This was the only “show” in which James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok performed with William F.“Buffalo Bill” Cody. The two remained friends until Hickok's murder in Deadwood, South Dakota, on August 2, 1876, at the age of 39.
In 1859, he joined the Russell, Majors and Waddell freight company, the parent company of the Pony Express. In 1860, Hickok was badly injured by a bear, while driving a freight team from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In actuality, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok, was born in 1836 some nine years before William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Their lives did cross paths and intertwine many times and it appears “Wild Bill” was a mentor and role model for “Buffalo Bill”.
On August 2, 1876, Wild Bill was playing a game of poker at his usual table in the corner near the door at the Saloon No. 10. During the game, Jack McCall entered the bar.
Jane emerged from the fight untouched so the captain named her “Calamity Jane.” Or did he? Some say Jane made the whole thing up because she was looking for attention from the town's legendary men—especially Wild Bill Hickok who she claimed to love.
Once arriving in Deadwood, Utter started up an express delivery service to Cheyenne, Wyoming. He and Wild Bill Hickok became close friends and when Hickok was killed while playing poker, Utter is the one who claimed the body and held a public funeral for the gunfighter.
Contrary to what you may have seen on the HBO series, it was very unlikely that Bullock and Hickok met, let alone became allies. Although the iconic “good guys” did not share time in Deadwood together, both can still be found in the same history books and museums.
Not noticing McCall, Hickok said to another player, "The old duffer. He broke me on the hand," his final words. McCall shot Hickok in the back of the head with a single-action . 45-caliber revolver, shouting "Damn you!
But his date of 1871 in Market Square, in Kansas City [Missouri], does not make sense. Hickok did not appear in KC until late December of that year. In several books devoted to Earp, various family members have been quoted as stating that Wyatt saw Hickok, but none of them suggested that they were buddies.
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok starred Guy Madison as the legendary Old West lawman (in real life, also a gunfighter) United States Marshal James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, and Andy Devine as his comedy sidekick, Jingles P. Jones.
Could he have contracted syphilis? Hickok biographer Joseph G. Rosa suggested the gunfighter got a venereal disease from “brief affairs with the Cyprian sisterhood, both in the East and in the West….” Some people don't believe Hickok had an eye problem.
The troupe's show Scouts of the Plains included Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack, and Cody's old friend “Wild Bill” Hickok. Wild Bill and Texas Jack eventually left the show, but Cody continued staging a variety of plays until 1882, the year Buffalo Bill's Wild West was conceived.
James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok never worked as a rider and only worked as a stocktender. Reason being, he was older and heavier than the other riders. The incident at Rock creek station was the beginning of a career for Hickok as a gunfighter, lawman and gambler.
In Wild Bill's last letter to Agnes, he promised her that if “we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife — Agnes — and with wishes even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore.”
While driving the freight team from Missouri to New Mexico, Hickok wrestled and killed a black bear. The encounter left him bedridden for the next few months. After recovering, he moved to Rock Creek, Nebraska to work at the Pony Express.
He came to be known as the “Prince of Pistoleers.” His name was James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok. He was born on a farm in Illinois in 1837, but he seemed destined from the outset to be a lawman rather than a farmer. As a young boy, he practiced shooting with a pistol until he became highly proficient in its use.
John Henry Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887), better known as Doc Holliday, was a dentist and later a gambler, gunfighter, and a close friend and associate of lawman Wyatt Earp.
Was Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday friends in real life?
Earp and Holliday became friends on the Texas gambling circuit in the late 1870s, and Doc participated in the gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881. Six years later, Holliday died of tuberculosis at age 36 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
In 1941, Jean Hickok McCormick appeared in Billings, Montana. She said she was the daughter of Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, and was born in a cabin near Livingston, Montana in 1873.
Media reports claim that he killed over 100 men. Then, he turned his life around and became a sheriff and marshal in Kansas. After he accidentally shot a friend, his deputy, in 1871, he swore off shootouts. He even used his reputation to play himself in a show by Buffalo Bill Cody.
When he died, Wild Bill was holding a pair of aces and eights, that series of cards became known to poker players all around the world as the “Dead Man's Hand.” In 1979, Wild Bill Hickok was inducted as a charter member into the World Series of Poker's Hall of Fame.
Although Hickok has an advantage of being an experienced veteran of the Civil War, Doc won the day because of his better close range weapons, calmness under fire, and his faster draw.
Did Calamity Jane and Doc Holliday know each other?
In real life, Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Canary) never met 'Doc' Holliday: she actually was in love and pursued 'Wild Bill' Hickock. Doc Holliday did have a bad cough, as suggested in this episode, from his tuberculosis. He died in 1887.
Deadwood offers a historically accurate and well-researched depiction of life in the American West, blending truth with fiction to create an exciting narrative. The town of Deadwood grew out of the Black Hills Gold Rush, attracting settlers from all over the nation and the world who were seeking their fortunes.
