When one thinks of the Wild West, they usually think of places like Lincoln County, New Mexico, Tombstone, Arizona, or Deadwood, South Dakota. They don’t usually think of Missouri, considering it to be the mid-west, instead of the gateway to the west. For much of the 19th century however, Missouri was the west, and many names that passed into the myths and histories of the wild west have connections with our state. Jesse James was a Missouri native, Ike Clanton was born in Callaway County, and Wyatt Earp began his checkered career as a lawman in Lamar. But there was another man whose name and legend would grow in the annals of the American West, a man who inspired the high-noon duels of Hollywood westerns, enjoyed and encouraged the ever-growing myths invoked in dime novels about him, and a man who still appears from time to time in pop-culture and finds portrayal in modern mediums, and that man would begin to make a name for himself… in the Show-Me.