Mark Warren's Blog: Mark Warren Blog - Posts Tagged "old-west"

Ten years before I was born, my grandfather had been the sheriff of Fulton County, Georgia.

As a young boy of five, I knew him simply as the tall, white-haired man who helped me to know I was loved in this world. By then he was serving in our modest town of College Park as a city councilman, though I had no idea what that meant, even when – on a rare occasion – I accompanied him to one of those meetings. He always dressed in a white shirt and blue-gray tie, black suit and vest with a silver pocketwatch chain that hung in an arc across his belly. The most memorable item among his daily accoutrements was a roll of dollar bills he always carried in his trouser pocket. That wad of money was almost the size of a coffee mug. Every now and then – on a special occasion, like a birthday or holiday – he peeled off one of those bills and slipped it my way. Something a child never forgets.

As much as I loved him, in my 6th year something changed that caused me to look more closely at who he was. I had checked out a book from my elementary school library and read the so-called “biography” of Wyatt Earp. The story reached down inside me and gripped my soul as no story ever had before. Why? Courage has always fascinated me, and whether or not it was courage or lack of fear (two very different ideas) that governed Wyatt Earp’s actions, he had my attention.

When I showed the book to my grandfather, he walked me back into his bedroom – a twilit place I had seldom visited – and stood me before a chest of drawers. Sliding open the second-from-the-top drawer he lifted out a bronze-colored Colt .45. It was the Bisley model, the last Colt’s to retain any similarity to the “Peacemakers” of the Old West. Next he lifted out a gold shield – the one he had worn as sheriff. From that moment on, that dusky bedroom became for me a time machine.

After that brief glimpse into the not so distant past, every time I visited my grandparents’ home, my mission was set. Once my mother and her parents were preoccupied with conversation I worked at becoming anonymous, eventually slinked away to the back of the house and entered that semi-dark room. There in the dead quiet I carefully pulled open the drawer on my own, rose up on my toes, and peered down at the relics. That’s how it all began for me.

Not only was I interested, I was connected.
Mark Warren The Long Road to Legend

In 1955, when The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp appeared on the television screen, I already considered myself an historian. I watched the show not as a kid craving a Western but as an impassioned analyst who wanted to see what they got right in the stories. By then I had several times devoured Stuart Lake’s 1931 book, Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal, which was the only published Earp biography written by someone who had actually sat down to interview Wyatt before he died. Lake was the historical consultant for the TV series. Every Tuesday night at 8:30 pm I filled my one-TV-program-a-week quota set by my parents, watching the show, each time staying with the credits to the end to see my favorite entry: “Historical Consultant, Stuart Lake.”

One thing I learned very early in my career: No matter how introverted or private you are … tell people about your passion. A case in point. When I was 10 years old, one afternoon – to my surprise – I was summoned to the home of the neighborhood witch. I had no idea why. I’d never seen the inside of her house. When I left her strange-smelling parlor and reentered the normal world of sunshine and birdsong I carried in my hand a magazine I would never have known existed. Inside its covers was a grand article on Wyatt Earp. This was the first of many papers that would fill boxes containing all-things-Earp.

When I was 12, a girl 4 years my elder called me on the phone. (This in itself was unheard of – a teenaged girl calling me.) Her father was a pilot. She told me, “You’re going to need to get down to the airport and wait at the Delta entrance. Hugh O’Brian is coming through town. Daddy says you should be there at 20 till 1. Can you get there?”

After a stunned moment of silence my reply must have sounded desperate. “I’ll get there!”

My good mother knew what this meant to me. She told me to get in the car, and off we went. There I stood alone outside the airport entrance as my mother idled in the waiting line of cars nearby. There was no one else waiting but me. At a quarter to 1, a big black limo pulled up and out stepped TV’s Wyatt Earp in a dark suit similar to the ones my father wore to work. Forcing myself into action I stepped forward and introduced myself. He shook my hand and smiled. Then I heard myself say, “Can I help you carry your bags?”

He had plenty of help, but he picked out an appropriately sized briefcase and handed it to me. It was a gracious move. Hugh O’Brian was known to take a personal interest in the man he portrayed, so we walked the long corridor side by side and talked the entire time about some of the decisions Wyatt Earp had made – most notably – the killing of Frank Stillwell, who had assassinated one of Wyatt’s brothers and maimed another. I was impressed with Mr. O'Brian's knowledge. At the departing gate I surrendered the luggage and we shook hands again. Then I retraced my steps down the long terminal to find my mother. That long walk back "alone" seemed somehow important to me, and I think my mother had anticipated that.
Mark Warren

The Long Road to LegendMost of the aficionados of Western history whom I have met, kick-started their passions for all things Western by watching television in the 1950s and 60s. There is no doubt that the “Era of the TV Western” had a profound influence on all of us who grew up in those decades. Around half a dozen Western series aired each night. Overall, about 140 Westerns debuted on the small screen in those 20 years.

Movie makers followed suit. The terms “Saturday matinee” and “Western” went hand in hand. It’s hard for modern youth to understand how that flood of Western entertainment inundated us, taught us about character, and helped to shape who we are now. The Western was then what the world of mystical fantasy is now to our present culture’s youth.

