Biographies

Biographies

Many of the characters of the old west lead larger-than-life lives turning these real people into myths. Some are household names while others are more obscure, but one thing they all have in common is their significant influence in the development of the western United States.
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Articles

Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American exhibition/trick shooter and folk heroine who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Oakley developed hunting skills as a child in order to provide for her impoverished family in western Ohio.

Bass Reeves

Bass Reeves

Bass Reeves (July 1838 – January 12, 1910) was a deputy U.S. Marshal, gunfighter, farmer, scout, tracker, and railroad agent who escaped from slavery. He spoke the languages of several American Indian tribes including Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Muscogee. Reeves was one of the first black Deputy U.S.

Bat Masterson

Bat Masterson

Bartholemew William Barclay "Bat" Masterson (November 26, 1853 – October 25, 1921) was a U.S. Army scout, lawman, professional gambler, and journalist known for his exploits in the late 19th and early 20th-century American Old West.

Belle Starr

Belle Starr

Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr (February 5, 1848 – February 3, 1889), better known as Belle Starr, was an American outlaw who gained national notoriety after her violent death. She associated with the James–Younger Gang and other outlaws. She was convicted of horse theft in 1883.

Billy the Kid

Billy the Kid

Henry McCarty (September 17 or November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881), alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who was linked to nine murders. He was solely responsible for four of them, and he may have played a role in five, alongside other men.

Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill

William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917), better known as Buffalo Bill, was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. One of the most famous figures of the American Old West, Cody began performing at the age of 23. He performed in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars.

Butch Cassidy

Butch Cassidy

Robert LeRoy Parker (April 13, 1866 – November 7, 1908), better known as Butch Cassidy, was an American cowboy, train and bank robber and the leader of a gang of criminal outlaws known as the "Wild Bunch" in the Old West.

Calamity Jane

Calamity Jane

Martha Jane Canary (May 1, 1852 – August 1, 1903), better known as Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman, sharpshooter and storyteller. In addition to many exploits, she was known for being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok. Late in her life, she appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition.

Charles Goodnight

Charles Goodnight

Charles Goodnight (March 5, 1836 – December 12, 1929), also known as Charlie Goodnight, was a rancher in the American West. In 1955, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Chief Joseph

Chief Joseph

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (or hinmatóowyalahtq̓it in Americanist orthography; March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), popularly known as Chief Joseph, Young Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, was a leader of the wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce, a Native American tribe of the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States, in the...

Cochise

Cochise

Cochise ( koh-CHEESS; Apache: Shi-ka-She or A-da-tli-chi, lit. 'having the quality/strength of an oak'; later K'uu-ch'ish or Cheis, lit. 'oak'; c. 1805 – June 8, 1874) was the leader of the Chiricahui local group of the Chokonen and principal nantan of the Chokonen band of a Chiricahua Apache.

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Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó [tˣaˈʃʊ̃kɛ witˈkɔ], lit. 'His-Horse-Is-Crazy'; c. 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band and one of the most renowned Native American figures of the nineteenth century.