Tomorrow is Frontierado, the holiday celebrated the first Friday of August each year. My main post will go up tomorrow, but for now here’s another seasonal item.
Sidney today
SIDNEY, NE – 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 for 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
DEADWOOD DICK – In general, the Dime Novel period of westerns, detective, science fiction and horror tales lasted from 1860 to around 1919 or the early 1920s. Pulp magazines took over from there. Many Dime Novels were very loosely based on real-life figures like Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane and others. Many more were purely fictional, like Deadwood Dick. 
BREAKHEART PASS (1975) – (Frontierado is coming up August 2nd and, as always, it’s about the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality.) Alistair MacLean may be more closely associated with espionage and crime thrillers like When Eight Bells Toll, The Eagle Has Landed and Puppet on a Chain but his lone Western, Breakheart Pass, is a very solid story which transfers MacLean’s usual themes to the American West. 
Some critics bash this above-average film because they apparently thought Alistair MacLean’s name on the script meant it would be an over-the-top Western Spy actioner along the lines of Robert Conrad’s old Wild Wild West television series crossed with Where Eagles Dare. Instead, Breakheart Pass comes closer to grittiness than slickness and is all the more enjoyable for that. 
“CRAZY MIKE” HOGAN – Also called Frank Hamilton, Tom Blake and Tom Moore, some sources claim this trigger-happy outlaw’s real name was Thomas Hamilton Blanck. However, researcher Mark Dugan maintained that the man was born Michael Hogan Jr. on October 28th, 1870 in Schenectady, New York. 
A clash with his employers led to the thug quitting and heading west in 1889. One account holds that Mike robbed some cash from those employers before fleeing. He next surfaced out west working as a railroad brakeman before setting out on his infamous True Crime saga. 
The Frontierado Holiday is fast approaching and will be marked Friday August 2nd this year. Frontierado is about the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. Balladeer’s Blog has covered a lot of 
JAYBIRD VS WOODPECKER WAR (1888-1889) – First off, let’s make sure to distinguish between JayHAWKS and JayBIRDS. Jayhawks were the anti-slavery forces in Bleeding Kansas during the 1850s. Jaybirds were in 1880s Texas and were the racist white Democrat forces trying to expel the mixed black and white Woodpeckers who had gained power from Republicans during Reconstruction after the Civil War. 
COWBOY G-MEN (1952-1953) – A reader recently mentioned the old Robert Conrad series The Wild Wild West, and that reminded me of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. AND the much earlier television western titled Cowboy G-Men. That last series featured fictional exploits of U.S. Secret Service Agents in the old west. 
THE FRONTIERADO HOLIDAY IS COMING UP ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 2nd! 
MAVERICK (1994) – Richard Donner directed and Mel Gibson starred in this excellent tribute to the 1950s and 1980s Maverick television series. The original series starred James Garner as slick-talking gambler/ gunslinger Bret Maverick AND, in old-age makeup, as “Pappy” Beauregard Maverick, the gambler and con-man patriarch of that family of rogues. (No relation to the real-life Maverick family of Texas, for whom “maverick” cattle were named.)
Mel Gibson portrays Bret Maverick since by 1994 James Garner was too old for the role. Jodie Foster co-stars as rival gambler Annabelle Bransford and the iconic James Garner provides memorable support as a lawman. 
CHARLIE SIRINGO – Like a real-life Harry Flashman of the American West, Charles Angelo Siringo, cowboy, bounty hunter and lawman, fought alongside or against some of the biggest names of his era. Siringo crossed paths with the likes of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, the Wild Bunch, Tom Horn, Clarence Darrow, Kid Russell, Will Rogers, William Borah and many others. 
Frontierado is celebrated the first Friday of every August, so this year it will be marked on August 2nd. This holiday celebrates the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. Here’s a seasonal post regarding the Pony Express, the much-romanticized messenger service across the west that lasted from April 3rd, 1860 to October 26th, 1861. 
PONY BOB HASLAM – One of the most famous Pony Express riders of them all, after Buffalo Bill Cody. (Wild Bill Hickok did not really work for the Pony Express, but rather as a teamster for its parent company.) Click 
HAPPY FRONTIERADO! The first Friday of every August marks this holiday devoted to the myth of the old west rather than the grinding reality. For some of us the celebration kicks off Thursday night, for others they wait until the actual day of Frontierado to hold their festivities. Enjoy your buffalo steaks, rattlesnake fried rice, corn on the cob, tumbleweed pizza, cactus salad and more today and tonight, and enjoy the leftovers on Saturday and Sunday.
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