Any Old West Reenactors on FL?

[Matt Crunk]

I hope this question is appropriate for The Golden Era, but since someone recently suggested that the "Golden Age" might actually span the 100 years from the 1850s to the 1950s, I figure it possibly is.

Having always loved Western films and history, I have recently taken an interest in Old West Reenactments. But living in the South, most of reenactors I encounter around here are specific to the Civil War, which I don't really have a particular interest in. Any of my fellow Loungers participate in Old West/Wild West reenactments or shooting events?

 

[rjb1]

You're right that Southern reenactors gravitate toward the Civil War, but there are a number of WWII reenactors (definitely Golden Era) and also some who do Old West (Golden Era by a more expansive definition).
The local (mid-TN) Old West events include twice-a-year Train Robberies at Watertown, TN. The TN Central RR Museum has excursion trains that run from Nashville to Watertown (about 35 miles), and a mile or so outside Watertown our gang of Desperados stops the train by firing volleys of blanks. We then enter the train and "rob" the passengers of real money (which they know is going to a scholarship fund).
We also take off a gold chest which the kids on the train will search for after the train goes on in to town (the kid who finds it wins prizes). After we get off, the train does go on in to Watertown, where we have a "Wild West Show' for the passengers (about 600 people). Gunfights, live Western music, shooting exhibitions (simulated), and anything else we can think of...
Since you are not that far away you are invited to join the gang. Dress is anything from the train-robbing era, ~1865 - ~1890's.

If you want live ammo instead of blanks, there is a Cowboy Action Shooting group at Wartrace, TN. Their gang usually joins up with our gang for the Train Robberies.

Going further afield, there is a Western town in southern KY that has various Old-West events.
Also, there is a large Western museum near Chattanooga which also has Old-West events.

You need to think up an Old West character for the Robbery and Wild West Show. Mine is Mayor Silas McGreedy, (crooked) Mayor of the town and President of the Cattleman's Bank.
Feel free to join us. We have a lot of fun.

 

[Edm1]

Guntown mountain in cave city Kentucky.

 

[Matt Crunk]

Thanks guys, for the info. RJB1, is there a website or facebook page where I can find out more about the groups and events you mention?

 

[tonyb]

As long as you've touched on it ...

Just when, in your estimation, was the Wild West's "Golden Era"?

My not particularly well informed understanding is that what we like to think of as the "real" Wild West days lasted but a couple of decades. Photography was around then, so we have some more or less reliable documentation as to attire, hairstyles, etc.

Just how hardcore are the reenactors? I hear that some of the Civil War guys get things down to the smallest detail. Is the Wild West community, or portions thereof, so meticulous?

 

[rjb1]

I tend to think of the last half of the 1800's as actually "pre-Golden Era", but they had (I think) a code of honor, dress style, language, etc. that evolved into the best parts of what we perceive the Golden Era to be. The latter half of the latter half of the 1800's even more so (1875-1900). Those were the formative years of people such as Teddy Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, Charles Evans Hughes, and others who had a big influence on the first part of the Golden Era. Add in the industrial/commercial enterprises of the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and others during that time period and you have the people and events which built the society that the latter Golden Era residents lived in. Therefore, I think it's reasonable to mention/discuss that time period here.
As to how long the Old West's Golden Era existed, your two-decades estimate is pretty close to correct. Just as an example, the two firearms that we think of as the classic "cowboy" guns, the Colt Peacemaker and the 1873 Winchester, were both introduced in 1873. At the other end, the Director of the US Census Bureau officially declared the frontier closed in 1890.
However, it wasn't quite that clear-cut, depending on how you define it, since Arizona didn't become a State until 1912 and, by coincidence, Custer's Last Stand and the invention of the telephone occurred in the same year, 1876. The light bulb was invented in 1879, and Geronimo surrendered in 1886, so "modern society" co-existed chronologically with the "Wild West".

Concerning authenticity, the Civil War people are absolute fanatics. You can't even sew your buttons on with modern thread. WWII reenactors are strict, but not as much as CW people.
The Old West reenactors vary in that regard. Some require that you look exactly like real late-1800's people, but some are much less strict. Some of the Cowboy Action Shooters even allow, and have specific requirements for, what they call "B-Western" appearance. For this you can dress and look like the Gene Autry/Roy Rogers 1930's - 1940's movie cowboys. That takes us back to the Golden Era, since the GE people watched movies on Saturday with those "singing cowboys" in them.
There isn't any one source for information on the Old West reenacting, but I'll do some research and post more next time.

 

[Matt Crunk]

Concerning authenticity, the Civil War people are absolute fanatics . . .
The Old West reenactors vary in that regard. Some require that you look exactly like real late-1800's people, but some are much less strict. Some of the Cowboy Action Shooters even allow, and have specific requirements for, what they call "B-Western" appearance. For this you can dress and look like the Gene Autry/Roy Rogers 1930's - 1940's movie cowboys. That takes us back to the Golden Era, since the GE people watched movies on Saturday with those "singing cowboys" in them.

Yep, the Cowboy Action Shooters for sure lean more toward the romanticised, Hollywood version of the Old West in both style and practice. The classic fast-draw shoot out we've all seen in countless Western movies and TV shows is in fact a complete myth. To the best of my knowledge there is not one recorded account of such a one-on-one showdown ever taking place. There were plenty of deadly shoot-outs for sure, but they were actually more of the run-and-gun or hide-and-shoot variety, and most who died were either caught by surprise or shot in the back. Real-life Wild West gunplay was not nearly as honorable as Pulp writers and Hollywood made it out to be.

