How Old West Legends REALLY Died (One Was Killed by a Chair) JJ

One of them died arguing over goats with his pants open. Another vanished. No body, no grave, no date of death. And the fastest gun alive killed by the wrong chair. The goats are at number 16. The chair is number 17. And two of these 18 legends may never have died at all. Let’s see if you make it there.

Number one, Wyatt Herp. This man walked through the most famous shootout in the Wild West. October 1881, OK Corral, Tombstone. 30 seconds, 30 bullets, three dead, and Wyatt walked away without a scratch. Then came the ambush that killed his brother Morgan and the Vendetta ride when he hunted down the killers across Arizona.

Sheriff, gambler, saloon owner. Decades with a target on his back. And how did he die? On January 13th, 1929, at age 80, in a bed in Los Angeles, nearly broke, taken down by a chronic bladder infection. He survived gunman, but died from cyitis. Meanwhile, Hollywood was being born just a few miles away, about to make millions off his story.

The legend only became larger than life after the man was no longer around to see it. But if Wyatt’s ending was quiet, the next man’s was quieter still. He died in the middle of a sentence, and the sentence was never finished. Number two, Bat Masterson. This man traded gunfire with the worst the Wild West had to offer.

He survived the siege of Adobe Walls in 1874, took a bullet to the hip in a duel in Sweetwater, Texas, and still [music] got back on his feet. As sheriff of Dodge City, he arrested outlaws anyone else would have avoided. He rode alongside Wyatt Herp. And how did he die? Sitting in an office chair. On October 25th, 1921, at age 67, Bat was in the newsroom of the Morning Telegraph in New York writing his sports column when his heart simply stopped.

They found the old gunslinger slumped over his typewriter with the article half-finish. That article was never finished. Keep that image because it’s not the last unfinished ending on this list. The next survivor came back from a head-on train collision, shooting better than before. What finally took her down was invisible. Number three, Annie Oakley.

This woman could hit a card tossed into the air and shoot backward using a mirror. In 1901, Buffalo Bill’s circus train collided headon with another train. Annie emerged from the wreckage with an injured spine, went through five surgeries, and came back shooting better than before. She survived the disaster.

Decades of gunpowder exploding near her face and a car accident in 1922 that nearly left her disabled. And how did she die? On November 3rd, 1926, in a bed in Greenville, Ohio, from pernitious anemia, her body stopped absorbing a vitamin. She survived a train wreck but died from a lack of vitamin in her blood.

And the final detail, Frank Butler, the husband she beat in a shooting match before they got married, stopped eating out of grief and died 18 days later. The woman who never missed her target, was taken down by her own blood. And Buffalo Bill, the man whose train she crawled out of, his ending was so strange that even his body couldn’t [music] rest.

He’s number 18. Number four, Doc Holiday. If anyone should have died from a bullet, it was him. A dentist by training, he became famous for his revolver. He was at the most talked about shootout in the Wild West, the OK Corral in 1881 alongside Wyatt Herp. He traded gunfire with the Clantons and made it out alive.

He faced saloon duels, gambling fights, and arrests. No bullet ever took him down. Doctors gave him only a few months to live when he was still young. And yet he defied death for 15 years. But on November 8th, 1887 at a hotel in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, tuberculosis did what no gunslinger could. [music] He was 36 years old.

They say he looked at his own bare feet in bed, laughed, and said, “This is funny.” He had always bet he would die with his boots on in the middle of a shootout. In the end, the coldest gambler at the table didn’t get to choose the final card. Number five, Calamity Jane. This woman rode through the most dangerous territories on the frontier, carried a rifle like any man, cared for smallox patients in Deadwood when everyone else ran away, and survived saloons, fights, and jail cells for decades.

People said she was afraid of nothing. She claimed she had served as a scout for the army in Native American territory. But on August 1st, 1903, in a hotel room in Terry, South Dakota, the end came without glory. Pneumonia and intestinal inflammation made worse by years of drinking. She died poor, sick, and forgotten. [music] A far cry from the heroine in the cheap novels that sold her name.

The final irony, they buried her next to Wild Bill Hickok, giving her in death the place in legend that life never gave her. Hold on to that name, Wild Bill Hickok. When you get to number 17, you’ll understand why being buried beside him meant everything and why a chair killed him. Number six, Bass Reeves. Listen to this story.

