Legends of the Old West - TEXAS JACK Ep. 4 | “Disaster, East and West”

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

The successful partnership of Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill ends on good terms, but shock and sadness await both men as the historic summer of 1876 unfolds. After the disaster at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Army calls the scouts back to the West to help chase Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Then Bill and Jack receive word of the murder of their famous friend in Deadwood. Then, for Texas Jack, disaster strikes in the East when a crisis erupts at the World’s Fair that threatens his new business venture. For the full story of Texas Jack, check out Matthew Kerns’ book! Texas Jack: America’s First Cowboy Star Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In early October 1871, a small fire started in or near a barn that belonged to the O'Leary family on the southwest side of Chicago. to the O'Leary family on the southwest side of Chicago. Thanks to the hot, dry, windy conditions, that small blaze soon built into a roaring inferno. Over the course of three days, the fire destroyed three square miles of the city. It killed 300 people, burned 17,000 structures, and left 100,000 people homeless. It became known as the Great Chicago Fire for good reason. One month later, a similar fire ravaged Boston. So, four years after those fires, the city of Philadelphia had a problem. After the devastating fires in Chicago and Boston, Philadelphia outlawed the construction of wooden structures leading up to the centennial celebrations. But millions of tourists wanted to visit the World's Fair in the spring and summer

of 1876, and there weren't enough hotel rooms in the city to hold them all. So, the city council determined that the need to provide adequate housing outweighed fire concerns. They considered several applications to build wood-framed structures on Elm Avenue near the park's entrance and eventually granted three. One of those was for Texas Jack's new Western-themed hotel. The two-story Hunter's home was a combination of a hotel, saloon, and shooting gallery. It had room for just over 100 patrons at a time. In addition to investing his money in the establishment, Jack sent many of his own

weapons and trappings of frontier life. Patrons could fire Texas Jack's guns at the indoor shooting gallery before retiring to the saloon that was well-stocked with wines, lagers, and whiskeys. to the saloon that was well-stocked with wines, lagers, and whiskeys. It was right across from the entrance to the fairgrounds, and newspaper readers as far away as San Francisco read descriptions like this. The saloon of Texas Jack, the hunter's home, with many life-size wood cuts of Texas Jack pasted on the walls. Texas Jack, rifle in hand. Texas Jack, swinging the riots. Inside sits an Indian woman in a brilliant red costume adorned with beads and furs. Outside is a burly Indian, still more brilliant in red leggings, hunting shirt, and headdress of feathers. On the curb, another Indian, more glaring still in red, silently offering beadwork for sale.

It sounded like Texas Jack transplanted a little bit of the West to Philadelphia as an unofficial exhibit at the World's Fair. It was a smashing success until September 9, 1876, when visitors at the World's Fair noticed smoke drifting up from the area around the park's entrance. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling a six-part anthology about the famous cowboy, scout, and stage performer, Texas Jack Omohundro. This is Episode 4, Disaster, East and West. In June of 1876, Texas Jack had just finished his final tour on stage with his old friend Buffalo Bill Cody. Jack and his wife, Jessapina Morlocki, hurried to Philadelphia to open the hotel. The World's Fair had been underway for more than a month, and the summer travel season was already upon them.

The excitement, both good and bad, started fast. Texas Jack was in court at the end of June after a man was arrested for stealing a, quote, silver-mounted barking iron from the hotel. That was otherwise known as a pistol. While Jack was tied up in court, his wife was busy entertaining at a local theater with performances of The Black Crook. Buffalo Bill was also in Philadelphia and came to stay at Jack's hotel, leading newspapers to speculate that the Native Americans were cast members for their next play. Jack was prepared to spend a long summer in Philadelphia tending to his hotel. He and Jessapina purchased a home a few blocks away from the fairgrounds.

