A Little Reality

[Fox Creek Kid]

http://www.sdstate.edu/news/articles/western-violence.cfm

[Delmonico]

Just like today, the large cities had far more violence and other crimes than the smaller towns out in the more rural areas.  I don't remember where I read it, but someone said there were more cowoys killed by lightning than any other cause.  Having been out on the open prairie many times in storms and seen lots of fairly close ground stirkes I can believe that.  Luckly I've never been caught in the open except in a car which is fairly safe.

[GunClick Rick]

Vigilantism is inherently disorderly."

Yea especialy for the crook! And the upper etchalon had the money to hide it better."drop the venacular!"
"i'll have you know that's a gen-u-wine Doiby'!

[Drayton Calhoun]

Vigilantism is inherently disorderly."

Yea especialy for the crook! And the upper etchalon had the money to hide it better."drop the venacular!"
"i'll have you know that's a gen-u-wine Doiby'!

Yeah, just ask Henry Plummer...

[GunClick Rick]

 3-7-77

[Trailrider]

3-7-77

Been stopped by the Montana State Patrol, have you?    For those who don't know the significance of the "3-7-77", it was what the Montana vigilanties often chalked on the shacks of suspected rustlers.  One version is that it said, "You have 24 hours to clear out of the territory before your next home is 3 feet x 7 feet x 77 inches deep!"  Another is that is is a date, but since Montana wasn't admitted to the Union until 1886 (IIRC), that doesn't compute.  Whatever it meant, since the Vigilanties "took care of business" in the Judith Basin country of central Montana, and was alleged to have been the enforcement arm of the Montana Stock Growers Association (whose members included T.R., the Marquis de Mores, Granville Stewart, et al), the Montana State Patrol adopted it recognizing their predecessors as the first "law enforcement" group.  Whatever, they were wearing it on their uniforms as a shoulder patch, last time I checked.

[litl rooster]

It wasn't just the Judith Basin

[Fox Creek Kid]

Forgive the thread "necromancy', but with so many journalists today referring to the "Wild West" when describing current troubling events I recalled this thread and the linked source. As well, I remembered one of the best books on the subject by Roger D. McGrath,  Ph.D. His landmark book Violence and Lawlessness on the Western Frontier is one I recommend for anyone interested in the facts regarding this topic. Truth, as is so often stated, is stranger than fiction. The problem is that so many of us have had our views shaped by romantic ideals thrust upon us by Hollywood. Here's a quote from McGrath that is sobering:

A look at two frontier mining towns—Aurora, Nevada, and Bodie, California—illustrates these points.[2] The towns were home to Bannons and Ryans aplenty and saw a considerable number of homicides but they were remarkably free from most crime: robbery, theft, and burglary occurred infrequently and bank robbery, rape, racial violence, and serious juvenile crime seem not to have occurred at all. While the homicide rate was high, the killings were almost always the result of fights between willing combatants. Thus, in Aurora and Bodie, the old, the young, the unwilling, the weak, and the female were, for the most part, safe from harm. If, as many popularly assume, much of America's crime problem is a consequence of a heritage of frontier violence and lawlessness, then it is ironic that the crimes most common today—robbery, burglar, theft, and rape—were of no great significance and, in the case of rape, seemingly nonexistent in Aurora and Bodie.

I highly recommend his landmark book:

https://www.amazon.com/Gunfighters-Highwaymen-Vigilantes-Violence-Frontier/dp/0520051017?ie=UTF8&SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0520051017&linkCode=xm2&tag=duckduckgo-d-20

[Galloway]

Whats this new trend of about 10 years now, that everything you know about the old west is wrong all about? I've seen it quite a lot this year and its only july! Is this possibly historical revisionism at work, or has it really taken this long to reach the masses that an episode of gunsmoke wasnt an average day of the frontier? Can we really assume aurora and bodie had things better than today? Can we consider crimes went unreported in those places? Can we consider law enforcement may have been unethical in those places? Can we acknowledge that measuring history by todays standards doesnt work? Can we admit we've all seen how dumb intoxicated people act, and that the old west was full of them? Can we research the things that interest us and form our own opinions?

[Fox Creek Kid]

Whats this new trend of about 10 years now, that everything you know about the old west is wrong all about?...

New facts are discovered all the time as journals, diaries, letters, photos, etc., are discovered. It's up to the individual to discern what may be a new truth or rely on old dogma as not all new history written today is "revisionist" in the sense that they wish to inject a modern political agenda into them. Naturally, this will tie into the author's education, background & belief system. It is up to the reader to discern that which they choose to accept. I personally abhor how some historians today have a Leftist bent, but that is merely a reflection of the partisan and divisive society we live in. Know however that people in the 19th century America were just as divisive if not more so. After all, they fought a civil war.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is

Winston Churchill

[scrubby2009]

Kicking an old tired thread down the road a bit further... While ever increasing numbers of our fellow citizens have lost interest in History in general and specifically are hell-bent to highlight any minor (singular?) event that suits their pre-determined conclusions.... I would observe that my personal experiences growing up "rural" in logging towns from Northern California to SE Alaska seamlessly blend with what I observe today living in the Sierra Nevada mountains in a small mining town. Specifically, that "back then" as now, the dirtbags often interacted violently with one another but the decent folk were statistically unlikely to be caught up in the crimes and backstabbing. I would steer anyone interested to the available archived records of most regions and challenge them to detect any real differences. Aberrant and gruesome events are almost always highlighted. It's human nature. 100 years to 150 years back, our local paper relates the man stomped nearly dead at the town stables, or the sweet old lady who's kitchen caught on fire from the oil lamp she dropped. The next day , probably several hundred horses were safely harnessed and put to bed that night. Thousands of oil lamps were lit and used, many by small children with no fires started. This winter, stupid criminals steal pot harvests from eachother, and criminal vagrants beat eachother up in this same town. What doesn't get mentioned is the thousands of safe homes that weren't robbed and the 10's of thousands of neighbors caring for and assisting one another. The story of our American culture, how we so rapidly domesticated such an immense mass of land, is mostly made of little family groups doing humble day-to-day tasks out of love and a desire to build something for themselves with raw materials. Enough run-on thoughts. BTW, thoroughly enjoy reading these old threads and I greatly value the conriibutions of the "top active citizens"!

[Dave T]

Well said scrubby, well said.

Dave