I'd say most consider the "Wild West" era to span from post-Civil War to around 1910, with it's Golden Age being the two decades surrounding 1880.

 

[Stearmen]

The Great Cattle Drives, only lasted from 1866 to about 1889. Deadwood was only wild from 1874 to 1877. Tombstone, 1879 to 1890, though, by the end it was pretty civilized! Dodge City, 1871- 1886. There was no Cowboy Code back then, a shot gun blast to the back settled every thing! Things that are always left out, the first permanent structure, was usually an Opera House. The other one that gets left out is strict gun control. As soon as a town hired a ex-gunslinger as Sheriff, a sign would go up to check all firearms on entering the town. Wild Bill Hickok, was famous for taking pistols away by using the but of his on the skull of the offender! The Earp Brothers also did the same. It was their excuse at the OK Corral! "If you really knew how dirty and raggedy-assed the Old West was, you wouldn’t want any part of it.” ~Tom Horn (Steve McQueen)

 

[rjb1]

I'm surprised that I had never heard of the Guntown Mountain location near Cave City. I have driven right by there a number of times.
The other Kentucky location is about 75 miles from that one, near Hopkinsville:

​https://www.facebook.com/pages/Copper-Canyon-Ranch/245461037784?sk=info&tab=overview

Copper Canyon Ranch, LLC

Copper Canyon Ranch is located 15 minutes north of Hopkinsville, KY. Owners Carole and Tim Emery have built the CCR from the ground up for over two decades. Starting with prop style store fronts, they have worked their way into a fully built western town complete with furnishings, props, etc. Many films have been made here.We have Movie set tours. We host many types of events and are open daily for tours and pony rides.

Daily walk-through tours start at only $5.00 per person. Pony rides are $5.00 per person. Other events are priced according to the number of people/events,activities.

Website of Wartrace Regulators - Cowboy Action Shooters:

http://www.wartraceregulators.com/

Writeup about the 2012 Watertown Train Robbery by one of the Wartrace Regulators:

http://wartracecowboys.blogspot.com/2012/05/2012-watertown-train-robbery.html

If you have any questions or want more information just let me know. I'm on the organizing committee for the Train Robbery and can answer most questions in detail.

On the general topic of how bad it was during the Old West days, if you have read any science fiction of the post-Apocalypse/collapse-of-civilization sort, the characters in those stories have no electricity, no running water, little or no medicine, shortage of food, etc. which pretty much describes a lot of late-1800's life, especially on the frontier.

 

[tonyb]

This has piqued my curiosity.

Any recommendations for good reads on this matter? Surely something that so pervades the popular imagination has been the subject of many an essay, no? Volumes, I'd think.

Studies of the Wild West as it actually was could be endlessly interesting, as could examinations of the WW as imagineered by the entertainment industry, and what that all means to our sense of ourselves and how we got where we are.

So what was it? About 50 years of the "real" Wild West, with only about 20 of those a "golden era." And 130 years of Wild West shows of one sort or another. The latter is, in its way, more "real" than the former.

 

[rjb1]

The Old West - even when it wasn't old - had a dramatic quality to it that captured the world's imagination. It's hard to believe, but Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack Omohundro had a stage show that they presented back East in 1872(!) about the "Wild West". Wild Bill Hickok joined them in the show in 1873. Remember that Custer's Last Stand was in 1876, so they had their stage show going on while the real Wild West was still Wild.
At a later time, but still almost in the Wild West era, Thomas Edison made the first Western film, "The Great Train Robbery" in 1903. There is no way of knowing how many cinematic descendants that movie has (all over the world).
Having done a fair amount of research on the subject, the difference between the Western movies and Western reality are almost amusing. Cowboys, with rare exception, didn't fight either Indians or Outlaws. They herded and tended cows... Almost no one wore "cowboy hats" of the type that John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Matt Dillon wore. That style was almost totally a creation of the movies, later inherited by TV.

Like movies, there are a huge number of books on the subject, but one in particular has stood out for me - "The Frontier Years" - written by and about the town photographer of Miles City, Montana in the latter 1800's. It's about him since it was written a long time after his death, but also by him since the book contains long excerpts from letters he wrote to his father back East about goings-on in the town. Miles City was the next town down the road from Deadwood, SD, and what is amazing is that some his descriptions of people and events in Miles City would fit right into an episode of "Deadwood", the TV show. So much so that I have wondered if the "Deadwood" writers read that book as background research for the show.
To buy "The Frontier Years":
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=11234319175&searchurl=tn=the+frontier+years&sts=t

 

[tonyb]

Thanks. I just bought the book for a buck, plus $2.46 shipping.

I got enough of the romantic in me to find wondrous and beautiful things in that place in that era -- things that existed right alongside much genuine ugliness.

At this point in my life, I question whether I'm suited for living anywhere but the American West. I'm thoroughly urbanized, but I'm most comfortable knowing I can be out in those wide-open spaces after an hour or so in the car.

 

[Stearmen]

This will interest a few of you! Fast draw was the invention of Hollywood, most gunslingers would have been considered very slow on the draw. http://www.fastdraw.org/fd_holsterhist.html

 

[tonyb]

Been reading a page or three of the Miles City book every now and then. (It's on the coffee table.) Seems that those Wild West frontier towns went from tent encampments to collections rough-hewn log structures to wood frame buildings to brick commercial districts, all within a few years. Turns out that people preferred civilization.

 

[rrod572]

Tony et al., This might be of interest http://sassnet.com/, they are re-enactors in their own right with an emphasis on the firearms of the era and shooting at competitions.