Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns 1867-1886

by Nyle H. Miller and Joseph W. Snell

Book Overview

These accounts of the exploits and antics of twenty-one western gunfighters in Kansas during the days of the Long Drive are derived entirely from contemporaneous sources--newspapers; city, township,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803251378
• Release Date: January 1967
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 494 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.3" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

One of the Great Reference Works on the Old West

I acquired this book many years ago and have re-read it several times since. It is one of the most respected history books concerning the Old West because it relies on contemporary newspaper and similar accounts. It turns up in the bibliography of just about every worthwhile Western history book, and deservedly so.

Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns

Some years ago, as a professor of Criminal Justice, I was asked to teach a course about the History of the Policing Profession and while scrambling for research, this was in the days before Internet etc., I discovered Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns. I was very pleased with the content and the measureable factual accounts or as factual as they can be within this era. Actual newspaper articles and descriptions written at the time of the event are included in the book along with the exploits of lesser known lawmen/gunfighters of that era. Ben Thompson, Long Hair Jim Courtright, Dave Mather, Billy Brooks, Chris Madden, Squirrel Annie, Bear River Tom Smith are amoung lesser lights highlighted along with Wild Bill, Wyatt Earp and others. The newspaper accounts are quite factual, plus they revealed an evolution of the culture of the era. Great Gunfighters is not a novel, but is a display of the activities of several individuals who by one means or another contributed to both the allure and order of the cowtowns and other western sites.