Bruce Wilson Jr.

Wild Life Gallery
Bring the wild side of the Old West to life with images from Wild Life.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show brought the cattle roping and horseback riding skills of the cowboys to an international audience.

The West was a mixing pot of cultures, with a large Mexican and Native American population. As white settlers moved West, the Army built forts to protect them, including Fort Laramie on the Oregon Trail.

In 1881, Tombstone was home to hundreds of miners and over 100 saloons. When the town banned weapons, outlaws flaunted the rule —which led to the shootout at the O.K. Corral.

Although he only lived to the age of 21, Billy the Kid was one of the most famous outlaws in the Wild West. The only known photograph of Billy the Kid was taken around 1880.

In the expansive West, cattle thieves and horse rustlers could disappear into the wilderness to escape justice. Stealing became a daily part of life for those who lived in the West.

Jesse James was one of the most infamous outlaws in the Old West. His gang targeted trains, banks, and stagecoaches, stealing tens of thousands of dollars.

It wasn’t always easy to tell the lawmen from the outlaws in the Old West—especially when the outlaws bribed the lawmen to look the other way. In this photo, a group of lawmen poses in New Mexico, including Pat Garrett, second from the right.

A photographer captured stunning images of the train crash at Crush, Texas. The locomotives reached 50 miles per hour before they crashed into each other, sending debris into the crowd. The photographer even lost an eye.

Gamblers surround a table at an Arizona saloon in 1895 to play the game of faro. Wild West gambling halls offered a chance to strike rich—or lose everything.

Gamblers surround a table at an Arizona saloon in 1895 to play the game of faro. Wild West gambling halls offered a chance to strike rich—or lose everything.

In 1896, the crowd at Crush surged forward to grab pieces of the wreckage and climb on the trains. The hunt for souvenirs became part of the appeal of staged train wrecks.

Billy the Kid shot several men before he faced justice at the courthouse in Mesilla, New Mexico. But even after a judge sent Billy to the gallows, he broke out of the jail.

Blasted into a cliff wall outside of a copper mine in
Arizona, the Clifton cliff jail was more secure than most. Its first prisoner was the man who built the jail —he was arrested for firing his gun in celebration.

Before he became famous as Buffalo Bill, William Cody was an army scout. And in the 1860s, Cody barely escaped from pursuing Kiowa warriors.

In 1911, Mike Daggett stole cattle to feed his family. When a posse came after him, Daggett and his sons killed the men in the posse. That triggered an even larger posse that shot Daggett.

Lewis and Clark were the first Americans to see grizzly bears in the West. And grizzlies wouldn’t be the last strange animal that frontiersmen encountered.

Military caravans in the 1850s relied on imported camels to carry supplies across the West. But it didn’t take long for the camels to escape and become feral.

Prairie dog colonies could stretch for miles. And the uneven ground made them dangerous for horses or cattle to cross, as this 1844 illustration shows.

A grizzly bear attack left Hugh Glass on death’s door. But the frontiersman survived—later inspiring the Hollywood film The Revenant.

Chaos could quickly overtake a wagon train. Dust storms, accidents, and the threat of Native American attacks meant that pioneers had to be on their toes.

Crossing muddy riverbanks and searching for safe fords required a great deal of time and effort on the trail. A day spent building rafts to cross a river or pulling wagon wheels out of mud meant a day lost.

Wagon trains filled up with supplies before they hit the empty trail. Many carried 700 or more pounds of provisions for the journey.

Heavy snows trapped the Donner Party in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Members of the doomed wagon train cut trees to build shelter—these stumps show just how high the snow reached.

While wagon trains were seasonal, railroad trains would operate
year-round. That meant constructing structures to protect trains from snow, like this one built at 7,500 feet of elevation in the Sierra Nevadas.

Annie Oakley became a hero of the Wild West with her sharpshooting skills. Oakley toured the world as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, performing for royalty and celebrities

Bass Reeves was born into slavery and became the first Black deputy U.S. Marshal. Reeves learned several Native American languages and carried out more than 3,000 arrests during his career in law enforcement.

Charles Bowles was better known as Black Bart. He politely robbed over two dozen stagecoaches, often leaving behind poems that he wrote.

Othniel Marsh revolutionized paleontology with his digs in the West. This 1872 photograph shows Marsh, in the center of the back row, surrounded by his assistants as they prepare for a dig

The streets of Hazen, Nevada were lined with saloons. And that was a common sight in the Old West. Many boomtowns had dozens of saloons, while Tombstone had over a hundred.

Simple saloons might only have a single row of bottles for customers to buy. Ole Elliott’s, also called the Combination Saloon, served up drinks to a rough crowd in Utah.

Klondike Kate Rockwell was one of the most famous saloon girls. The singer and dancer reportedly earned as much in one night as gold rush miners made in a month.

