Frontierado is coming up on Friday August 7th. To help celebrate this holiday which commemorates the myth of the American West, not the grinding reality here is a look at some of the best-known Range Wars of the period along with their most famous gunfighters.
Texas
MASON COUNTY WAR
Location: Texas
When: June 1874 to September 1876
The Belligerent Parties: The majority German population ranchers versus the English-speaking ranchers.
The War’s Most Famous Gunfighter: Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
“Hold it right there,” the gunslinger exclaimed, “We got us some apparent paradoxes and their effect upon contemporary philosophy to discuss … you savvy?”
JUST 30 DAYS UNTIL FRONTIERADO! As always Frontierado is about celebrating the myth of the Wild West and not the grinding reality. Part of the fun each year is an examination of neglected gunslingers from the 1800s.
The likes of Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Calamity Jane and Jesse James have been the subject of a variety of movies and folk tales. Unfortunately some figures from the Wild West led lives at least as interesting as the big names did but have not gotten nearly as much attention. Here is a look at ten such men and women.
Rattlesnake Dick
10. RATTLESNAKE DICK – No, he’s not a porn star. Dick Barton was originally from England but migrated with his family to the United States.In 1849 he joined the California Gold Rush but, having no luck at prospecting, formed an outlaw gang and took to robbing gold and payroll shipments instead. His second-in- command Cyrus Skinner was once shot down in a gunfight with Wells Fargo detectives and the stolen gold that Skinner had hidden before dying was fruitlessly sought after for years. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
Frontierado is here at last! Time for buffalo steaks, cactus salads, Tumbleweed Pizzas, Cactus Jacks, Deuces Wilds, Western Spaghetti and lots of games of Frontierado Poker. Naturally the day ends with Silverado plus a few other westerns of your choice. I usually add Posse or Once Upon A Time In The West.
And since it’s a three-day weekend you’ve got both Saturday and Sunday to recover.
When it comes to Wild West towns places like Tombstone, Dodge City and Deadwood get the lion’s share of the attention. In keeping with Balladeer’s Blog’s overall theme here’s a look at some of the action in the neglected town of Sidney, NE. Figures like Wild Bill Hickok, Luke Short, Susan B Anthony, Whispering Smith and Dom Pedro II of Brazil passed through Sidney in its heyday. Here’s a timeline of just some of the events in the town infamous as “The Wicked Burg”:
April 29th, 1868 – Daniel Richardson, Thomas Cahoon and William Edmondson became the first recorded dead men buried in Sidney’s Boot Hill Cemetery. All three men were killed in a clash with Native Americans.
May ?, 1875 – Susan B Anthony delivered a lecture in Sidney advocating women’s suffrage.
October 24th, 1875 – At the Capitol Saloon the livery stable owner Robert W Porter and Charles Patterson got into an argument (the subject is not known) that resulted in Patterson shooting Porter to death with 3 shots. Patterson was placed under arrest. Continue reading
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The Frontierado holiday is this Friday, August 1st! As we all count down to it like little kids excitedly awaiting Santa Claus here’s another look at the legends centered around even more neglected figures of the American west. Check out this Three of a Kind.
Queen Kitty
1. QUEEN KITTY – Kitty LeRoy was also known as Kitty the Schemer, Dancing Kitty, the Female Arsenal and much later as Deadwood Kitty. Queen Kitty is the most appropriate nickname in part because of her last name but mostly because she was variously known as “the Queen of the Hoofers”, “the Dancing Queen”, “the Queen of the Barbary Coast” and “the Queen of the Faro Tables”.
Kitty was born in 1850 and by the age of 10 was earning money for her family as a professional dancer and novelty act in her home state of Michigan. By 14 she was performing exclusively at adult venues and had added trick shooting to her repertoire. Her most famous shooting trick at this time was shooting apples off the heads of volunteers. At age 15 Queen Kitty was performing in New Orleans and married her first husband – the only man in the city brave enough to let Kitty shoot apples off his head while she was riding around him at a full gallop.
LeRoy loved flirting and sleeping around, however, and this led to the breakup of her first marriage within a year. By 1870 Queen Kitty had married a second time, to a man named Donnaly, with whom she had a daughter. The Queen had gravitated more and more to the Faro tables, making a killing as a celebrity dealer. With Dallas as a home base Kitty and her husband would travel throughout Texas with LeRoy earning money dancing and dealing Faro. Kitty also earned a name for being able to handle any violence that came her way from sore losers and was involved in multiple gunfights and knife fights in dangerous saloons. Continue reading
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The Frontierado holiday is fast approaching! Friday, August 1st is the big day so Balladeer’s Blog is right here with another seasonal post.
This one will honor the Top 5 western-themed college sports teams from the divisions covered here. The award is named after the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma Drovers, the official college sports team of Frontierado every year.
You can soak in the grandeur of the USAO logo at left, then revel in this year’s standings for “The Drovey Award”.
5. YAVAPAI COLLEGE ROUGHRIDERS – Not just Teddy Roosevelt’s unit from the Spanish-American War but various outfits of Wild West outlaws and bounty hunters also went Continue reading
Filed under Cool names and cool logos, FRONTIERADO
Balladeer’s Blog presents another look at the legendary tales of two more underappreciated Wild West gunslingers since the Frontierado holiday is fast approaching! Friday August 1st will mark the event, the yearly celebration of the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. And tonight the American Heroes Channel debuts their series Gunslingers to tie in with the Frontierado holiday!
