Wild West

The Wild West gunfighter is a stock figure in dime novels and cornball westerns—but what is the reality of the six-shooter packing outlaw?The new book by Bryan Burrough, The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild, separates myths from truths about the violence of the Wild West. Many of the bloody shootouts happened in the streets of San Antonio.

She was queen of the Wild West outlaws. She rode with Jesse James and other desperados. Belle Starr was a one-of-a-kind, dangerous woman who stole horses, robbed stagecoaches and lived a life of crime on the open plains. Her mysterious violent death still baffles investigators. Should Starr be considered a different kind of feminist icon?