JACK LONG or The Shot in the Eye (1844) – With the Frontierado Holiday coming up in early August, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at this Charles Wilkins Webber short story from 1844.
Jack Long was a milestone in western fiction and proved so popular that it was reprinted in many other countries, often in distorted versions and was even presented as a stage play, all without any payment to Webber.
In 1853, the author added his original, official version of the story to his collection Tales of the Southern Border. It may be impossible to overstate the legacy of Jack Long. This Texas-set story presented virtually Biblical levels of violence during the Shelby County War (1839-1844) and set the standard for tales of gunslinging revenge quests down to the present day.
Over a century before High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider and countless similar stories, Jack Long depicted a man subjected to horrific torture & abuse and left for dead who appears later as a possibly supernatural figure blowing away his tormentors. And speaking of the supernatural/ horror angle, no less an authority than Edgar Allan Poe praised Webber’s story, which has been hailed as Southern Gothic. Continue reading
RELIC OF FORT TEJON (November 3rd, 1957) – Here’s something a little different from the usual for Balladeer’s Blog’s Forgotten Television category. The 1950s James Garner series Maverick was an all-time classic, but this particular episode is often overlooked. 
Previously, I’ve examined the 
SHANE (1966) – David Carradine starred as the iconic gunslinger Shane in this 1966 television series adapted from the 1953 Alan Ladd movie.
If you’re not familiar with the movie, Shane is a gunfighter who longs to settle down and pursue the non-violent life he would have lived if things had turned out differently for him. He falls in with the Starrett family, who are among the Wyoming homesteaders getting leaned on by dishonest ranchers who want them off “their” land. 
BUCKSKIN FRANK LESLIE – Franklyn Leslie, full name Nashville Franklyn Leslie, was better known as Buckskin Frank. “Nashville” was, he claimed, his actual first name, NOT a nickname. 
Documentation starts to show up regarding Buckskin Frank on July 11th, 1869 when he arrived in San Francisco via the steamship Portland according to the passenger information published by the Daily Alta California. 
PONY BOB – Robert Haslam, better known as Pony Bob, holds multiple records set in the Pony Express during its year and a half history, including the longest individual round-trip ride – 380 miles – when one of his relay riders was put out of action during the Paiute War in 1860. 
With Frontierado rapidly approaching on August 5th – or for those of us who kick things off the night before – August 4th – let’s take a look at some of the most obscure but laughably weird Italian westerns. And what better way to start that list than with one of the countless Spaghetti Westerns with phony Django titles? 
1. DJANGO KILL (1967) – Originally titled If You Live, Shoot!, this was one of the many Eurowesterns to be re-released to theaters years later as a phony Django movie just so it could clean up on the guaranteed cash cow of the Django name. 
The Frontierado Holiday is about the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality. The Danites – the gunslinging Knights of the Mormon faith – are an underutilized and underappreciated element of Old West fiction. 
In Deseret itself there were conflicts with Mexican raiders after the end of America’s war with Mexico (1846-1848). Danites would also be called upon to battle various Native American tribes in Deseret, in the role of oppressors rather than oppressed much of the time. 
BOSTON – Warren Fremont Upson, better known by his one-word nickname, was one of the Pony Express Riders aka Expressmen to ride with the service for its entire existence from April 3rd, 1860 to October 26th, 1861. His real name was so seldom used in the old west that in some sources on Pony Express history he was listed only as “Boston.” 
Our hero spent most of his time riding and exploring in the Sierra Nevadas, hunting and cooking his own food and acquiring a familiarity with the mountain range’s often-treacherous curves and turns and sudden drops. That familiarity would pay dividends later in life when Boston was assigned to the most geographically dangerous route of the Pony Express. 
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