Wild Bill Hickok Mural, Abilene, Kansas Playing Cards

"Wild Bill Hickok Mural, Abilene, Kansas" by Catherine Sherman. A mural of "Will Bill" Hickok is emblazoned on the side of a building in Abilene, Kansas. Hickok became marshall of Abilene on April 15, 1871, replacing the previous marshall who was killed five months earlier. Hickok was relieved of his duties as marshal less than two months after accidentally killing Deputy Williams, this incident being only one of a series of questionable shootings and claims of misconduct. Abilene is more closely associated with U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who grew up in Abilene. I first learned of Hickok while visiting Deadwood, South Dakota, with my family as a young child. My father was born in Deadwood and grew up in Sturgis. I hadn't realized that Hickok had spent so much time in Kansas and I only knew him as a gambler who'd been shot from behind in a Deadwood saloon. Gold is what lured Hickok to Deadwood, as it enticed one of my great grandfathers to the town in 1883. James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his work across the frontier as a drover, wagon master, soldier, spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor. Hickok was born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois at a time when lawlessness and vigilante activity were occurring because of the influence of the "Banditti of the Prairie". Hickok was drawn to this ruffian lifestyle and headed west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, working as a stagecoach driver and later as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought and spied for the Union Army during the American Civil War and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler. Over the course of his life, he was involved in several notable shoot-outs. In 1855, at age 18, James Hickok fled his home state of Illinois following a fight with Charles Hudson, during which both fell into a canal (each thought, mistakenly, that he had killed the other). Hickok moved to Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory, where he joined "General" Jim Lane's Free State Army (also known as the Jayhawkers), a vigilante group active in the new territory. While a Jayhawker, he met 12-year-old William Cody (later known as Buffalo Bill), who despite his youth served as a scout just two years later for the U.S. Army during the Utah War. Hickok's notorious career took him all over the Midwest, where he was on both sides of the law. In 1857, he claimed a 160-acre tract in Johnson County, Kansas, where I live now, though I don't know what he did with it, as he was soon off to other adventures. He even teamed up with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Despite his history of boasting and tall tales, Hickok did not enjoy acting, and often hid behind scenery. In one show he shot the spotlight when it focused on him. He was fired from the group after a few months. In 1876, Hickok was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota) by Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler. The hand of cards which he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pair, aces and eights.