The Wild West quick-draw showdown, a duel and test of speed, accuracy and grit, with two gunfighters facing each other on a dusty street in a Western frontier town, is a staple feature of nearly every Western cowboy film and TV series since the beginning of motion pictures.
This scene rarely happened, as gunfights on the American frontier were generally a more spontaneous affair of firearms drawn on the spot of the disagreement with shots fired wild and a few finding their mark. But James Butler Hickok, better known as “Wild Bill,” did face off famously against a man on a Springfield, Missouri, street in July 1865.
Wild Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt had a gambling dispute and Tutt took Wild Bill's gold pocket watch in lieu of a gambling debt he thought he was owed. Wild Bill, then a former Civil War Union soldier and scout, wanted his watch back and faced off against Tutt in the street with townsfolk watching the gunfight from a safe distance. Wild Bill's speed, accuracy and courage won the duel and he killed his opponent with his Colt pistol. This was the first recorded quick-draw street duel in history.
Wild Bill Hickok faced a trial and he was subsequently found not guilty of murder. After the trial, he met Col. George Ward Nichols, a fellow Civil War Union veteran and former newspaper reporter, who was then a correspondent for Harper's New Monthly Magazine. His interview and profile of the victorious “shootist” and frontiersman would do much to create the Wild Bill Hickok legend.
“It even contained a few facts,” Tom Clavin writes in his book, “Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier's First Gunfighter.”
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