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© History Oasis / Created via Midjourney
A list of the Wild West’s most famous cowboys and girls, from sheriffs to outlaws.
Despite his bloody reputation for killing 4,280 buffalo in just 18 months during 1867-1868, Buffalo Bill Cody shocked Victorian England when he performed for Queen Victoria in 1887 with his Wild West Show that paid Native performers equal wages to whites.
Known for his long hair and deadly aim, Wild Bill Hickok enforced the law in Abilene, Kansas, until fate caught him in Deadwood in 1876. He was killed while holding the infamous “dead man’s hand” of aces and eights as glaucoma was slowly making him go blind.
From the chains of Tennessee slavery to the freedom of the western frontier, Nat Love celebrated Independence Day 1876 by winning a Deadwood rodeo competition that earned him the nickname “Deadwood Dick.”
The petite Annie Oakley was famous for being able to shoot through a playing card from 90 feet away. She also survived a devastating 1901 train crash that left her partially paralyzed but recovered to train over 15,000 American soldiers in marksmanship during the First World War.
Known for her rough ways and expert marksmanship across the Dakota Territory in the 1870s, Calamity Jane revealed a soft side when she tended to Deadwood’s smallpox victims in 1878. Later, she requested to be buried next to Wild Bill Hickok despite no evidence that they were ever romantically involved.
Texas-born John Wesley Hardin’s paranoia led him to perfect the “border roll” — drawing and firing while rolling across the floor. During his bloody career, he killed about 42 people between 1868 and 1877 before studying law in prison and passing the bar exam shortly after his release in 1894.
From 1866 to 1882, Jesse James and his brother Frank robbed banks and trains across Missouri and neighboring states. He was betrayed for a $10,000 reward. His greedy mother later charged tourists 25 cents for pebbles from his grave, replenishing them to keep the money flowing.
The former slave Bass Reeves arrested over 3,000 fugitives across Indian Territory from 1875-1907 without ever detaining the wrong person, despite being completely illiterate and having to memorize every detail of his arrest warrants.
Fluent in Spanish and several Native American languages, Tom Horn was Geronimo’s interpreter during his 1886 surrender. He later designed his execution gallows while awaiting hanging in Wyoming for the 1901 murder of 14-year-old Willie Nickell.
When Clay Allison discovered an innocent man had been hanged in New Mexico in 1874, the “Gentleman Gunfighter” exhumed the body to confirm the mistake. He then led a mob to find and hang the actual murderer. Allison eventually met an unglamorous death under wagon wheels in 1887.
Black cowboy Bill Pickett revolutionized rodeo in the early 1900s by inventing “bulldogging”—grabbing steers by biting their upper lips like bulldogs—and became the first Black cowboy movie star before his 1932 death from a horse kick to the head.
Canadian-born Pearl Hart gained notoriety as one of America’s few female outlaws after robbing an Arizona stagecoach in 1899. She later became a media sensation by cutting her hair short, wearing men’s clothing, and advocating for women’s rights from her prison cell.
Though Hollywood depicts him dying in a Bolivian shootout in 1908, the Sundance Kid earned his nickname during a Wyoming jail breakout before fleeing to Argentina in 1901 with $20,000 in stolen cash.
Born to Mormon pioneers in Utah, Butch Cassidy perfected the “Pony Express” escape tactic with fresh horses stationed along robbery routes throughout the 1890s, allegedly once returning the money he stole after learning it belonged to a family man.
Born to wealth and classically educated as a pianist, Belle Starr fell from grace to become the “Bandit Queen” of Indian Territory in the 1880s. She was then mysteriously shot in the back while riding home in 1889. Her murder remains unsolved to this day.
Before becoming America’s beloved humorist and highest-paid Hollywood star of the 1930s, Will Rogers began as a working cowboy who dazzled audiences with rope tricks learned on Texas cattle drives in the 1890s.
Charles Goodnight established the famous Goodnight-Loving Trail in 1866 to drive Texas cattle to New Mexico and Colorado. He also invented the chuck wagon and personally saved American bison from extinction by raising orphaned buffalo calves on his million-acre Texas Panhandle ranch.
Tuberculosis forced dentist Doc Holliday to abandon his practice in 1873 and head west. In the Wild West, he became a deadly gambler who participated in the 30-second Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881 Tombstone, Arizona. He ironically died in bed with his boots off rather than in the shootout he’d always expected.
Though his legend claims 21 victims, Billy the Kid likely killed only four men during New Mexico’s Lincoln County War before escaping jail by killing two guards in 1881. He was later tracked down and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett at age 21.
Standing an imposing 6’5” in the 1870s frontier, Pat Garrett earned the nickname “Juan Largo” (Long John) among New Mexico’s Hispanic population before killing Billy the Kid in 1881. He was later appointed customs collector in El Paso by his friend, President Theodore Roosevelt. He died while urinating on the roadside in 1908.
Canadian-born Bat Masterson went from buffalo hunter and Dodge City lawman in the 1870s to New York sports columnist in the early 1900s. He died of a heart attack at his desk in 1921 while writing his column after being appointed U.S. Marshal by President Roosevelt, whose official papers listed Masterson’s sole qualification as “gun-fighter.”
Champion rodeo performer Ben Johnson won the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association World Championship in team roping in 1953 before becoming an Oscar-winning actor who refused to use profanity in his 300+ films out of respect for his mother.
Born biologically female in 1812, Charley Parkhurst lived his entire adult life as a man while becoming one of California’s finest stagecoach drivers during the Gold Rush era. Parkhurst lost an eye to a horse kick and likely became the first anatomically female person to vote in a presidential election in 1868—52 years before women’s suffrage.
The greatest rodeo cowboy of the modern era, Jim Shoulders dominated bull riding and bareback bronc riding to win 16 world championships between 1947 and 1959, earning just $433,000 despite his unprecedented success before breeding the legendary bull “Tornado,” which bucked off riders in 191 of 200 attempts over 14 years.
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