Born into slavery, he escaped and became one of the first black deputy US marshals west of the Mississippi. He arrested more than 3,000 fugitives in Indian territory, the most dangerous part of the country. He faced ambushes, traded gunfire with wanted killers, and reportedly never took a single bullet. 14 men went down trying to kill him.

No outlaw could take Bass Reeves down. You know what did? his kidneys. On January 12th, 1910 in Muscogee, Oklahoma, he died in bed from Brit’s disease. He survived 3,000 arrests, but died of kidney disease. And the painful part, for decades, America forgot his name. Bullets couldn’t defeat Bass Reeves. [music] Silence almost did.

Number seven, Davy Crockett. This man hunted bears in Tennessee, survived the Creek War and the dirty fights of politics in Washington. He nearly died of malaria, escaped a shipwreck on the Mississippi River, [music] and became a national hero. When he lost the election, he sent the famous message, “You can go to hell.

I’m going to Texas.” And he did. On March 6th, 1836, the Alamo fell and Crockett fell with it. But here’s the detail that still intrigues historians today. The diary of Mexican officer Jose Enrique de la claims he did not die shooting. He may have surrendered and been executed on Santa Anna’s orders. The man who became a legend for fighting to the very end may have ended up unarmed facing a firing squad.

And the Hollywood version, it may [music] never have happened. Number eight, Pearl Hart. This woman robbed a real stage coach at gunpoint in Arizona in 1899. She was arrested, broke out of jail, through a hole in the wall, was captured again, and became the most famous criminal in the country. Newspapers fought to interview her.

The last stage coach robber in American history. And then what happened? Nothing. After being pardoned in 1902, Pearl simply disappeared. No shootout, no revenge, no Hollywood ending. The best evidence suggests she became a housewife in Arizona under the name Pearl Bywater and died of old age in 1955 at nearly 84 years old.

The Wild West didn’t kill Pearl Hart. Routine did, but Pearl at least left a trail. The next outlaw left nothing. Not a body, not a grave, not even a date. Number nine, Black Bart. This man robbed 28 Wells Fargo stage coaches in California between 1875 and 1883. Always on foot, always polite, and he never fired a single shot.

His shotgun wasn’t even loaded. He would even leave signed poems at the crime scenes, mocking the people hunting him. When he was finally caught, he served four years in San Quentin and was released in January 1888. Then comes the strange part. Weeks later, he walked out of a hotel in Vizelia, California, and vanished.

He was never seen again. No body, no grave, no date of death. Some say the company itself paid him to stop robbing them. The irony, the outlaw who always left a note at the crime scene disappeared without leaving one. That’s half the list. [music] But the strangest endings are still ahead.

A hired killer executed by a machine with no one to pull the lever. A legend shot in the back while dusting a [music] picture frame. And the two outlaws whose bodies were never identified. Remember when I said two of them may never have died at all? They’re next. Number 10, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

They led the Wild Bunch, the most organized gang in the Wild West. They robbed trains and banks for years, outran the Pinkerton Agency, and survived shootouts and sieges without ever being caught. When the pressure closed in, they fled to South America. On November 6th, 1908, in San Vicente, a village in the Bolivian Andes, two foreigners who had stolen a payroll were surrounded by soldiers inside a stone house.

The next morning, both men were dead. All signs point to one shooting the other to avoid capture. But there’s one detail. The bodies were never identified. Butch’s sister swore he returned to the United States and died of old age in 1937. So maybe they didn’t die there at all. And they’re not the only death on this list that people refuse to believe.

The other one is at number 15, and an entire state still argues about his grave. Number 11, Bell Star, the woman the entire Wild West knew by name. She was born Myra Maybel Shirley and became the bandit queen. She ran with the Younggers and the Jameses, married outlaws, and welcomed horse thieves at her doorstep.

In 1883, Judge Isaac Parker sent her to prison for horse theft. She served 9 months and got back in the saddle like nothing had happened. Then came February 3rd, 1889. 2 days before her 41st birthday, she was riding home through Indian territory. A dirt road, no one around. A shotgun blast to the back.

She fell and the killer fired again. They arrested a suspect and released him soon after. The bandit queen died without a duel, without an audience, and without a name for the man responsible. Shot in the back by someone she may have known. Keep that pattern in mind. It’s about to repeat three more times. Number 12, Jesse James.

