only the fourth known image of Billy the Kid and is thought to be a trophy shot taken by Garrett's posse
- Frank Abrams, a North Carolina attorney, bought the tintype for at a market in in Asheville in 2011 for just $10
A photo that was bought at a flea market for $10 shows Billy the Kid standing with the lawman who would ultimately kill him, experts have concluded.
The black and white image, taken in August 1880, shows the notorious outlaw with a gang of men, one of whom is Sheriff Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid's former friend and the man who gunned him down.
It is only the fourth known photograph of Billy the Kid and is thought to be a trophy shot taken by Garrett and his posse after they arrested him for murdering a sheriff. It is believed to be now worth millions of dollars.
The image could be the last known picture of Billy the Kid, who was born Henry McCarty. The other known pictures of the outlaw were believed to have been taken in 1877, 1878 and 1879.
Frank Abrams, a North Carolina attorney, first spotted the tintype photo in Asheville in 2011. The self-described history buff said the group picture of five men was part of a set and sat on his wall for several years.
Historians say that this photo shows outlaw Billy the Kid, circled second from left, and Pat Garrett, circled far right, taken in 1880. Frank Abrams, who bought the photo at a flea market says experts in forensics and facial recognition have verified the picture after several months of examination
Each landowner was supported by their own gang. McCarty, was a member of the Regulators gang.
The violence kicked off February 1878 with the murder of John Tunstall by the members of the Jesse Evans Gang, led by the then-sheriff of Lincoln County, William Brady.
Shortly after his death, war broke out between the Jesse Evans Gang and the Regulators, who backed Tunstall. McCarty, a member of the Regulators, vowed to avenge Tunstall's death.
In April 1878, the Regulators ambushed Brady and four of his deputies on a main street in Lincoln. They fired at the men from behind a wall, and Brady died after being shot at least a dozen times.
It is only the fourth known photograph of Billy the Kid and is thought to be a trophy shot taken by Garrett and his posse after they arrested him. It is believed to be now worth millions of dollars
According to popular legend, Billy the Kid (left) and Garrett were friends before he became known an outlaw, but there is no historical evidence to support the theory. Garrett is the man who eventually killed Billy the Kid, born as Henry McCarty
The months-long war came to a climax with the July 19, 1878, Battle of Lincoln, also called 'The Five-Day Battle'. During this fight, the Army was forced to intervene and the Regulators lost many of their men.
After the cease fire, McCarty and most of the Regulators fled town, but they were followed by Garrett, who wanted to cash in on the bounty on McCarty's head. Garrett wouldn't find McCarty until two years later, a month after he was appointed sheriff.
Garrett and his lawman tracked down McCarty to modern day Taiban, New Mexico, where the group surrendered in December 1880.
McCarty was then brought to Las Vegas where he stood trial for Brady's murder and on April 13, was sentenced to die.
He was then sent back to Lincoln County, where he was scheduled to be executed on May 13.
But while under guard by two sheriff's deputies at a home, McCarty killed both men and then fled out of town on horseback.
The Kid's freedom was short lived however, when Garrett set down to find him on July 14, 1881.
There are two theories about what happened at the house where Garrett found and killed McCarty. The first is that Garrett sat down down to speak with the homeowner when McCarty unexpectedly came in with his gun drawn, asking 'Who is it? Who is it?' in Spanish.
Garrett then supposedly shot McCarty dead. McCarty was just 21 when he died.
The picture is the only known photo of the Regulators gang all together. It was taken at the ranch of John Tunstall, an Englishman rancher who organized the gang to protect his properties against rivals
The photo, zoomed in to see Billy the Kid more closely, was discovered in 2015 and has since been estimated to be worth $5 million
The other account is that it was McCarty who entered the home, holding his knife, when he noticed a dark figure in the house, and again asked 'Who Is it?' before being shot dead.
Garrett did not seek re-election as sheriff of Lincoln County the year after McCarty's death. Instead, he briefly moved to Texas to serve as a Lieutenant in the Texas Rangers before returning to his ranch in New Mexico.
Tim Sweet, owner of the Billy the Kid museum, previously said that he was 95 per cent sure that Garrett is in the photo.
He said that he had theories as to why McCarty would have taken a photo with the man who eventually killed him, pointing to the cigars as signs that Garrett and his lawmen were celebrating capturing McCarty.
While trying to verify the photo, Abrams approached Robert Stahl, a retired professor emeritus at Arizona State University who is no stranger to the history of Billy the Kid.
In 2015, Stahl filed a petition in New Mexico Supreme Court in pursuit of a death certificate for the Kid, also known as William Bonney, from the state's medical examiner.
Stahl said he thought it was a 'high probability' that it was Garrett in the photo, but he wasn't sure if another man was Billy the Kid.
'I told him "The biggest thing you could do right now is get the picture out and let people look at it and give you feedback",' Stahl said. 'To me, it's one of the most intriguing and historically significant of those tintypes of the Old West.'
This undated file photo (left) is thought to be an image of famed gunslinger Billy the Kid near the age of 18. Right, another photo of Billy the Kid, who was celebrated for his gun skills and, according to popular legend killed 21 men - one for each year of his short life
Abrams, who lives in Arden, told Albuquerque's KRQE-TV that he spent the next several months consulting various forensic experts.
