Illinois has seldom been associated with the folklore of the Old West. Neverthless, two of the most famous legends of the west were born in Illinois and both were pioneer lawmen. One was James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickock (pictured at right) who was born in the very small town of Troy Grove south of Mendota in La Salle County on May 27, 1837. Troy Grove is still there, with a population just over 300, near the crossroads of US Highway 52 and Interstate 39. At the age of 18 In 1855 Wild Bill left his father's farm to work as a stage coach driver at different times on the Santa Fe Trail and the Oregon Trail. In his twenties, he was a town constable in Nebraska when the Civil War started and he went to work as a scout for the Union Army. After the war, Wild Bill worked as a U.S. Marshall but at other times listed his profession as gambler, gunfighter, and Indian fighter. In fact, some historians think that one of the first gunfights of the Old West involved Wild Bill when he killed Davis K. Tutt, Jr. in Springfield, Missouri on July 21, 1865 over a gambling debt. In 1873, he was working in a stage play with Buffalo Bill Cody that was a forerunner to Cody's famous Wild West Show. He met and became friends with Martha Jane Cannary-Burke who was better known as "Calamity Jane." She later claimed to be his girl friend but since he was newly married this claim was likely a publicity myth of her invention. On Aug. 2, 1876, Wild Bill was playing poker at Saloon Number Ten in Deadwood, a small mining town in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory, when he was fatally shot in the back by Jack McCall. According to poker and western legends, at the time he was shot Wild Bill was holding two pair--aces and eights-- which from that day to this has been called "the dead man's hand."
U.S. Marshall Wyatt Earp, pictured at right, was born on March 19, 1848 in Monmouth, Illinois. Wyatt's father moved the family to Pella, Iowa in 1850 but the family still owned the Monmouth farm until 1856 and came back to Monmouth several times to battle tax suits. While three older Earp brothers served in the Union Army during the Civil War, the family moved to California in 1864 just as Wyatt reached the age for military service. As a U.S. Marshall, Wyatt Earp faced the lawless west in several towns. The most famous event of his legendary life happened on Oct. 26, 1881 when Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were killed and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded in the gunfight near the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Wyatt was not hurt and Ike Clanton fled the scene. Wyatt Earp advised the makers of western movies in the early days of Hollywood and he died in Los Angeles in 1929. His life and legend have well known at various times depending on books and movies about his life that were popular at the time. From 1955 to 1961, actor Hugh O'Brian starred in an ABC-TV series that many believe was one of the the first "adult westerns." The series was called "Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" and it made O'Brian a star. O'Brian also lived in Illinois as a young man and attended New Trier High School in Winnetka.