One-room saloons were common in the Old West, like “The Bob Saloon,” which served cowboys in Miles City, Montana. Since even small towns featured a dozen or more saloons, the business must have been profitable.

Saloons were a popular meeting place in the Old West, as shown in this 1885 photograph of an Arizona saloon. And fights were bad for business, so most saloon owners discouraged violence.

“Snake oil” was a real treatment in the Old West. But products like Stanley’s Snake Oil didn’t actually contain any reptile medicines. While snake oil promised to cure any ailment, it was often dangerous.

The West provided opportunities for women to practice medicine. Susan La Flesche Picotte became the first Native American woman to graduate with a medical degree. She practiced on a reservation, where she opened a hospital.

Traveling medicine shows were like circuses that sold unregulated medicines. Hamlin proclaimed that his wizard oil could cure all pain in man or beast. But the oil was mostly alcohol.

Drug stores in the West sold all kinds of concoctions, including “liver pills,” cocaine, opium, and other unregulated drugs.

Art and advertisements romanticized the gold miner life and implied that every forty-niner would become rich.

Clipper ships advertised quick passage to California with images of miners searching for gold. But the journey was long, expensive, and arduous.

A group of four prospectors, including a woman, mine for gold using a sluice. The Gold Rush attracted primarily men, but women also joined in the search for riches.

While the Gold Rush started as an individual enterprise, mining quickly became a more corporate endeavor with large hydraulic operations.

The story of Black Americans in the West is only now being told. In fact, one in four cowboys in the Old West was Black. Some went on to become rodeo stars.

Nat Love was the most famous Black cowboy in the West. Also a rodeo star, he published an autobiography in 1907 that captured his life on the frontier.

Cowboys and ranchers tried to stay on the right side of the law. But many also tried out a life of crime. An 1895 photograph captures the Buck Gang, which included Black and Native American members.

Mary Fields, the first Black woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service, was known for carrying a rifle as she delivered mail.

Meal time was one of the highlights of a cowboy’s day. In this photograph, a group of cowboys gathers for a midday meal at a camp in Arizona.

For many cowboys, the day started with a cup of coffee. During a long journey in 1907, photographer Erwin E. Smith visited the chuckwagon to pour himself a cup of coffee.

The chuckwagon and fire served as gathering points for large and small crews during long cattle drives. These Texas men show off the wares of their chuckwagon, which include several large pots.

If an army marches on its stomach, cowboys ride on the chuckwagon. The cook’s castle was dubbed “a Western hotel” in this 1905 photograph.

The Confederacy claimed territory in the West after an unauthorized invasion of Union territory. This 1862 map of the Southwest shows New Mexico Territory—part of the Union—and Confederate Arizona.

Army outposts were in remote areas of the West. From Fort Bowie in Arizona, soldiers protected Apache Pass and battled against Geronimo and his warriors.

Native American tribes had to decide whether to cooperate with the U.S. government or resist. Neither choice guaranteed safety, however.

Tensions between Native Americans in the West and Europeans dated back to the 1540s. In 1680, the Pueblo Revolt put Santa Fe in tribal hands and sped up the spread of horses, which would transform life in the West.

Chief Joseph promoted a policy of peace for the Nez Perce. When the government seized the Nez Perce homeland, Joseph led his tribe north, seeking freedom in Canada. But the Army caught up first, forcing the Nez Perce onto reservations.

Geronimo spent decades defending the Apache homeland from Mexican and American settlers. “While living, I want to live well,” Geronimo said

Generations of Navajo lived in Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. The 1868 treaty with the U.S. government gave the Navajo control over the canyon and much of their homeland—and the Navajo negotiated to expand their territory.

Women worked as cowgirls, performers, stagecoach drivers, and more in the West. This c. 1916 photograph shows four cowgirls standing in front of a stagecoach.

Calamity Jane worked as an Army scout and refused to wear women’s clothes. Instead, she earned her reputation as a fierce sharpshooter.

Women homesteaders often worked together. These four sisters claimed homesteads in Nebraska, where their father was a rancher. The Chrisman sisters stand in front of a sod house in this 1886 photograph.

In 1881, a Deadwood miner who struck gold was so grateful for Lucretia Marshbank’s cooking that he bought her a silk dress. Lucretia wore the dress in this photograph, taken later that same year.

The deepest lake in the U.S. was hidden in the Cascade Mountains. And the explorers who discovered Crater Lake were searching for lost gold.

Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch terrorized the West—and they also sat for a portrait. But did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid die in Bolivia in 1908, or did they escape?

When the railroad came to Sheridan, Wyoming, the Sheridan Inn opened—and Bill Cody bought the hotel. Kate Arnold worked at the inn for more than 60 years and her ashes are still in the wall of room 306.
