Help! Academic Research

[The Factor]

My daughter is doing a university research paper dealing with myth in the Old West.
She is looking at actual homocides in cattle/mining towns during their peak periods and wheather there was a recorded Hollywood style gunfight .i.e. guns drawn from leather, middle of the street etc.
Any suggestions for credible sources?
Thanks

[Four-Eyed Buck]

About the only one that comes to mind in the criteria mentioned is the J.B. Hickok/ Dave Tutt fight................Buck

[St. George]

There have been dozens upon dozens of books written dealing with her paper's topics - too many to list easily, since the myth of the Old West has been and will continue to be written of extensively.

Insofar as the "Hollywood-style" gunfight is concerned - something along those lines happened between "Wild Bill" Hickock and Dave Tutt - but without the attendant drama and Hickock wore a sash - not leather.

The Dime Novelists can be blamed for the "showdown" becoming part of the lore - and Hollywood merely gilded that lily.

Have her start by reviewing the basics - the Time-Life series - "History of the Old West".

Follow up with "The Gunfighter - Man or Myth?" - by Joseph G. Rosa.

The associated bibliographies will lead her along.

Scouts Out!

[Capt. Hamp Cox]

It wasn't a one-on-one confrontation, being rather a group showdown, but the OK Corrral incident comes pretty close.

Recommend your daughter check out the following sources:

Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters, by Bill O'Neal

Triggernometry, A Gallery of Gunfighters, by Eugene Cunningham

The Shooters, by Leon Claire Metz

The Badman of the West, by George Hendricks

Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, by W.B. (Bat) Masterson

The Legend Makers, by Henry Sinclair Drago

[The Factor]

Thanks for the posts.
Any one familiar with the work of Robert Dykstra?

[St. George]

He has his own slant on American History - to be sure - but be forewarned - anything "political" belongs in a different forum and I'll move it there.

I don't have the patience for it.


Scouts Out!