Jesse James "The Bank Robber Gunman"

Jesse James

As an adult he was known as a bank robber who likes to shoot his victim. Shooting skill is more famous than his profession as the robbers. Like other U.S. families, while still small, Jesse family moved to California to hunt gold. At age 3 his father died, and temporarily staying with his mother, Zerelda and two siblings, Alexander Franklin James and Susan Lavenia James.

Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Missouri, at the site of present day Kearney on jessejames2-2751, September 5, 1847. His father, Robert S. James, was a commercial hemp farmer and Baptist minister in Kentucky who migrated to Missouri after marriage and helped found Liberty College in Liberty, Missouri. Robert James travelled to California during the Gold Rush and died there when Jesse was three years old.

After Robert’s death, Jesse’s mother Zerelda remarried, first Benjamin Simms and then a doctor named Reuben Samuel. After their marriage in 1855, Samuel moved into the James home. James had two full siblings: his older brother, Alexander Franklin “Frank” James, and a younger sister, Susan Lavenia James. In addition, Reuben Samuel and Zerelda eventually had four children: Sarah Louisa Samuel (aka Sarah Ellen), John Thomas Samuel, Fannie Quantrell Samuel, and Archie Peyton Samuel.

The approach of the American Civil War overshadowed the James-Samuel household. Missouri was a border state between the North and South, but Clay County lay in a region of Missouri later dubbed “Little Dixie”, where slaveholding and Southern identity were stronger than in other areas. It had been settled chiefly by migrants from the Upper South who brought their cultural practices, including slaveholding, with them. Robert James owned six slaves; after his death, Zerelda and Reuben Samuel acquired a total of seven slaves who raised tobacco on the farm. Clay County became the scene of great turmoil after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, when the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the neighboring Kansas Territory dominated public life. Much of the tension that led up to the American Civil War centered on the violence that erupted in nearby Kansas between pro and anti-slavery militias.

Luke Short "The Cowboy Gunman"

Luke Short

Despite their small body size to the size of the Western, Luke Short known as the cowboy gunman who could kill opponents tough. Luke was born in Mississippi, September 1854, known as a brat and familiar with guns. At age 15, when his family moved to Texas, Luke suddenly ran away from his father's ranch. Rumor has it, Luke was forced to run away for allegedly stabbing to death his friend. Luke then lived in Kansas and worked as a cowboy and gambler.

Luke Short was born in Mississippi, his family moving to Texas when he was two. As a teenager he left home, rumored to having killed another youth with a pair of scissors, and became a cowboy, working herds north to the Kansas rail heads. He traveled to Abilene, Kansas in 1870, and attempted to make a living as a professional gambler.

In 1876 he arrived in Sidney, Nebraska where he obtained employment as a whiskey peddler. During this time he sold whiskey illegally to Sioux Indians from a trading post far north of Sidney. This was a federal offense. Short later admitted to killing a half dozen inebriated Sioux natives on various occasions during this venture. Despite this record, Short was hired as a scout for the US Cavalry, and worked for them from 1878-1879.

According to Ed Lemmon in "Boss Cowman," he hung around end of The Texas Trail Ogallala, Nebraska, in late 1877 and the first half of 1878 gambling at Cowboy's Rest Saloon, sometimes in the company of Bat Masterson. James Cook, in "40 Years" he watched Short practicing draw-and- shoot on the banks of South Platte River and said he never saw anyone faster.

He then wandered through Dodge City, Kansas, where he became associated with Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, among others. Shortly afterward he moved to Tombstone, Arizona, a boom town  full of dozens of saloons and gambling halls. He developed a habit of "dressing to the nines", which gave him the reputation of a dandy. By this time, Short had already developed a reputation as being fast with a gun, and as being a man of few words, although there are no real accounts prior to this of any gunfights involving him. It is thought that this reputation, as with many Old West gunmen, was a reputation based more on hearsay than actual fact.

In June 1881, Wyatt Earp telegraphed Short, who was living in Leadville, Colorado, and offered him a job as a faro dealer. While in Tombstone, Short and professional gambler and gunfighter Charlie Storms had a verbal altercation which was defused by Bat Masterson, who knew both men. On February 28, 1881, outside the Oriental Saloon, Storm confronted Short, pulling a .45 caliber revolver. But Storms was too slow, and Short shot him twice at point-blank range, killing him. The fight was at such close quarters that Short's muzzle flash set Storms's clothes on fire. Short was alleged to have then turned to Bat Masterson who was with him, and stated "You sure pick some of the damnedest friends, Bat." Short was arrested, but the shooting was determined to have been self defense.

