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10 Most Famous Gunslingers of the Wild West

The Wild West was a time of lawlessness and violence, and the gunslinger was the ultimate symbol of these times and gunslingers were some of the most feared and respected people of the era. These skilled gunmen were often feared and respected, and their stories have captured the imagination of people for generations. The names and exploits of Western gunslingers took a major role in American folklore, fiction and film. Their guns and costumes became children’s toys for make-believe shootouts. The stories became immensely popular in Germany and other European countries, which produced their novels and films about the American frontier.

Gunslingers were men who were skilled with firearms and were willing to use them to settle disputes or protect themselves. Some gunslingers were outlaws who robbed banks and trains, while others were lawmen who upheld the law. These skilled men and women were known for their quick draw and their willingness to use violence to solve their problems. Despite their good or bad intention, all gunslingers were dangerous men, and their stories have captured the imagination of people for generations. In this article, we take a look at the 10 most famous gunslingers of the Wild West. These men were known for their exploits, their legendary status, and their skill with firearms. Some of them are more infamous than others, but all of them played a role in shaping the Wild West.

1. Billy the Kid 

Billy the Kid was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Wild West who is alleged to have killed 21 men before he was shot and killed at the age of 21. He is also known for his involvement in New Mexico’s Lincoln County War, during which he allegedly committed three murders. Billy was orphaned at the age of 15. His first arrest was for stealing food at the age of 16 in 1875. Ten days later, he robbed a Chinese laundry and was arrested again but escaped shortly afterwards. He fled from New Mexico to Arizona, making himself both an outlaw and a federal fugitive.

Billy’s notoriety grew in December 1880 when the Las Vegas Gazette, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and The Sun, in New York City, carried stories about his crimes. Sheriff Pat Garrett captured Bonney later that month. In April 1881, Bonney was tried for and convicted of Brady’s murder and was sentenced to hang in May of that year. He escaped from jail on April 28, killing two sheriff’s deputies in the process, and evaded capture for more than two months. Garrett shot and killed Bonney, by then aged 21. Billy the Kid remains one of the most notorious figures from the era, whose life and likeness have been frequently dramatized in Western popular culture. 

2. Jesse James

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Jesse James was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James–Younger Gang. Raised in the Little Dixie area of Western Missouri, James and his family maintained strong Southern sympathies. He and his brother Frank James joined pro-Confederate guerrillas known as bushwhackers operating in Missouri and Kansas during the American Civil War. 

After the war, as members of various gangs of outlaws, Jesse and Frank robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains across the Midwest, gaining national fame and often popular sympathy despite the brutality of their crimes. The James brothers were most active as members of their own gang from about 1866 until 1876, when as a result of their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, several members of the gang were captured or killed. In 1882, Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford, a new recruit to the gang who hoped to collect a reward on James’ head and a promised amnesty for his previous crimes. Already a celebrity in life, James became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death.

3. Wyatt Earp 

Wyatt Earp was an American lawman and gambler in the Wild West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp was involved in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys. In 1874, Earp arrived in the boomtown of Wichita, Kansas, where his reputed wife opened a brothel. Wyatt was arrested more than once for his presence in a brothel where he may have been a pimp. He was later appointed to the Wichita police force and developed a solid reputation as a lawman.

Earp died in 1929. Known as a Western lawman, gunfighter, and boxing referee, he had earned notoriety for his handling of the Fitzsimmons–Sharkey fight and his role in the O.K. Corral gunfight. This changed only after his death when the extremely flattering biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart N. Lake was published in 1931, becoming a bestseller and creating his reputation as a fearless lawman.

4. Wild Bill Hickok 

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Wild Bill Hickok was a folk hero of the Wild West known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, scout, lawman, cattle rustler, gunslinger, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement in many famous gunfights. He fought and spied for the Union Army during the American Civil War.

While Hickok claimed to have killed numerous named and unnamed gunmen in his lifetime, his career as a gunfighter only lasted from 1861 to 1871. According to Joseph G. Rosa, Hickok’s biographer and the foremost authority on Wild Bill, Hickok killed only six or seven men in gunfights.

5. Doc Holliday

Doc Holliday was a gunfighter and a close friend and associate of lawman Wyatt Earp. Holliday is best known for his role in the events surrounding and his participation in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

He developed a reputation as having killed more than a dozen men in various altercations, but modern researchers have concluded that contrary to popular myth-making, Holliday killed only one to three men. Holliday’s colorful life and character have been depicted in many books and portrayed by well-known actors in numerous movies and television series.

6. Belle Starr

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Belle Starr was an American outlaw who gained national notoriety after her violent death. She associated with the James–Younger Gang and other outlaws. She was convicted of horse theft in 1883. 

Starr was fatally shot in 1889 in a case that is still officially unsolved. Her story was popularized by Richard K. Fox, editor and publisher of the National Police Gazette and she later became a popular character in television and movies. 

7. John Wesley Hardin

John Wesley Hardin was an American Wild West outlaw, gunfighter, and controversial folk icon. Hardin often got into trouble with the law from an early age. He killed his first man at the age of 15, claiming he did so in self-defence. Pursued by lawmen for most of his life, in 1877 at the age of 23, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison for murder. At the time of sentencing, Hardin claimed to have killed 42 men, while contemporary newspaper accounts attributed 27 deaths to him.

While in prison, Hardin studied law and wrote an autobiography. He was well known for exaggerating or fabricating stories about his life and claimed credit for many killings that cannot be corroborated. Within a year of his 1894 release from prison, Hardin was killed by John Selman in an El Paso saloon.

8. Black Bart

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Black Bart was an American outlaw noted for the poetic messages he left behind after two of his robberies. Often called Charley by his friends, he was also known as Charles Bolton. 

Considered a gentleman bandit with a reputation for style and sophistication, he was one of the most notorious stagecoach robbers to operate in and around Northern California and Southern Oregon during the 1870s and 1880s.

9. Clay Allison

Clay Allison was a gunfighter of the American Wild West. He fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Allison had a reputation for violence, having survived several one-on-one knife and gunfights, some with lawmen, as well as being implicated in a number of vigilante jail break-ins and lynchings. 

A drunken Allison once rode his horse through town nearly naked wearing only his gunbelt. Later most reports stated that he was not only dangerous to others but himself, accidentally shooting himself in the foot.

10. Ben Thompson

Ben Thompson was a gunman, gambler, and sometimes lawman of the Wild West. He was a contemporary of Buffalo Bill Cody, Bat Masterson, John Wesley Hardin, and Wild Bill Hickok, some of whom considered him a friend, others an enemy. Thompson fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and later for Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. After he was hired in 1881 as marshal in Austin, Texas, the crime rate reportedly dropped sharply. Thompson was murdered at the age of 40 in San Antonio, Texas, in the Vaudeville Theater Ambush.

These gunslingers were known for their skill with firearms, their willingness to use violence, and their legendary status in the Wild West. Some of them were outlaws, while others were lawmen. But all of them were dangerous men, and their stories have captured the imagination of people for generations.