“Blaize away! You’re a daisy if you have (Roberts, Doc Holliday, the Earp’s Strangest Ally). This is just one of Doc Holliday’s famous lines. Doc had a very interesting life, from the time of his dentistry career, to his gambling days with the Earp brothers. He will continue to be a legendary character for helping make the West livable. Doc Holliday wasn’t just a dentist; he was a gun-slinging gambler who helped the Earps tame the Wild West (SV;SV).
Doc had a tough life. He had a disease known as tuberculosis, which affects the respiratory system. In this period of time Tuberculosis wasn’t treatable and often caused death. Along with his partying habits, it is what caused Doc’s death at only 36 years old (Osinki). He could have probably lived longer than he did, if he would have listened to his doctors and friends and, by getting rest and giving up his drinking and gambling lifestyle. But Doc wouldn’t change his habits, even with his life on the line. Even with tuberculosis Doc was one of the few educated people in the West (Barra). He graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872 (Holliday, Doc). People probably didn’t go to Doc for their oral hygiene because he constantly coughed due to his disease. For some reason, Doc wasn’t content with being a dentist; so he started to gamble for a living.
Holliday probably could have made a living as a dentist; however, he discovered that he could make more money by gambling throughout the West (SV; conj. Adverb, SV). Along with his “girlfriend” Kate Elder, Doc drifted around from place to place: Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Nevada, Arizona (SV: A,B,C) ( Holliday, Doc). Doc Holliday didn’t get along with others; he wasn’t trusted by many of the people...
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...West a better place to live. After they went down in history for their battle at the O.K. Corral, Doc Holliday finally met his match, his tuberculosis was the death of him.
Works Cited
Roberts, L, Gary..”Doc Holldiay, the Earps’ Strangest Ally.” Wild West. 01 Oct. 2006: 42. eLibrary. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
Barra, Allen. “Tombstone Blues; O.K.; the Corral, the Earps, and Doc Holliday: A novel by Paul West, Los Angeles Times: 9. May 21, 2000. ProQuest. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
Roberts, L, Gary..” Brothers of the Gun, Wyatt and Doc.” Wild West. 25.4: 28-35. Academic Search Premier Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Osinki, Bill. “Main Street with every telling of the story of the OK Corral.” The Atlanta Journal the Atlanta Constitution. July 1997: G, 3:1 Web.
“Holliday, Doc.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2014. Web. 27. Feb. 2014.
Ellsworth was mean, and it was ugly. The stench of the its streets fell second to the odor of the unbathed saddle tramps who had just delivered 150,000 cattle from San Antonio to its freight yards. Adding to these smells were the blends of whisky, tanning leather, kerosene and carved carcasses, a revolting combination. Gunfights were spontaneous, either over a woman or a card game. When Wyatt crossed the Smoky Hill River into Ellsworth in 1873, he may have remembered the "rules of the gunman," but had no intention of employing them. The two main “rules of a gunman” were to take his time and always be armed. Although many people had warned him that it would be naive to go westward without being properly armed, Wyatt didn’t own a gun. All he hoped for was to find a peaceable job. But, only hours after hitching his horse in town he began to wonder if perhaps everyone was right. The most boisterous spot in town was Brennan’s Saloon, off Ellsworth Square; its faro and poker tables buzzed 24 hours, bartenders tapped beer and ...
Monroy, Douglas. Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California . 1990.
John was a good dentist, but shortly after starting his practice, he discovered that he had contracted tuberculosis. Although he consulted a number of doctors, the consensus of all was that he had only months to live. However, they all concurred that he might add a few months to his life if he moved to a dry climate. Following this advice, Doc packed up and headed West. His first stop was in Dallas, Texas, the end of the railroad at the time.
Set in the Texas Panhandle in 1883 about the events of a strike that took place at old Tascosa, The Day the Cowboys Quit is a historical fictional phenomenon written by the award-winning western novelist, Elmer Kelton. Born in a place called Horse Camp of the Five Well Ranch and being a native Texas, Kelton was an American journalist and writer is widely regarded as the Greatest Western Writer of all time by the Western Writers of America, Inc. He has written over 50 western novels and this being one of them. The Day the Cowboys Quit is based on the true events of cowboy strikes in 1883. Set against the Great Canadian River Cowboy Strike of 1883, the novel shows us the evil side of wealthy cattle owner who exploited and stigmatized cowboys. Kelton plops us down in the middle of a great social reshaping, where the rough and ready cattlemen are being forced into a
Graham, Don. "The Secret History." Texas Monthly nd December 2002: 1-5. Web. 3 May 2014. .