It seems that a milestone in the transition was Star Wars, which, interestingly, was considered by many to be a “Western in space.” Then followed everything else that sealed the genre of magic and mystery: Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, all the super-heroes (Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, etc.) That’s a very glittery world for the Western to compete with. It’s like trying to pull a child’s attention away from a computer game to show him/her the grandeur of a spider web or a century-old oak.

One thing that must be said for our TV Western-influenced years is that the information was, at least loosely, based upon history. It was connected to something real in our American past. Maybe Matt Dillon was not a historical character, but his demeanor and interactions with the townfolk of 1870’s Dodge City taught us something about the people who inhabited that time and place. The same cannot be said for Lord of the Rings and Spiderman. As impressive as movies like this are, we’re not connected to them by the roots of our past.

The big glitch for us came when we discovered that Hollywood had delivered up its own version of the West. We thought we knew Wyatt Earp, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett, but we were given a sanitized version of these real life characters for the sake of providing heroes whom we could emulate.

Those of us who pursued more about our American frontier history (beyond the small- and big-screen) soon found out that we had been duped. There was no “code of the West” that insisted a lawman allow the outlaw to draw his gun first. In fact, there were hardly ever face-downs on the street in which two antagonists met with guns holstered. (That’s one of the reasons the OK Corral fight is so celebrated.)

The struggle between Indians and white men was more than a story of a supreme trespass. Though founded upon the specious rationalizations of Manifest Destiny, it became much more complicated and gruesome on both sides. But that’s not how it was presented to us through film.

All of this is to say that, for most of us, our love of the West was born out of fiction. It was the writers who started the trend of exaggeration: Walter Noble Burns, Stuart Lake, Frank Wilstach, Ash Upson, etc. Most of us probably agree that the true history of Western heroes is far more interesting than the fiction that was introduced to us. And so, many of us feel a natural resentment toward the mythmakers and swear off anything that smells of fiction.

But I am here to tell you that fiction has a place in telling the truth. If you visit a Western museum and admire the renditions of paintings of the great Western artists (think: Edgar Paxson’s Custer’s Last Fight), you might feel your love for this history enhanced by the visual brush strokes. But you’re looking at a fiction. The scene was made up or interpreted by an artist. It’s not a photograph.

If you enjoy paging through a colorful book by artist Bob Boze Bell—on Earp, Holliday, Bonney, Hickok, or Geronimo—you’re getting a good historical timeline, wonderful paintings and sketches, and a heavy dose of facts, but you’re still looking at a fictional image. As much as Mr. Bell might adhere to the best-known data, he delivers up a visual interpretation using artistic creativity. For example, we don’t know for certain how the participants were posed at any given moment in the streetfight behind the OK Corral in Tombstone. (We don’t even know with certainty how “the ball opened.”) You’re seeing Mr. Bell’s version of it. We may know that Tom McLaury’s blouse was blue and Doc Holliday’s overcoat gray, but what about Ike Clanton’s boots and Morgan Earp’s hat? As dedicated as Mr. Bell is to history, his creative juices flow to fill in the gaps, so that you can enjoy seeing the dramatic moment. And O how we love to see those drawings and paintings rendered. We pore over them as if looking through a time machine.

This is exactly what a writer of historical fiction supplies. With his/her palette of words, the writer fills in the picture, creating colors, sounds, tastes, and smells. Such a writer allows the reader to feel the sun on the protagonist’s back. To sense danger. To feel relaxed, angry, or afraid. If the author has devoted enough time to the research, he/she begins to absorb the psychology of the characters and can make an admirable stab at exposing the inner thoughts of the real people who fascinate us a century and a half later.

Reading a stellar historical novel introduces emotion to the story. In fact, I believe that it’s similar to adding a musical score to a motion picture. Pull out your favorite DVD and watch a pivotal scene with the volume muted. Then go back and watch again with its accompanying score. (Writing music and writing a novel have more in common than you might think.) The emotion evoked by this added device (music) gets you more involved in the story. It gets you invested. Puts you in a mood. It helps you appreciate more the history that you thought you already knew.

Granted, there are some writers who don’t do adequate research; therefore, they churn out books of questionable value. How do we cull them out? Word of mouth among WWHA members is one way. For another, look into the author’s background and research. It can reveal a lot. Where did they get their material? Whose research are they relying on? We who crave the “truth” about history—or at least the current culture’s take on it—are familiar with the present-day leaders of research. (A list of their names would read like a speakers’ agenda at a WWHA seminar.)

Here are two suggestions for good reads. Try The Frontiersman by Allan Eckert. Enjoy that one and watch your interest level in the 18 – 19 century Ohio River Valley begin to emerge. Find a copy of Hanta Yo by Ruth Hill. It could change forever the way you think about the Dakotah and other plains tribes.

I wonder if other WWHA members would be willing to share the titles of historical novels that have meant a lot to them. This would be a good introductory reading list for you if you would like to see how this genre can enhance your understanding of history.

(This blog post originally appeared as a guest blog on the WWHA website. To find out more about the Wild West History Association, or to join, check out their website at https://wildwesthistory.org.)