1. MADAME DUMONT – Decades before Poker Alice and Lottie Deno Eleanore “Madame” Dumont made a name for herself as a blackjack-dealing gambler and gunslinger. Much of the Madame’s early life is unknown but she supposedly was born in France around 1830. In 1854, when the record of her activities becomes more concrete, she arrived in Nevada City, CA as the Gold Rush was still at its peak.
The charming and aristocratic Madame Dumont had already acquired a small fortune in gambling winnings after playing cards and slinging lead in mining camps throughout northern California. Eleanore’s cash and her nascent reputation for being able to maintain order with her own guns if necessary made it easy for her to immediately open her casino named Vingt- et-Un (“21”) right on legendary Broad Street itself. Continue reading
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We all know that in real life the celebrated “heroes” of the old west were a pack of corrupt and/or outrightly criminal thugs who would have had a pretty redneckish worldview. And let’s face it, by our standards their personal hygiene habits would have been pretty disgusting.
But since the Frontierado holiday is all about celebrating the myth of the West and not the grinding reality of it here’s my list of the Top Four Westerns Based On Real-Life Figures. Coming up with lists like this is one of the perks of being the international commissioner of Frontierado (along with the seven-figure income and a staff of three hundred people).
1. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) – Redford and Newman set the standard for the “buddy western” with this magnificent movie. Newman once described this flick by saying “It’s a Continue reading
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Casey James, the Official Movie Hostess of Balladeer’s Blog
THE FRONTIERADO HOLIDAY IS FRIDAY AUGUST FIRST! We’ve all got our painted rocks on various bits of furniture around the house, we’ve all got our potted cacti with the toy gun-belts slung over them and for those old enough to drink there are Cactus Jacks and Deuces Wilds to be slammed down. In some homes families and friends will be gathering around to watch the official Frontierado Western, Silverado.
In the buildup to this major holiday I periodically reviewed my favorite weird westerns so to give us all a few more chuckles here’s one more, presented by the legendary Casey James, Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess.
JESSE JAMES’ KID (1966) – In my review of The Price of Power earlier this Frontierado season I mentioned how fond I am of those Spaghetti Westerns that distort the facts of the American west more outrageously than even our own home- grown westerns do. Jesse James’ Kid makes The Price of Power look like the writings of Herodotus.
In this deranged western which used to populate the 3am to 5am movie slot on television stations across the country we get the old-school bad movie fun of dubbing that never comes close to matching the movements of the performers’ lips. And that’s just the start. This film tells us that Billy the Kid was Jesse James’ son … yes, Jesse James’ son. And not only that but young Billy witnesses his “father’s” fatal shooting, which in this movie is not done by Robert Ford, but by Bat Freaking Masterson!!! Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO, Sex Symbols, Spaghetti Westerns
THIS SUNDAY THE AMERICAN HEROES CHANNEL, IN CONJUNCTION WITH BALLADEER’S BLOG’S UPCOMING FRONTIERADO HOLIDAY, WILL DEBUT THEIR NEW SERIES TITLED GUNSLINGERS. THE SERIES WILL COVER GUNMEN OF THE OLD WEST AND WILL DEAL WITH THE BIG NAMES. AS USUAL I WILL EXAMINE SOME OF THE LESSER-KNOWN BUT JUST AS EXCITING GUNSLINGERS RIGHT HERE! FRONTIERADO IS FRIDAY AUGUST 1st! ***
COMMODORE PERRY OWENS – Named after the naval hero of the War of 1812, Owens was one of the few gunfighters of the west to put in time as an actual cowboy and made a name for himself as a gunman driving off rustlers on cattle drives. Legend has it that plenty of would-be rustlers wound up meeting their end in gunfights with Commodore Perry Owens.
Drifting into the Arizona Territory in the 1880’s Owens took a job at a stagecoach station as a rifleman charged with driving off the periodic attacks by Native Americans. Earning a reputation as a dead shot, Owens was soon being called “The Commodore” for obvious reasons and his reputation started to grow. Passengers knew they were safe (at least for the moment) when their stagecoach was approaching the station under the protection of Owens’ steady hand and eagle eyes. Continue reading
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Casey James, Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess
Casey James is as lethal as she is lovely and she is kind enough to be Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess. This time around the voluptuous love goddess is presenting the latest in a series of my reviews of the more obscure Spaghetti Westerns – the ones not well known to viewers who are only familiar with Sergio Leone’s films.
JOHN THE BASTARD (1967) – Don’t believe websites or reviews that call this a western adaptation of the story of Casanova. Instead, it is clearly a western adaptation of Don Juan, right down to a death by statue finale.
Our hero John Donald (Don Juan, John Donald … get it?) is a slick-talking gunslinger who seduces the ladies and outshoots their men as he roams the west with his manservant (not an African American) who often abets his boss’s trysts like Don Juan’s servant in the classic tale. Think of the scurvy adventures of the British antihero Harry Flashman and you’ll know what to expect from this movie. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO, Spaghetti Westerns
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