Volume 16 , Issue 8

Wild Bill Kickok

Wild Bill Kickok was born in Homer, Illinois (now Troy Grove, Illinois), as James Butler Hickok, born May 27, 1837, died August 2, 1876, son of William and Polly (Butler) Hickok. In 1855, at age 18, Hickok moved to Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory following a fight with Charles Hudson during which both fell into a canal. Each mistakenly thought that they had killed the other. Hickok fled the area, joining General Jim Lane's "Free State Army" (known as the Jayhawkers), a vigilante group then active in the Kansas Territory. Where Jayhawker, Hickok, met 12-year-old William "Buffalo Bill" Cody who was a scout for the U.S. Army during the Utah War.



"Wild Bill" Hickok was a folk character of the American Old West, and died August 2, 1876, Deadwood, South Dakota, when a bullet to the back of the head, while playing poker in a saloon, ended the life of Wild Bill Hickok. That poker hand today is known as Dead man's hand (pair of Aces and eights).

In 1857, Hickok claimed a 160-acre tract in Johnson County, Kansas (in what is now Lenexa). On March 22, 1858, Hickok was elected as one of the first four constables of Monticello Township, Kansas. In 1859, he joined the Russell, Waddell, & Majors freight company, the parent company of the Pony Express.

Hickok first gained notoriety as a gunfighter in 1861 when he coolly shot three men who were trying to kill him.

It was after he accidentally killed his deputy during an 1871 shootout in Abilene, Texas, that Hickok never fought another gun battle.

Born and raised on a farm in rural Illinois, Hickok went west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, first working as a stagecoach driver, then as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought (and spied) for the Union Army during the American Civil War, and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler.

Wild Bill Kickok had been a crime busting lawman. Some say he was also a criminal himself. During the Civil War, he had fought with the Union Army as a Teamster, soldier and spy. His exploits, including chasing out the bad guys in Hays and Abilene, Kansas, made him the stuff of legend. That made Kickok one of the nation's first dime novel and comic book characters. His soaring fame propelled him into a second career known as the Wild West Shows. In 1873 he had joined his longtime friend, Bill Cody, in a play called Scouts of the Plain.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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