{"id":2185470,"date":"2025-12-03T16:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2185470"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:00:15","slug":"commentary-mix-up-your-holiday-entertainment-with-a-history-of-texas-lawless-influence-on-old-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/commentary-mix-up-your-holiday-entertainment-with-a-history-of-texas-lawless-influence-on-old-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: Mix up your holiday entertainment with a history of Texas\u2019 lawless influence on Old West"},"content":{"rendered":"

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About 10 years ago, I put out a list of my favorite nonfiction books about Texas. One of those was \u201cThe Big Rich\u201d by Bryan Burrough. I still stand by that choice as one of my all-time favorites. Now, Burrough has a new book I\u2019d like to recommend for those who might need an antidote for Hallmark holiday movies. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Gunfighters\u201d is an interesting enough title, but it was the subtitle that seized my attention: \u201cHow Texas Made the West Wild.\u201d There is a thesis contained in those few words that makes a Texas-sized claim about Texas having primary responsibility for making the Old West a particularly lawless and violent place \u2013 not just in Texas, mind you, but all across the west. Fascinating.<\/p>\n

I pulled the trigger on that book and loaded it into my Barnes & Noble cart immediately. I couldn\u2019t wait to see how Burrough made his case. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take him long to lay out his claim more fully. In chapter one, \u201cThe Thing About Texas,\u201d he writes, \u201cThe Old West was a kaleidoscope of personal violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he goes on to say: \u201cIf you study these marquee gunfights at any length, something jumps out at you about the participants. In Kansas, in Wyoming, in New Mexico, in Arizona, all across the frontier, a startling number of these deadly encounters involved a single kind of person: A Texan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00bb MORE: An interview with Bryan Burrough on \u2018The Gunfighters\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I know maybe it shouldn\u2019t affect me this way, but as a Texan, I was a little bit proud to read that. Still, I wasn\u2019t going to let a wellspring of pride cloud my judgment. I needed much more proof than could be contained in a few complimentary paragraphs. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d Burrough writes. \u201cTexas cowboys, cattlemen, and outlaws, took part in and often initiated the notable gunfights of Earp\u2019s Tombstone and Dodge City, the manic shoot-outs of Billy the Kid\u2019s New Mexico, the showdowns of Hickok\u2019s Abilene, and the cattle wars of Wyoming. \u2026 Take away Texans \u2013 Texas cowboys, Texas outlaws, and Texas lawmen \u2013 and the American Gunfighter shrinks to insignificance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burrough has a good point, but one has to wonder why. What was it about Texas that created a fertile cultural soil that nurtured this kind of man? Or was he already that kind\u00a0<\/span>of man before he arrived in Texas?<\/p>\n

Burrough says that Texas was indeed different. It was the only one of 50 states to defeat a foreign army to win its independence. Texas settlers continued to fight on two frontiers thereafter, with Mexico on the southern border and Native Americans on the western frontier. What resulted, he says, was a \u201chighly martial culture, its people deeply attuned to violence and expert at it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Larry McMurtry famously said that you couldn\u2019t expect families that had experienced such lethality to have it sift out of them within a generation or two. Burrough concludes that \u201cIt\u2019s no surprise it was Texans who first popularized the new revolvers that ushered in the gunfighter era.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is also the Southern connection. Texas was populated largely by immigrants from southern states, and they brought with them the dueling culture. The tradition of stepping off 20 paces was eventually replaced by the quick draw.<\/p>\n

\u00bb GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE:\u00a0Sign up for Texas Standard\u2019s weekly newsletters<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Burrough points out that we still have vestiges of the gunfighter era in Texas today. Texas Tech still has its \u201cguns up\u201d symbol of school spirit. It\u2019s also not uncommon for Texans to say \u201cyou wanta take this outside?\u201d when things get heated. Mostly it\u2019s said in jest, but not always.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Burrough\u2019s book is a wonderful read. If, like me, you\u2019re a lover of the Western canon of literature and history, you\u2019ll certainly enjoy it. All the usual suspects are here: Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, Butch Cassidy and Bat Masterson.<\/p>\n

While others are watching sweet movies with hot chocolate this holiday season, you can be off in a quiet room reading, enjoying shots of whiskey and dodging bullets. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.texasstandard.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 10 years ago, I put out a list of my favorite nonfiction books about Texas. One of those was \u201cThe Big Rich\u201d by Bryan Burrough. I still stand by that choice as one of my all-time favorites. Now, Burrough has a new book I\u2019d like to recommend for those who might need an antidote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2185471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2185470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Commentary-Mix-up-your-holiday-entertainment-with-a-history-of.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2185470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2185472,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185470\/revisions\/2185472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2185471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2185470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2185470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2185470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}