The real wild west most often depicted was the time of the cattle drives and wild cattle towns. The truth of the matter is that period lasted only about twenty years. It started after the Civil War in 1866 when the demand for beef rose and wild cattle from Texas was the answer only there were no rail roads to take them east except those up north. So cattle drives began to satisfy the demand for beef.
This period ended in the late 1880’s just about the same time the last of the Indians were forced on reservations.
No one called men cowboys or cow pokes, unless you wanted your ass kicked. They were both derogative terms for drovers or cattlemen. In the West, a “poke” was a fuck. So calling a drover a “cowpoke” was fighting words, basically your were calling him a “cow fucker.” Now there might have been intimacy between the sheep herders, but I doubt the drovers got into it. After all, that was why some of them rode mares…badum dum!
The Colt Peacemaker did not go into general use until 1873 the year the army adopted it and Custer gave a bunch of them to the Sioux and Cheyenne for free. Call them demo models… They were the New Army Colts and were the model that the later short barreled Peacemaker you see in all the westerns starting in the 1950’s to the present. The truth is most guns were old cap and ball pistols, Army and Navy surplus guns from the war. Later they replaced the chambers with modified replacements to accept metallic cartridges.
Most of what you see in John Wayne westerns and such is bullshit. In more than one of JW’s movies you see him leave the war and is dressed in a leather vest, khaki jeans, packing his favorite short barreled Colt couldn’t have happened because he is dressed in 1950’s fashions and his gun hadn’t been invented for another thirty years or so.
Take a look a the old pictures of Wild Bill Hickock or others to see how they really dressed. Long frock coats, trousers with sashes, wide brimmed hats, and scarves. None of this 1950’s crap with stretch denim blue jeans or khakis with leather vests.
The women parted their hair and wore it up under bonnets not piled up high in bouffant dos from the 1960’s. Hair got greasy, was a pain to wash, so was kept under wraps to keep it clean and no respectable woman wanted a tanned face, or would be caught dead in trousers. Even the fashionable Spanish women’s riding trousers were a Hollywood costume department fabrication, as well as all the nonsensical gun leather. Holsters were made to protect a gun, not to do fast draw from. Many had flaps like military holsters. Quick draw was a fantasy.
As far as the bar fights go, most of the time they were drunken brawls, but shoot outs were rare. Many towns in the late 1870’s and 1880’s had rules that required cowboys to “check their iron” or guns before they entered into town. Sometimes they allowed a man to have one holstered gun. But the ones who carried guns were lawmen, marshalls, and some town officials. Anyone else caught with a gun usually spent a few days in jail.
Lets talk about waste. A person generates 1.5 pounds of shit a day. Horses and cattle somewhat more. Shit breeds flies and even one horse’s shit can generate so many flies it is unbelievable. I have lived near a horse and cattle and flies and stench were a constant problem.
Hollywood never comes close. Recall you had outhouses for all the human shit, and they stink of a hot day, and flies are a constant nuisance. There were not window screens back then so you lived, ate and breathed with flies.
Wagons and horses turn anything wet into a muddy rutted mess, so city streets were veritable sewers running with mud, filthy water and trash.
Even the towns are not as depicted in Hollywood. Dodge city, well if you go by Gunsmoke it was like most towns with main street and so on. You’d be wrong. Dodge City was one long row of buildings sitting looking across “main street” at the railroad tracks. Along the tracks during different times you might see nine foot high piles of buffalo hides or piles of buffalo bones. Across the way on the other side of the tracks would be the cattle yards where the cows driven into town were kept to await transport.
On Gunsmoke Delmonico’s serves up a mean steak, but in real life it would have served oysters from the half shell sent from New York. The girls in Miss Kitty’s Long Branch were all hookers, soiled doves, widows or orphans with no other way to earn a living but on their backs.
The prostitutes were often the wealthiest people in frontier towns. And they were usually the person you went to for a loan if you didn’t have a bank yet
Did I mention dirt and filth? Ever been camping for a few days and wear the same cloths? Yeah it was like that. Cloths were a pain to wash and dry manually, drovers and buffalo hunters might not wash for weeks out on the prairie so they stunk and were filthy. Remember there was no deodorant so everyone reeked of body odor and sweat. Even the whores stunk, and more than likely their legs were as hairy as your dogs along with other parts. Most men have no idea how hairy a woman actually is, since today they start shaving their legs and nether regions at ages as early as twelve. Hell, THEY don’t even know how hairy they are anymore.
There was a reason horse stealing was a hanging offense, because losing your horse might end up killing you. Today the distances in Montana still force people to stop anytime they see someone walking. It can be seventy or eighty miles between ranches and help and in the cooler months a sudden storm can mean you die..
– Keith Hisey
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.