Jim Courtright of Fort Worth

Jim Courtright of Fort Worth PDF Author: Robert K. DeArment
Publisher: TCU Press
ISBN: 9780875652924
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Timothy Isaiah "Longhair Jim" Courtright operated on both sides of the law and became a legend in his lifetime and after his death. One of the most colorful characters from the wild and woolly days of Fort Worth's Hell's Half Acre, Courtright was at various times city marshal, deputy sheriff, deputy U.S. marshal, private detective, hired killer, and racketeer. Today, he is almost forgotten, either as a gunfighter or a lawman, except in Fort Worth. Little is known about Courtright's early life, though he apparently served in the Union army during the Civil War. But when he arrived in the West, Courtright seemed to attract trouble. He was involved in a shootout during the 1886 railroad strikes and was accused of murder in New Mexico. Deputies were sent to Fort Worth to escort him to New Mexico to stand trial. His escape from them, complete with guns hidden under a restaurant table, is one of Fort Worth's most colorful stories. Finally, he was killed in a shootout that he apparently provoked with gambler and gunman Luke Short. To this day nobody is sure what provoked that feud, but Courtright was honored with the longest funeral procession Fort Worth had ever seen. The myth of Courtright as legendary gunfighter was built in two previous biographies--one by a novelist and the other by a Franciscan priest. After exhaustive research into contemporary newspapers and other accounts and close study of the previous two books, historian Robert K. DeArment deconstructs the myth of Longhair Jim and reconstructs the gunfighter as a real human being, complex, flawed, often courageous, usually both honorable and dishonorable. This book is a must for all those interested in the legends of the West, its lawmen, and its outlaws.

Jim Courtright of Fort Worth

Jim Courtright of Fort Worth PDF Author: Robert K. DeArment
Publisher: TCU Press
ISBN: 9780875652924
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Get Book Here

Book Description
Timothy Isaiah "Longhair Jim" Courtright operated on both sides of the law and became a legend in his lifetime and after his death. One of the most colorful characters from the wild and woolly days of Fort Worth's Hell's Half Acre, Courtright was at various times city marshal, deputy sheriff, deputy U.S. marshal, private detective, hired killer, and racketeer. Today, he is almost forgotten, either as a gunfighter or a lawman, except in Fort Worth. Little is known about Courtright's early life, though he apparently served in the Union army during the Civil War. But when he arrived in the West, Courtright seemed to attract trouble. He was involved in a shootout during the 1886 railroad strikes and was accused of murder in New Mexico. Deputies were sent to Fort Worth to escort him to New Mexico to stand trial. His escape from them, complete with guns hidden under a restaurant table, is one of Fort Worth's most colorful stories. Finally, he was killed in a shootout that he apparently provoked with gambler and gunman Luke Short. To this day nobody is sure what provoked that feud, but Courtright was honored with the longest funeral procession Fort Worth had ever seen. The myth of Courtright as legendary gunfighter was built in two previous biographies--one by a novelist and the other by a Franciscan priest. After exhaustive research into contemporary newspapers and other accounts and close study of the previous two books, historian Robert K. DeArment deconstructs the myth of Longhair Jim and reconstructs the gunfighter as a real human being, complex, flawed, often courageous, usually both honorable and dishonorable. This book is a must for all those interested in the legends of the West, its lawmen, and its outlaws.

Western Gunslingers in Fact and on Film

Western Gunslingers in Fact and on Film PDF Author: Buck Rainey
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476603286
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Belle Starr, Wyatt Earp, the Younger Gang, the Dalton-Doolin Gang and Bat Masterson--these real-life lawmen and lawbreakers have been the basis of so many Hollywood Westerns that it has become difficult to discover where the truth ends and the legend begins. All actually became larger-than-life characters during their lifetimes, as contemporary newspapers and books embellished their deeds for their own purposes. But it was in Hollywood that the line between reality and myth was completely blurred. Each chapter-length entry here first focuses on the known facts of the people's lives and how each became truly legendary during their lifetimes. The reality is then compared to how they have been portrayed in the movies.

Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography: A-F

Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography: A-F PDF Author: Dan L. Thrapp
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803294189
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
Includes biographical information on 4,500 individuals associated with the frontier

Deadly Dozen

Deadly Dozen PDF Author: Robert K. DeArment
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806185120
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday—such are the legendary names that spring to mind when we think of the western gunfighter. But in the American West of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thousands of grassroots gunfighters straddled both sides of the law without hesitation. Deadly Dozen tells the story of twelve infamous gunfighters, feared in their own times but almost forgotten today. Now, noted historian Robert K. DeArment has compiled the stories of these obscure men. DeArment, a life-long student of law and lawlessness in the West, has combed court records, frontier newspapers, and other references to craft twelve complete biographical portraits. The combined stories of Deadly Dozen offer an intensive look into the lives of imposing figures who in their own ways shaped the legendary Old West. More than a collective biography of dangerous gunfighters, Deadly Dozen also functions as a social history of the gunfighter culture of the post-Civil War frontier West. As Walter Noble Burns did for Billy the Kid in 1926 and Stuart N. Lake for Wyatt Earp in 1931, DeArment—himself a talented writer—brings these figures from the Old West to life. John Bull, Pat Desmond, Mart Duggan, Milt Yarberry, Dan Tucker, George Goodell, Bill Standifer, Charley Perry, Barney Riggs, Dan Bogan, Dave Kemp, and Jeff Kidder are the twelve dangerous men that Robert K. DeArment studies in Deadly Dozen: Twelve Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West.

Hell's Half Acre

Hell's Half Acre PDF Author: Richard F. Selcer
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 0875655114
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
Texas is a place where legends are made, die, and are revived. Fort Worth, Texas, claims its own legend – Hell’s Half Acre – a wild ’n woolly accumulation of bordellos, cribs, dance houses, saloons, and gambling parlors. Tenderloin districts were a fact of life in every major town in the American West, but Hell’s Half Acre – its myth and its reality – can be said to be a microcosm of them all. The most famous and infamous westerners visited the Acre: Timothy (“Longhair Jim”) Courtright, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Sam Bass, Mary Porter, Etta Place, along with Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch, and many more. For civic leaders and reformers, the Acre presented a dilemma – the very establishments they sought to close down or regulate were major contributors to the local economy. Controversial in its heyday and receiving new attention by such movies as Lonesome Dove, Hell’s Half Acre remains the subject of debate among historians and researchers today. Richard Selcer successfully separates fact from fiction, myth from reality, in this vibrant study of the men and women of Cowtown’s notorious Acre.

Daltons!

Daltons! PDF Author: Robert Barr Smith
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806129945
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
In October 1892 the notorious Dalton gang concluded their days of outlawry at Coffeyville, Kansas, with a bold attempt to rob two banks at once in broad daylight. The raiders--Bob, Grat, and Emmett Dalton, Bill Powers, and Dick Broadwell--were nothing more than common hoodlums, says author Robert Barr Smith. The real heroes of the day were the townspeople, who spontaneously turned out in haste and in force to dispatch the outlaws in a bloody downtown shoot-out. Smith sorts out the truth from the legends and suggests answers to some of the perplexing questions about the Coffeyville fight--including whether or not there was a sixth man who got away. In addition, Smith recounts the violent aftermath of the fight: the trial and later life of Emmett Dalton, the only outlaw to survive the raid; and the bloody ends of the Dalton gang’s successors, Bill Doolin and Bill Dalton.

The Life and Death of Kid Curry

The Life and Death of Kid Curry PDF Author: Gary A. Wilson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442247401
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan was an outlaw, gunfighter and infamous member of the Butch Cassidy gang. With more than fifteen killings attributed to him, and given his involvement in the Butch Cassidy gang, "Kid Curry" was as renowned a figure as you were likely to find west of the Mississippi. Short of stature yet enormous in reputation, after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fled for South America, Logan became the most wanted outlaw in the United States. He was finally captured--only to escape from his Tennessee prison in 1903. Until now little has been readily known about the man nicknamed the "tiger of the wild bunch." With unique access to the research, author Gary Wilson deftly separates fact from fiction, providing readers with a complete and authoritative biography.

Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography: P-Z

Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography: P-Z PDF Author: Dan L. Thrapp
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803294202
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
Includes biographical information on 4,500 individuals associated with the frontier

The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill

The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill PDF Author: Don Russell
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806115375
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
Attempts to discern the truths behind the legends built up around his career.

Outlaw Tales of Montana

Outlaw Tales of Montana PDF Author: Gary A. Wilson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762775866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
A refreshing new perspective on some of the most infamous reprobates of the West and Midwest.