"Wild Bill" Hickok

An American legend, James Butler Hickok was an American frontiersman, army scout, marksman, and gambler. As a kid in Illinois, he worked on neighboring farms and helped his father assist escaped slaves. In 1856 he left home to farm in Kansas where he became involved in the Free State (antislavery) movement. While working as a teamster in 1861 he shot Dave McCanles at Rock Creek, Nebraska where legends about him probably began in the exaggerated tales of his role in this gunfight.

"Wild Bill" Hickok stood 6 foot 3 in his custom-made boots. Wearing a Prince Albert frock coat, his riveting gray eyes, set off by a drooping mustache, appeared to look right through people. Beneath the black hat with the sweeping brim, his blond hair tumbled to his shoulders.

During the American Civil War, Hickok worked as a teamster, scout, and spy for the Union. From 1872 to 1874 Hickok traveled through New York State with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. In 1876 he met & married a widowed actress Agnes Lake but soon left her in Cincinnati to visit the goldfields of the Black Hills in the Dakota Territory.

On August 2, 1876, at around 4 pm, Hickok joined a poker game in Carl Mann's Saloon No.10. The last to sit at the table, the only chair remaining for him put his back to the back door. Hickok always sat with his back against the wall as a precaution. He requested that Charles Rich switch places with him but Rich just laughed and remained in his chair. Jack McCall, a local bum who often worked at unskilled jobs in the saloon, entered the room unnoticed. Moving casually toward the back door behind Hickok's seat, once there, he stopped and observed the game for a couple of minutes. With nobody paying any notice to McCall, suddenly the air exploded when McCall pulled out a .45-caliber revolver from his coat pocket and from a mere yard away, shot Hickok in the back of the head. For a few seconds Hickok hung suspended in time, and then fell over backward with his cards still in his hand dropping to the floor. That now famous hand comprised a pair of aces and a pair of eights, and became known as the "Dead Man's Hand." The suits of those cards and what the 5th card was are still debated. Nobody shall ever know the facts for sure.

Jack McCall was tried in Deadwood on August 3 and found not guilty. He was later tried in Yankton, Dakota Territory where he was found guilty and was hanged on March 1, 1877.