Wild West

The Wild West was the frontier areas west of the Mississippi River during the nineteenth century, especially after 1840. According to American myths and folktales, the Wild West was a place where law-abiding citizens faced constant threats from gun-slinging outlaws and Native Americans. Myths of the Wild West are rooted in true stories, but exaggerate the danger that westerners faced.

People who settled on the frontier owned guns and used them regularly for hunting and for protection. Settlers often built houses and hunted on land inhabited by Native Americans, and it led to disputes and sometimes violence. The federal government tried to move entire tribes of Indians away from white settlers and it led to wars.

The United States entered a period of great expansion in the 1840s. Settlers raced to California after gold was discovered there in 1848. The acquisition of land after the United States victory in the Mexican-American War (1846–48) opened the southwest to development. American settlements attracted not only settlers, but criminal opportunists as well.

Crime was common in the Wild West. Frontier towns often did not have any law enforcement, so banks, stagecoaches, and trainswere easy targets for robbers. Railroads sometimes hired private armies to take land for theirtracks from settlers, which occasionally led to disputes. Gunfights erupted over land disputes between cattlemen and sheepherders.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

William F. Cody (1847–1917) was a former army scout and hunter who claimed to have killed over four thousand buffalo in an eight-month period. His nickname was Buffalo Bill.

In 1882 Cody organized a frontier celebration in North Platte, Nebraska . The celebration was such a success that Cody and Dr. D. W. Carver organized a traveling show in 1883 called the Wild West, Rocky Mountain, and Prairie Expedition. It became known as Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and it traveled around the United States and Europe for over thirty years until 1916. The show featured cowboys and Indians performing stunts and battles, helping to form the American myth about what life was like in the Wild West.

There was some law and order in the Wild West. Law enforcement officers such as Wild Bill Hickok (1837–1876) and Wyatt Earp (1848–1929) tried to catch famous criminals such as Billy the Kid (c. 1859–1881) and Jesse James (1847–1882). When law enforcement was ineffective, citizens formed groups of volunteers to prevent and punish crime. In San Francisco in the 1850s, for example, the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance apprehended many accused criminals and executed some of them.