Don’t move for a job until you meet the locals
Taming the Wild West
Wild West Week
It was a sweltering day in the middle of July in El Dorado, Texas, a town so wild that the worst scoundrels of the Wild West steered clear lest they find themselves in fixes they can’t escape. We’re talking streets paved with lead from the bullets that didn’t hit their mark, and there were lots of bullets El Dorado could use to pave since the town scheduled showdowns at every quarter hour from High Dawn to High Midnight, and bystanders frequently contributed six shots to the fight too.
Saloons replaced their windows, doors, tables, chairs, piano and piano player twice daily — after the noon shift and after the bar closed down at dawn. As for churches, the closest a preacher ever came to El Dorado was the Navajo shaman who traded deer hides for liquor.
On that sweltering day in the middle of July in El Dorado, Jessie James’ gang rode into town on bulls, shooting up the street with Winchester rifles in each hand. Not the notorious Jesse James gang, but Jessie James whose gang was so bad with guns they mostly killed bystanders, albeit El Dorado bystanders who were gamblers, hookers, grifters, rustlers and drunks. The gang tied their horses in front of the Busted Nut Saloon, swaggered inside and shot the customers between drinks.