This man spent 16 years as the most wanted man in America. He fought in the Civil War as a gorilla, took two bullets to the chest before he turned 20, robbed banks and trains from Missouri to Texas, escaped ambushes by the Pinkerton Agency, and even saw his own mother lose an arm when a bomb was thrown into the family home.

detectives, soldiers, bounty hunters. No one could catch him. But on April 3rd, 1882, at age 34, Jesse made one simple mistake. He turned his back. He stepped onto a chair to straighten a picture on the wall of his own living room, unarmed. And Robert Ford, a member of his gang, shot him in the back of the head for a $10,000 reward.

The man no one could take down face to face was shot in the back inside his own home by the hand of someone he called a friend. Number 13, John Wesley Harden. The most feared gunslinger in Texas claimed he had killed 41 men and no one there doubted him. He survived duels, ambushes, manhunts by the Rangers, and nearly 16 years in a brutal prison where he was beaten almost to death.

He made it out alive, studied law behind bars, became an attorney, and went to start over in El Paso. And this is where the story turns. On the night of August 19th, 1895, Harden was at the Acme Saloon rolling dice at the bar. Officer John Selman walked in and shot him in the back of the head from behind. The man who faced dozens of gunslingers headon died without even knowing he was in a fight.

His last words were to his gambling partner, “Four sixes to win.” He never saw who pulled the trigger. Number 14, Tom Horn. This man hunted Geronimo as an army scout, worked as a Pinkerton detective, and became a hired gun for the cattle barons of Wyoming. He survived ambushes, shootouts, and more than a dozen killings blamed on him.

Men trembled just hearing his name. But look at how it all ended. On November 20th, 1903, one day before his 43rd birthday in Cheyenne, Horn went to the gallows after being convicted of killing a 14-year-old boy, a crime many people still swear he did not commit. and the detail. The gallows used a waterpowered mechanism with no executioner.

In practice, the weight of his own body triggered the trap door. The hired killer ended up executed by a machine with no one there to pull the lever. Number 15, Billy the Kid. He survived the Lincoln County War. He survived shootouts, ambushes, and a jail cell he escaped from after killing two men. At 21, he already had a price on his head and an entire state hunting him down.

Then on the night of July 14th, 1881, he walked barefoot into a dark room in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. No gun in his hand, looking for food. A man was sitting there in the dark, silent. Billy asked in Spanish who was there. It was the last thing he ever said. The fastest man in the West was hit by a bullet.

that he never saw coming. And the irony didn’t end there. For decades, people across the Southwest swore he never died, that another body had been buried in his place. This is the other death people refused to believe. And the man sitting in that dark room, the man who killed the biggest legend of the West, remember the goats from the beginning of the video? His time has come.

Number 16, Pat Garrett, the man who killed Billy the Kid. A New Mexico sheriff, he hunted down the most feared outlaw in the territory and shot him dead in a dark bedroom in 1881. After that, he became a target. He spent years with gunslingers wanting to see his name on a tombstone and survived every one of them.

Now, pay attention to how he died. On February 29th, 1908, on a road near Los Cusus, Garrett got down from his wagon to urinate by the side of the road. He was arguing over a ranch lease because of goats. He was shot in the back right there. No one was ever convicted, [music] and the case remains unsolved to this day.

He survived Billy the Kid, but died with his pants open in a fight over goats. The man who took down the biggest legend in the west fell without even reaching for his holster. Number 17, Wild Bill Hickok. Remember the wrong chair from the start of the video? Here it is. This man was so fast on the draw that no one in the territory dared pull a gun on him face to face.

He survived duels in the middle of the street, traded gunfire with outlaws, and arrested wanted men as sheriff of Abalene. For years, every gunslinger knew, [music] facing hickok headon was suicide. And that was exactly why he died the way he did. On August 2nd, 1876 in Deadwood, he was playing poker with his back to the door. The one time he gave up his seat against the wall.

Jack McCall, a drunk who could never beat him face to face, walked in and shot him in the back of the head. In his hands, [music] aces and eights, the famous dead man’s hand. The fastest gunslinger in the West only went down on the one day he couldn’t see his enemy coming. And now you know why Calamity Jane demanded to be buried beside him.

Number 18, Buffalo Bill. This man rode for the Pony Express at [music] age 14. Fought in the war against the Sue, was struck by an arrow, received the Medal of Honor, and became the most famous man on the [music] planet with his Wild West show. European kings paid just to watch him shoot.

And how did he die? on January 10th, 1917 in a bed in Denver from kidney failure [music] and broke. The man who made millions didn’t even have enough money for his own funeral. And here’s the part no one talks about. His body was kept in a morg for 6 months because two cities were fighting in court over who would get it. Even in death, the man had no peace.