This year the Frontierado Holiday falls on Friday, August 7th. Frontierado always celebrates the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality.
HUGH ANDERSON – Born in 1851, Hugh was the son of a successful Texas rancher. Anderson learned every aspect of the business from his father but had a tendency to fall in with rowdy crowds and sometimes engaged in hell-raising with mad dog gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.
In the summer of 1871 Hugh and his father were running a cattle drive from their Texas ranch to the new railhead at Newton, Kansas. Enroute to Newton, the Andersons and their cowboys were overtaken by John Wesley Hardin, who was on the trail of gunman for hire Juan Bideno for killing his friend Billy Cohron in a gunfight.
Hugh agreed to ride with Hardin on his revenge quest. How Anderson’s father felt about his promising but volatile son running off on this side quest in the middle of a cattle drive is anybody’s guess. Continue reading
SARTANA: For the record, the Sartana movies starring Gianni Garko as the gambler-gunslinger are my favorites. His personality is a bit lighter than that of my top favorite Spaghetti Western gunslinger –
The Sartana movies start out pretty grounded (for Spaghetti Westerns) but as the franchise goes along the installments grow closer to Robert Conrad’s Wild, Wild West series and our hero’s trick guns almost equal James Bond’s gadgets. Sartana himself stops just short of being a swashbuckler as he boldly tweaks the villains with more and more audacity. 
IF YOU MEET SARTANA … PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH (1968) – Sartana shadows a gold shipment being handled by stagecoach across the desert in one of the most distinctive Spaghetti Western entrances this side of Charles Bronson in Once Upon a Time in the West. From there, the double-crosses fly like shrapnel among the main characters. 
JOHNNY RINGO (1959) – Don Durant starred as the one and only Johnny Ringo, the real-life gunslinger. The fictional setting of this program takes place between Johnny’s original rise to fame during the Mason County War in Texas and his final years in Arizona as part of the Clanton-McLaury Crime Faction led by Curly Bill Brocius. Aaron Spelling was the producer.
JOHN WILSON VERMILLION aka TEXAS JACK VERMILLION and “SHOOT-YOUR-EYE-OUT” VERMILLION, was born in Virginia in 1842 to William and Nancy Vermillion. After the Civil War broke out in 1861, Jack enlisted in the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry sometime in 1862. 
Some accounts state Vermillion claimed to be from Texas and related Tall Tales that the Lone Star State had jackrabbits as big as horses. One illogical account claims that when Jack was asked why he was called Texas Jack he replied “Because I’m from Virginia.” Well, okay then! 
While serving in the Tsar’s Imperial White Hussars (cavalry) and after seeing action in the Khivan Campaign, the future Russian Bill had a violent falling out with a superior officer. The exact nature of the conflict is not known and years later the Countess Telfrin would refer to it only as “a political affair.” 
Tatenbaum certainly looked and otherwise fit the part of the Old West Gambler better than the rougher outlaw he later became. He was described as a dandified dresser and sported expensive pistols. In addition he was well-spoken, well-educated and fluent in at least four languages, all of which would have accounted for his popularity with the ladies. His supposedly handsome face, curly blonde hair and moustache would have helped. 
The Frontierado Holiday lands on Friday, August 7th this year. Regular Balladeer’s Blog readers may recall that Frontierado Season celebrates the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality. To mark the season, I always review Westerns, look at neglected elements of the 1800s west and examine overlooked gunslingers whose lives were at least as exciting as the big-name figures. 
“WHISKEY JIM” GREATHOUSE – He started out by shooting his way to the top of a bootleg whiskey ring in the early 1870s. From there he moved on to stealing horses and mules with his gang, later switching to Buffalo “Hunting” with Pat Garrett. That got Whiskey Jim caught up in the war between buffalo “hunters” and the Comanches. In New Mexico, Jim took on crime lord “Hoodoo” Brown and ultimately moved on to rustling and rubbing shoulders with Billy the Kid. Click 
BARBARY COAST (1975-1976) – William Shatner was the main draw for this series set in 1800s San Francisco and its Barbary Coast section famed for gambling, crime, gunfights, brawls, partying and dance hall girls. Shatner starred as Jeff Cable, hero of the Union Army during the Civil War, now serving as a special government agent like Robert Conrad’s character in The Wild, Wild West. 
BARBARY COAST (May 4th, 1975) – This 2-hour telefilm was directed by the one and only Bill Bixby, who also made a cameo appearance. Jeff Cable (Shatner), West Point Graduate and Civil War hero fresh off fighting the Democrat Party’s hate group the Ku Klux Klan for President Ulysses S. Grant, arrives in San Francisco. Cable’s new mission is to shut down the Crusaders, an organization of Klan members who moved west and started their plot to become California’s version of the KKK. 
WHISKEY JIM – James Greathouse was born in Texas around 1854. Nothing is known about his early life but at age 20 he was living in Fort Griffin and running a successful bootleg whiskey network he had shot his way to the top of. As you could guess that illicit trade earned him his nickname Whiskey Jim. 
Balladeer's Blog 