Wild West towns were not as violent as the myths surrounding them.
Myths and legends about the frontier West and the cowboys and Indians who lived there are an ingrained part of the American narrative. Stories of the Old West are retold over and over in literature and the movies. The frontier West was the free-for-all zone beyond the settlement areas, where land was free for the taking. Many stories arose around the colorful and heroic frontier characters.
Billy the Kid
Many myths have grown around Henry McCarty, aka William Henry Bonney, also known as Billy the Kid. The historical facts concerning Billy the Kid are murky. In 1875, he became a teenage fugitive when he escaped jail by climbing out the jailhouse chimney. The myth was that Billy killed 21 men by the time he was 21. Authorities account for three killings, with another possible six or seven. With a $500 reward on his head, Billy was shot in the heart by Pat Garrett.
Bank Robberies
Outlaws robbing banks is a persistent myth of the lawless Old West, an idea reinforced by many Western movies and books. No bank robberies were pulled off in the major towns of the Western states and territories before 1900, except for a pair of heists in California and Arizona. Historians have documented only six robberies from the Wild West period of 1859 until 1900. With a handful of bank robberies over a 40-year period, the image of a six-gun toting desperado stealing money from a bank is historically inaccurate.
Violence
A popular idea in the public mind is that the frontier West was an extremely violent place with little value placed on a human life. Small Western cow towns are thought to have witnessed hundreds of murders and killings. In fact, there were only five killings in Dodge City during its most homicidal year of 1878. Deadwood, S.D., had five deaths in its worst year with Tombstone, Ariz.,experiencing five killings in its most violent year.
Indian Myths
Many myths about American Indians are perpetrated by the Western movie genre. In unrealistic confrontations, the wagon train circles its wagons as the Indians ride around it, shooting flaming arrows, until they're picked off by sharpshooting cowboys and settlers. In the movies, all tribes live in teepees and wear eagle feather headdresses. In reality, many Western Native Americans lived in wickiups or hogans. While the Lakota Sioux wore feathered warbonnets, most American tribes wore porcupine quill headdresses called roaches.
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