Several said the tintype was likely taken between 1879 and 1880, which coincides with the August 2, 1880, date someone had written on the photo, Abrams said.
A Los Angeles forensic video expert said facial recognition software indicates that it is most likely Garrett and Billy the Kid in the picture, according to a signed declaration.
A handwriting expert in Texas compared a signature from Garrett on the photo with ten documents with his known handwriting. He declared them matching in a notarized letter in September.
The photo of the Kid discovered in 2015 has since been estimated to be worth $5 million.
Experts believe a picture that shows the New Mexico outlaw with Garrett would be worth much more. However, Abrams isn't interested in finding out anytime soon.
'One day it may end up at an auction house somewhere. We'll see what happens,' Abrams said. 'Right now, that is not the first thing on my mind. I've always been somebody who's interested in history and background.'
He added: 'People ask me all the time, what do you think it’s worth, what do you think it’s worth. I won’t put a price on it, quite frankly it’s priceless.
WHO WAS BILLY THE KID?
Billy the Kid was born Henry McCarty to Irish immigrants in New York City around 1859.
He headed west with his family as a youth and had his first brush with the law in 1875 when he was arrested for stealing clothes from a Chinese laundry in Silver City, New Mexico.
He then worked in Graham County as a farmhand, teamster, and cowboy. His age, appearance, and size won him his 'Kid' moniker.
As he descended into criminality and fled from town to town to evade the law, he regularly changed his name, eventually becoming known as Billy the Kid.
He was celebrated for his gun skills and, according to popular legend killed 21 men - one for each year of his short life. However, the true figure is believed to be somewhere between four and nine.
Billy the Kid was born Henry McCarty to Irish immigrants in New York City around 1859. The Kid was known to be friendly and personable and a smart dresser, often wearing a Mexican sombrero. These qualities contributed to his image as both a notorious outlaw and a folk hero
He is thought to have been 17 when he killed his first man in 1877 - although some historians say he could have been as young as 15 as the true year of his birth is not known.
The Kid was known to be friendly and personable and a smart dresser, often wearing a Mexican sombrero. These qualities contributed to his image as both a notorious outlaw and a folk hero.
In the aftermath of the Lincoln County War, Lew Wallace, the new territorial governor of New Mexico, published a wanted list which included the Kid, who was implicated in the murder of Sheriff Brady in 1878, shortly after Brady arrested the Kid.
The Kid was catapulted into legend due to the $500 bounty - then a staggering amount - on his head.
In November 1880, he and three of his gang were captured, and the Kid was tried and convicted for the murder of Brady. He was sentenced to hang and was then transferred to the courthouse and jail in Lincoln, but on April 28, 1881, he killed deputies James Bell and Robert Olinger and escaped.
Soon afterwards he was captured and shot by Lincoln County sheriff, Patrick Floyd Garrett in a sting operation.
He was buried in the old military cemetery at Fort Sumner next to two of his gang members.
The saloons of the Wild West conjure up images of gunfights, heavy drinking and dangerous outlaws.
And these astonishing photographs prove that the Old West watering holes really did live up to their notorious historical reputation.
The pictures, taken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in states from Montana to Texas, show what life was like inside the bars and taverns.
The saloon, which were were particular to the Wild West, were often the first establishments to open in frontier towns. Cowboys, miners, fur trappers and gamblers would all flock to them.
They quickly gained a reputation as dens of vice, often housing brothels and opium dens, and brawls would frequently spill out into the street. Women who weren't parlor girls were barred from entry.
However those same respectable women got their revenge when they helped found the Anti-Saloon League, which lobbied for the prohibition of alcohol in the United States in the early 20th century, leading to the closure of many of the Wild West bars.
Gamblers play Faro, a French card game, at a saloon in Bisbee, Arizona, in this late 19th century photograph. Gambling became a quintessential part of saloons, but the combination of liquor, money and hot-tempers meant that any gambler had to brush up on his shooting skills as well as his card-playing
The Cowboy Bar in Jackson, Wyoming, 1908. During the late 19th and early 20th century saloons were an ever-present feature in American frontier towns. Over time they developed into sleekly designed affairs, as seen here in Wyoming
A trio of cowboys enjoy a drink while conversing with the barman at the Equity Bar in Old Tascosa, northern Texas, 1907. For years Tascosa was considered the cowboy capital of Texas. Its remote location, combined with a population hardened by years in the West, made its saloons perfect places for fugitives to escape to
Armed and ready: Texas Rangers Nate Fuller and AJ Beard enjoy a drink at Livinston's Ranch Supply, in Marfa, west Texas, 1916 (left). Right, a patron cradles a rifle outside Jacksons Bar in Idaho, late 19th century. Weapons were a common sight in Western saloons, leading to plenty of shootouts
The Bob Saloon in Miles City, Montana, circa 1880. Life was hard on the frontier, so men had little to do after a hard day's work but drink and 'let loose' in their local saloon - even if that just meant having a few beers on the porch, as seen here
The Weaver Brothers Saloon in Summit County, Colorado, 1890. The majority of saloon drinkers drank either warm beer or straight liquor like rye or bourbon. In an effort to improve profits, bar staff often cut their liquor with ammonia, gunpowder or even cayenne pepper
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