On June 25, 1876, The Battle of Little Bighorn took place near the Black Hills in Montana. This was one of the most controversial battles of the 20th century and the line between good guys and bad guys was grey at best. Gen. George Armstrong Custer (reduced to LTC after the civil war) had 366 men of the 7thU.S. Cavalry under his command that day. Sitting Bull (A Medicine Man) led 2000 braves of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes (Klos, 2013). At the conclusion of the battle, the stories of the Indians savagery were used to demonize their culture and there were no survivors from the 7thcavalry to tell what really happened.
The gunfight at the ok Corral started and ended in thirty violent seconds, but, it must have felt like thirty minutes to the fighters. Eight people were ready to fight. On one side were Wyatt, his brothers and Doc Holliday. On the other side were the Clantons and their gang of Cowboys (horse thieves and cattle rustlers of the time). They all had no intention of being disarmed. Frank McLaury, a Cowboy, had the best aim of the group. He was shot by Wyatt and was the first to die. Everybody started fighting. In the end, almost all the cowboys died, Ike Clanton begged for his life and was thrown in jail. Morgan Earp was shot in the shoulder. Virgil Earp was shot in the leg. Doc was shot in the hip. Only Wyatt came out unharmed.
	Few gunmen in history have been as notorious as the late John"Doc" Holliday. Part of the reason Doc has enjoyed such a famedhistory is because of the overall descent man he was, that is when hewasn’t gambling, drinking, and gunslinging. When Doc died he mighthave had a handkerchief, a pocket knife, a deck of poker cards, a flaskhalf full of whiskey, and a small essay entitled "My Friend DocHolliday" by Wyatt Earp.
On March 10, 1892 the Billings Gazette reported, “The opening of spring may be more red than green for the horse thieves and cattle thieves of Johnson County” (Brash, 143). The writer of the article could little have known how truthful their premonition would prove to be. The late 1800’s were turbulent times in the West. Large tracts of publicly held range ground would be at the center of Wyoming’s very own civil war. Gil Bollinger, author and western researcher, reports that by the 1870’s and 1880’s fencing of land to enclose both crops and water sources was common (Bollinger, 81). This practice, however, was still illegal according to the federal government. In 1877, the United States Government sued Swan Land and Cattle Company, in an effort to set an example that all fences on open range must come down (Bollinger, 81). The fencing of lands was a major problem, as agricultural producers needed open access to the limited resources, especially water. Johnson County, in northern Wyoming, was an agricultural nucleus for cattle and sheep producers who knew the lush grass and good water supply would greatly benefit their operations. Since fencing was illegal, these resources were available to everyone. Cattle operators, large and small alike, ran their livestock loose and participated in large roundups once a year where all the cattle were branded. Slick calves, called mavericks, were often unrightfully claimed. Lack of fencing made any free ranging livestock available to whoever was devious enough to take them (Smith, 25).
The West: From Lewis and Clark and Wounded Knee: The Turbulent Story of the Settling of Frontier America.
The image of the cowboy as Jennifer Moskowitz notes in her article “The Cultural Myth of the Cowboy, or, How the West was Won” is “uniquely
The cowboy hero, The Virginian, as portrayed in Owen Wister’s novel was the first of his kind and today is known as the stereotypical mythic cowboy figure which our view of the western frontier are based from. The Virginian was the first full length western novel apart from the short dime novels which marked the final stage in the evolution of the cowboy hero to a national icon. The Virginian was published in 1902 and at that time was wildly popular because of the settlement of the west. The story of the cowboy who had the skill and courage to take control of the untamed frontier enthralled people. The cowboy hero had a few distinguished qualities, he was a self-appointed vigilante, he had a very strict moral code, he had exceptional perception skills and he had the ability to adapt. Owen Wister’s The Virginian was the first to portray these qualities and really created a deeper cowboy character.
Jones, Preston Neal. “Robinson, Edward G. (1893-1973).” St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Ed. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. Vol. 4. St. James Press, 2000. 229-230. Gale Biography in Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2011.
his family to pursue a life of gambling. The fact that the son prefers a short,
Goldberg, Herbert S. Father of Medicine, Lincoln, NB 1963, 2006 Authors Choice Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.