People like Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok are synonymous with the Wild West. But, if you think about it, neither of them did anything particularly unique for that era. They both became frontier legends after they took part in shoot-outs—Earp after the gunfight at the OK Corral and Hickok after his duel with David Tutt. But they were far from the only people in the Old West to win a gunfight.
10 Owens-Blevins Shoot-Out – Perry Owens
Between 1882 and 1892, the Tonto Basin in Arizona was the stage for a bloody feud known as the Pleasant Valley War. Two families, the Grahams and the Tewksburys, were feuding over land—and race, as the Tewksburys were half Native American. The war only ended when the last Graham died. By this time, both sides had lost dozens of members.
The bloodiest event of the whole feud happened in 1887, when the Grahams killed two Tewksbury members at the same time. The newly elected sheriff of Apache County, Perry Owens, wanted to bring the men responsible to justice. Luckily for him, it didn’t take long before Andy Cooper (real name Blevins), a Graham associate, started bragging around town about the killings. As soon as Owens found out Cooper’s whereabouts, he rode there alone, carrying only a warrant and a Winchester rifle.
The warrant out on Cooper was actually for horse stealing. The whole Blevins family were known rustlers, and 12 of them were home when Owens arrived at the house. Cooper refused to cooperate, and a gunfight ensued.
Owens quickly shot Cooper then shot his brother John and a friend called Mose Roberts. Things took a tragic turn when young Sam Blevins rushed out with a six-shooter and was also gunned down by Owens. The 15-year-old died in his mother’s arms, and later Cooper and Roberts also succumbed to their injuries. Owens’s actions were ruled justified, and he became a Wild West legend.
9 The Variety Hall Shoot-Out‘Mysterious’ – Dave Mather
Photo via Wikimedia
This gunfight took place in 1880 in the city of East Las Vegas, New Mexico. Only one man who took part in the shoot-out ended up better for it—“Mysterious” Dave Mather. Back then, he was serving as deputy marshal to Joe Carson. A “no guns” rule prohibited anyone except for Carson and his men to be armed within the city limits. However, one day, into the city rode a group of four rowdy cowboys who didn’t much care for the rules.
While they were causing trouble in the local bar, Carson approached the men and ordered them to relinquish their weapons. They refused, and a gunfight ensued. Marshal Joe Carson was the first to get gunned down. His deputy, Dave Mather, returned fire and shot two cowboys, killing one and injuring the other. The remaining two managed to get out of town.
A few weeks later, the other two cowboys were also captured and imprisoned. Afterward, an angry mob took them, along with the third shooter injured by Mather and lynched all three. By this point, Mather had been promoted to marshal, but it is unknown whether he was unable or unwilling to stop the angry mob.
Despite his fame as a gunman, Mather’s later life is poorly documented (which probably added to his allure). We know that in 1885, he became marshal of New Kiowa, Kansas, but we know nothing else for certain after that.
8 The Sandbar Fight – Jim Bowie
If you are familiar with the Bowie knife, then you know that it is a fighting knife with a large blade named in honor of frontiersman Jim Bowie, who was especially proficient with it. And it is the Sandbar Fight of 1827 that gave him this reputation.
Initially, the brawl was supposed to be a straight-up duel between two men, Samuel Wells and Thomas Maddox. It was the culmination of a feud between the established Wells and Cuny families (and supporters) and several new arrivals (and their supporters). In total, there were around a dozen men present during the brawl.
If either Wells or Maddox had shot the other, perhaps the violent fight could have been avoided. However, each one missed his respective target. The two of them tried to end it all with a handshake, but tensions were simply too high—there had to be blood. A brawl erupted between all the men present, and half of them were seriously injured. Bowie himself had been shot in the stomach, but this didn’t stop him from killing Major Norris Wright using his knife and then injuring another participant. Bowie and Wright had a turbulent history, and they saw this as the perfect opportunity to settle the score once and for all. Once all was said and done, the story had been picked up by numerous newspapers. Eyewitnesses were quick to describe Bowie’s proficiency with a knife, and a legend was born.
