Guest Author - Vance Rowe

Born in what is now known as Troy Grove, Illinois, James Butler Hickok, aka, Wild Bill Hickok was raised on a farm that was a stop on the infamous Underground Railroad. He developed his shooting skills when he helped protect the farm and runaway slaves from the Fugitive Slave Catchers.

At the age of 18, Hickok moved to the Kansas territory and joined General Jim Lane's vigilante Free State Army, also known as the Kansas Red Legs, and while there, he met 12-year-old William Cody, later to be known as "Buffalo Bill," who, at that time, was a scout for Johnston's Army. In 1857, Wild Bill Hickok was elected as a constable of Monticello Township in Kansas and in 1859, he joined the Pony Express.

When the Civil War began in 1861, he joined he Union Army and soon earned a reputation as being a very proficient scout; a position that he accepted for the U.S. Army when the war ended and also was a U.S. Marshal for a short time also. In 1871, Hickok was elected as City Marshal in Abilene, Kansas. During this tenure, he was in a dispute with a man named Phil Coe who was the proprietor of the Bull’s Head Saloon. The dispute was reportedly over a sign outside of the salon which pictured a bull with an erect penis. Hickok threatened hat he would burn the saloon down if the picture was not painted over.

One night during a street brawl, Hickok was standing off a crowd. Phil Coe then fired two gunshots and Hickok ordered his arrest. However, Coe claimed that he was shooting at a stray dog. Hickok still ordered him to surrender his gun, but Coe turned his gun on Hickok and Hickok shot and killed him. Then out of the corner of his eye, Wild Bill Hickok saw someone running toward him. Hickok turned and fired at the man and to his horror; the man he shot was his own deputy, Mike Williams. Williams was coming to help Hickok. This incident would haunt Hickok for the rest of his life. As a result of this shooting, Hickok was relieved of his job as Marshal less than two months after the shooting.

Wild Bill Hickok, a fast draw, an accurate gunman, finally met his demise in Deadwood, South Dakota when a coward named Jack McCall came into a saloon where Hickok was playing cards and he shot Hickok in the back of his head. It is also reported that Hickok was holding four cards in his hand when he was killed: A pair of Aces and a pair of eights with “the fifth card not being dealt yet.” These four cards he held would become to be known as the “Dead man’s Hand”. This hand is so popular that in 1979, Wild Bill Hickok was inducted into the National Poker Hall of Fame.