Short left Tombstone in April and returned to Leadville. Although friends with Wyatt Earp, Short was not present at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral later that year. He is thought to have been out of town.

In 1883 Short settled in Dodge City, Kansas, where he purchased a half interest in the now famous Long Branch Saloon, partnered with friend W.H. Harris. This put him at odds with the mayor of Dodge and his allies, who made attempts to run him out of town as an "undesirable." In what became known as the Dodge City War, Luke's friends rallied a formidable force of gunfighters to support him, including Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Charlie Bassett. Faced with the threat of force, Short's opponents allowed him to return without a shot being fired. Later that year he sold his interest and moved to Fort Worth, Texas.

Doc Holliday "The Intellectualy Gunman"

Doc Holliday

As the gunman in the wild west, Doc Holiday is a professional shooter and too intellectual. He was more educated, and eventually to become a dental surgeon. Because of the influence of her character-tempered and likes to play a weapon, Doc chose to work as a gambler. Then, he lived as an adventurer armed and continue around from one city to another city. In the visited city, not infrequently involved in the firefight. However, because the skillful play a pistol, Doc has always managed to topple his opponent.

Doc Holliday was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The legend and mystique of his life is so great that he has been mentioned in several books, and portrayed by various actors in numerous movies and television series. For the 100-plus years after his death, debate has continued about the exact crimes he may have committed during his life.

"Doc" Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia, to Henry Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane Holliday (née McKey). His father served in the Mexican–American War and the Civil War. His family baptized him at the First Presbyterian Church in 1852.

In 1864 his family moved to Valdosta, Georgia. Holliday's mother died of tuberculosis on September 16, 1866, when he was 15 years old. Three months later his father married Rachel Martin. While in Valdosta, he attended the Valdosta Institute, where he received a strong classical secondary education in rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, history, and languages – principally Latin, but also French and some Ancient Greek.

In 1870, the 19-year-old Holliday left home to begin dental school in Philadelphia. On March 1, 1872, he received the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. Later that year, he opened a dental office with Arthur C. Ford in Atlanta, where he lived with his uncle and his family while beginning his career as a dentist. Doc Holliday's famous cousin (by marriage) was Margaret Mitchell, who is best known for having written Gone With the Wind.

Wyatt Earp "The Legend Gunman"

Wyatt Earp

The legendary gunman/marksman stories and films up to current times, Wyatt Earp, born on March 19, 1848, in Illionis, USA. Since childhood, Wyatt had known weapons. Not surprising since his father, Capt. Nicholas Porter Earp, his profession as a soldier and is one of the commanders in the United States-Mexico war.

Earp spent his early life in Iowa. After his first wife, Urilla Sutherland Earp, died he was arrested, sued twice, escaped from jail, and was arrested three times for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame". He landed in the cattle boom town of Wichita, Kansas where he became a deputy marshal for one year and developed a solid reputation as a lawman. In 1876 he followed his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas where he became an assistant marshal. In the winter of 1878 he went to Texas to gamble where he met John Henry "Doc" Holliday whom Earp credited with saving his life.

Continually drawn to boomtowns and opportunity, Earp left Dodge City in 1879 and with his brothers James and Virgil, moved to Tombstone, Arizona. The Earps bought an interest in the Vizina mine and some water rights. There, the Earps clashed with a loose federation of outlaw Cowboys. Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt held various law enforcement positions that put them in conflict with Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, Billy Clanton, and Ike Clanton, who threatened to kill the Earps. The conflict escalated over the next year, culminating on October 26, 1881 in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which the Earps and Holliday killed three of the Cowboys. In the next two months Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was assassinated. Wyatt, his brother Warren, Holliday, and others pursued the Cowboys they thought responsible in a vendetta.

After leaving Tombstone, Earp continually invested in various mining interests and saloons. He and his third wife in their later years moved between Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert, where the town of Earp, California was named after him. Although his brother Virgil had far more experience as a sheriff, constable, and marshal, because Wyatt outlived Virgil and due to a largely fictionalized biography written by Stuart Lake that made Wyatt famous, he has been the subject of and model for a large number of movies, TV shows, biographies and works of fiction.