The Frontierado holiday is coming up this Friday, August 7th. As the holiday approaches and we are all making our preparations enjoy another seasonal post.
Bear River Tom
BEAR RIVER TOM – That’s our neglected gunslinger in the photo to your left. One of the few actual gunmen to wear a fancy two-gun holster, Bear River Tom Smith’s tale begins with his birth in 1838 in New York City. He either did or did not serve in the Union Army in 1861 (accounts vary) but was definitely part of the NYC police force by 1862. By 1867 he headed west, working as a laborer laying track for the Union Pacific Railroad in Nebraska.
By 1868 the crew he was with had reached Wyoming, where the Hell On Wheels town of Bear River sprang up around their work camp. Bear River was to wild, lawless railroad towns what Dodge City, Kansas was to wild, lawless cattletowns.
Bear River Tom put his guns, fists and law enforcement experience to work protecting the town’s citizens from the drunken excesses of the railroad workers and the railroad workers from the Vigilante mobs the Bear River inhabitants had formed to curb the lawlessness. Continue reading
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 1800’s. 
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