Some common Hollywood myths were dispelled too.  Most shootouts were cowardly acts when one man would shoot another in the back instead of face-to-face in the streets.  Many communities out in the West were armed camps of former Civil War soldiers that weren’t afraid to gun down outlaws that entered their towns.  Often the lawmen had a higher body count than the outlaws they faced.  And most saloons were more like holes-in-the-wall than grand gambling and drinking palaces shown in the movies.  And the prostitutes sometimes did as much to prevent trouble in towns as the sheriffs did because they were able to relieve sexual tension that often made men rowdy when they entered towns; especially if they came into town after delivering a herd of cattle to the stock yard. 

A hot bath, a cold beer, a good meal, and a friendly woman were sometimes all that a cowboy needed after receiving his pay to be satisfied.  Some of the friendly women they kept company with were old enough to be their mothers since so many cowboys were just that; not much older than boys.  Driving cattle was for young men who were willing to work out in the rain, keep hundreds of heads of cattle from stampeding and often being trampled to death when they weren’t successful, eating beans and bacon washed down with coffee that was sometimes disgusting sludge or more like brown water toward the end of the trail, and face many dangers as they drove cattle.  Sometimes having a warm naked body beside them in bed was the greatest reward some seasoned cowboys could receive.  Others were satisfied for just the bed after sleeping on the ground for weeks. 

People saw the fight for black freedom out West and what was done to blacks in Lawrence, Kansas on August 21, 1863 when William Quantrill and his raiders which included Frank James and both Cole and his brother James Younger which would after the Civil War form the James-Younger Gang with the inclusion of Jesse James and the Ford brothers attacked the town and burnt it to the ground.  Around 200 people were slaughtered that day and there could have been more killed if a detachment of Union soldiers hadn’t been spotted during the attack. 

People almost felt like they were going down the Colorado River with John Powell and his group in 1869 and celebrated when the last spike was hammered into the tie where the rails joined that linked the East Coast with the West Coast at Pomontory Summit, Utah that same year.  And with Wyoming allowing women to vote in December of that year, the women of Newgate celebrated too that their sisters were finally able to do something women in Newgate had been able to do from the very beginning of the city when it was just an interdimensional shift destination. 

Even the Phantom of the Union Pacific was seen during many of his assignments.  He didn’t see the camera crews since they were in an adjacent dimension.  But he had a feeling that he was being watched.  He didn’t need to worry about anyone from Newgate bringing him back to New York though.  The viewers loved having Ferd Trentlon and his friend Jarms Millain doing so well out West. 

The program may have ended same-day coverage of what went on west of the Mississippi in 1917.  But repeats of the highlights of the series are still seen from 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM Monday through Saturday mornings as it has been since 1936; a century after it began.  The first program of the truncated series began on March 6, 1936 with the attack by Santa Anna on the Alamo a century after the battle. 

If you want to learn more about the Old West and you are in Newgate, watch “The Real West” every Monday through Saturday morning from 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM or go to the Newgate Public Library and ask for EPU programs about Western history so you can experience how it was.  If you want to separate myth and legend from reality, watch “The Real West.”