What Rifle Really Won the West?

[richhodg66]

"Them!" With James Whitmore and I think an untitled cameo by a young Clint Eastwood as a pilot. "The Thing from Another World" was the one with James Arness as the monster, Kenneth Tobey as the lead male. I adore that movie!

Clint was in Tarantuala flying an F 80. Good movie as well, but Them! is the best of the 1950s Sci Fi/Horror. Starred James Arness and James Whitmore. Small uncredited role by Leonard Nimoy too.

 

[Bret4207]

Clint was in Tarantuala flying an F 80. Good movie as well, but Them! is the best of the 1950s Sci Fi/Horror. Starred James Arness and James Whitmore. Small uncredited role by Leonard Nimoy too.

That's the one! Good memory!!! Mine ain't worth crap these days!

 

[fiver]

i think the tie in here is that the desert southwest was still the wild west clear into the 50's.

my Grandpa got chased through the mountains by Indians that went off Rez for the better part of a week in the mid 30's, he wasn't armed as far as i know, so no rifle won that contest.
Central Utah would surely qualify as the wild west at about any point in time.

 

[richhodg66]

That's the one! Good memory!!! Mine ain't worth crap these days!

Those old Sci fi/horror flicks from that era are a guilty pleasure of mine. We lost MeTV about a year ago so I don't get my Saturday night Svengoolie fix anymore.

 

[fiver]

Bahh.
he's been slacking off lately, same show two weeks in a row type stuff.

 

[richhodg66]

If there really was a gun that won the west, it was whatever smoothbore flintlock settlers happened to have. By the time repeating rifles were commonplace, most of the west was settled and civilized.

 

[Missionary]

The only guaranteed civilized place in these United States of America is where an armed Constitutionalist stands. And that spot may be under contest at the moment.

 

[richhodg66]

Not long ago, I read Goodbye to a River, by John Graves about a trip he made down the Brazos before it was dammed and interspersed with the story of the canoe trip, he told a lot of the history of the area. The last few Comanche raids/fights happenned quite a bit earlier than most people would probably think. This whole idea that everybody had a 92 Winchester or Colt SAA to settle the west is pretty much BS. Even if they'd been available, most of the hardy souls who went out there wouldn't have been able to afford them.

 

[RBHarter]

The last of the gunslinger lawmen lived well into the 20th century.
Bat Masterson I think lived until 1935 . Like many things about the way history is taught this presents a geography problem.
I always thought driving cows out of Texas to Salina Utah was just stupid......later I learned it was in Kansas. I also learned way later on that the far west is west of the Rockies . The west is apparently between the Mississippi river and Colorado. The Midwest starts for the sake of history starts one state in from the Atlantic Ocean .

Bonnie and Clyde were closer to the James/Younger boys than we are now to Vietnam.

 

[fiver]

woah Texas to Salinas Ut.
most cars wouldn't have made that trip till the 50's.
just getting them across the Colorado river would have been a major undertaking.