Everyone knows the scene…a lone, rugged cowboy trudges across a dirt road with a pistol or two strapped into a beaten leather holster riding low at his waist. The image of a western gunslinger is popular in the media, but did you know that it was predominately created by the media? The Hollywood version of a gunslinger is vastly different from what we know to be historically correct.
During the 19th century, America was expanding and industry was growing along with it. It was a time of much chaos, since law enforcement couldn’t keep up. US marshals and county sheriffs faced the challenge of watching their territories expand beyond reason. There was too much ground to cover and not enough law enforcement officials for the job. Outlaws and bandits could easily outrun law enforcers by crossing state lines, and jails were often corrupt and easy to escape.
Authorities began offering rewards for those who brought in wanted outlaws, dead or alive. This created the rise of the hired gun, or bounty hunter. And because they would receive a reward on a “dead or alive” basis, many bounty hunters would kill their targets to minimize the danger involved. Then they would deliver the body and collect the reward.
Being a sheriff, marshal, or hired gun meant that you were skilled with a firearm and prepared to face hardened criminals. Not everyone was up for the job. This meant that many individuals who had been hired guns were hired as law enforcement officers due to their fearsome reputation. It was common for a town sheriff and a gunslinger to be one in the same, though perhaps at different times throughout their lives. These gunslingers were also hired by businesses and individuals to protect shipments, guard cattle, and any number of additional jobs that required their expertise.
This historic notion of a gunslinger paints a picture quite different from the quick-draw pistol duels you’re used to seeing in front of dusty saloons. In fact, anything resembling a European duel was extremely rare in the American west. The term gunslinger wasn’t even used back then; rather, it was a Hollywood creation that emerged in 1920. Hired guns of the time instead referred to themselves as gunmen, shootists, or pistoleers. And most of these men favored short-barreled shotguns or rifles over pistols, because the first two options offered more accuracy than handheld pistols. As outlaw Wyatt Earp said, “Fast is fine. Accurate is final.”
Tell us about your favorite film, book, or TV series depicting the Wild West. Commenting below will serve as your entry for our May giveaway. But remember to keep it classy; inappropriate comments will be deleted and disqualified. Submit your comment (one comment only please) by May 20, 2018. One winner will be randomly selected on May 21, 2018 to receive a Gunslinger 1 oz silver round from our exclusive Prospector series.
Good luck and aim true!
Has to be “Fist full of dollars” Clint Eastwood
Have to go with those Clint Eastwood movies!
A million ways to die in the west!
The Wild Wild West. A bit far fetched, but very entertaining.
Love the west cowboy movie
Love the old Clint Eastwood movies
Quick and the dead was a good one and of coarse all of the Clint Eastwood movies.
I have to agree with Tombstone. Classic lines still repeated to this day.
“Well… bye.”
One of my all-time favorite Westerns is “Have Gun Will Travel” Paladin a Knight without armor in a savage land”
Anything with Clint Eastwood. A Few Dollars More
Bonanza!
My favorite movie is High Plains Drifter staring Clint Eastwood. His character serves up justice in a corrupt mining town.
Hang em high
Loved Gunsmoke. The real west. Ruff and tuff with a strong Marshall
Best Western ever .. The Magnificent Seven,and being a Western Movie conesier,I watch and have seen multitudes!
Peter L.
As a kid always had to see gun smoke and the Lone Ranger family trafition
I grew up on John Wayne films. My grandfather was a huge influence on my western watching with the Duke leading the way.
My favorite is High Plains Drifter with Clint Eastwood. Clint shows up as a Stranger to a small town to teach them how to defend themselves from outlaws that plan to desimate their community. It’s an eerie how the movie starts with the Stranger appearing on the horizon walking to the town from the desert and ends with him walking back into the desert to disapear into the distance.
The Rifleman, was great. I can’t see a Gunsmoke without thinking of my Grandma. It was a program she enjoyed. My love of westerns came from watching it with her.
War Wagon starring the Duke
John Wayne in El Dorado… the classic American good guy and gun slinger. To me it was a story about a man’s man who never gave up on old friends and pals.
TOMBSTONE is one of the greatest in my opinion. Never gets old. Wyatt: “You tell them I’m comin’, and hell is comin’ with me, you got that? HELL IS COMIN’ WITH ME!”
Tombstone.
Skin that smoke wagon and see what happens!
Three Amigos! In a way, all of us has an El Guapo to face.
My favorite has to be Young Guns with Billy The Kid.
Deadwood was the best I have seen so far.
Tombstone
I think Tombstone is the greatest. The fight at the OK Corral will live forever
I loved Gunsmoke.
Well l’m watching Gunsmoke then Bonanza then will go to Big Valley but Lonesome Dove is a dam good movie , love’em all.
Once upon a time in the West. “What if there was a whole heap of why. You know the kind. Round, yellow, when you rap it on a stone it goes dingggg!”