Wild Bill Hickok 1837–1876

Also known as James Butler Hickok

James Butler Hickok, known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a soldier, scout, lawman, and gunfighter of the American Old West. He was born on 27 May 1837 and died on 2 August 1876. The English Wikipedia article says he was born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois, went west at eighteen, and worked as a stagecoach driver and later as a lawman in Kansas and Nebraska. He served the Union army in the Civil War, including as a scout, and afterward drew publicity as a marksman, an actor, and a professional gambler. That article warns that many printed tales about him, including some he told himself, are fictitious. A widely repeated account says Jack McCall shot him during a poker game in Deadwood on the day of his death. This sheet does not treat that account, or the other gunfight stories, as settled fact. The portrait is a black-and-white copy of an 1873 photograph by George G. Rockwood, and the print is in the public domain. Wikidata is Q44677.

Existence span 1837–1876