Then, just as the nation celebrated its centennial, news hit the front pages of nearly every newspaper in the country. When Jack picked up the July 6th edition of the Philadelphia Times, he read this headline, An Indian Massacre. Custer's Command Cut to Pieces. cut to pieces. The 7th Cavalry had attempted a surprise attack against overwhelming opposition by Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors at the Little Bighorn River, and Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was dead. Texas Jack had fought against soldiers in Custer's command back on the battlefields of Virginia in the last years of the Civil War, and had hunted alongside Custer on the expedition with the Grand Duke of Russia several years earlier. Newspaper reporters interviewed Texas Jack, and he said,

General Custer trusted too much to his own dash and too little to his Indian scouts. Jack also said, the Sioux are, with perhaps the exception "'of the Comanches, the bravest Indians on the plains.'" With the Army now in full pursuit of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, everything changed. Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill couldn't spend the summer in Philadelphia when an Indian war was raging out west.

Both men offered their services to the Army, and both were back in buckskins, trading their lives as stage scouts for the real thing. Buffalo Bill served as a scout for Colonel Wesley Merritt of the 5th Cavalry, and Texas Jack joined General Alfred Terry and the remnants of the 7th Cavalry. Texas Jack was happy to return to scouting duty, even if it meant taking a hands-off approach to running his hotel. But while Buffalo Bill was in the thick of the action fighting and

killing a Cheyenne warrior named Yellow Hair, Texas Jack was stuck on a steamboat with General Terry. As far as Jack was concerned, Terry was far too cautious. Jack complained to one reporter, None of us could comprehend the meaning of any of the movements we made, and everything was kept very secret. It is the first campaign in which I could never make out the object of any movement. Perhaps if I knew the object, that might explain them, but as it was, the Indians might have roamed around for twenty years and lived comfortably. They, the army, made no use of the scouts to any purpose, while among the Indians, spies were watching us from every hilltop and were in no danger of being caught unless they wished to be.

Jack's frustrations about General Terry's inability to find the huge camps of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were echoed by more than a few soldiers on the expedition. A captain who helped defend Reno Hill while it was under siege by warriors during the Battle of the Little Bighorn famously joked about Terry's follow-up mission. The captain said, As the Sioux have failed to find us, we are going home. As the Sioux have failed to find us, we are going home. The only action Jack saw during the campaign was helping save a wounded deserter on the Yellowstone River and dodging a hail of arrows from the steamer Josephine. Jack was used to tracking and fighting and working,

and was increasingly frustrated at being confined to riverboats while waiting for General Terry to determine a course of action. As the campaign wound down and Jack's boat reached port, he was surprised to meet his old friend Buffalo Bill on the docks. Contrary to Jack's experience, Cody had led an exciting few months culminating in his duel with Yellowhair. Finding himself in hand-to-hand combat with the warrior, Cody had killed an exciting few months, culminating in his duel with Yellow Hair. Finding himself in hand-to-hand combat with the warrior, Cody had killed the man, removed his scalp, raised it above his head, and yelled, the first scalp for Custer. By the time he met Jack that day, Cody had already packaged the scalp and sent it to his wife for safekeeping.

He planned on using it on his wife for safekeeping. He planned on using it on stage during his next tour. Cody probably expected Texas Jack and his wife to join him. They had been partners for every dramatic tour so far, and Buffalo Bill loved having his best friend by his side on stage. But Jack still had his hotel in Philadelphia to tend to, and he had agreed to go on another long hunt, this time with a British nobleman named Sir John Ray Reid.

The two men shook hands and parted as friends, but not before sharing their grief over a loss they both suffered that summer. At the beginning of August, while Jack was racing north to join General Terry on the Yellowstone River, Wild Bill Hickok was murdered in Deadwood. Hickok had recently married. Unhappy with life as an actor and unable to return to his career as a lawman because of his failing eyesight, Wild Bill was making a last attempt at earning a fortune. He partnered with Charlie Utter and headed to the Black Hills. His wife was relatively wealthy, but Wild Bill was old-fashioned. Living on his wife's money was contrary to his ideas of honor and decency. Wild Bill told Charlie Utter that he felt like Deadwood

might be his last camp. Hickok had long been paranoid that someone with a vendetta, a death wish, or a longing to go down in history as the man who gunned down Wild Bill would come for him. On August 1st, Hickok was gambling at Nuttall and Mann's Saloon No. 10. Jack McCall, who had lost to Wild Bill in an earlier game, walked in, drew his revolver, and fired it into the back of Wild Bill's head. Hickok was dead before he hit the table. McCall screamed, take that, damn you, and backed out of the room before anyone could react. It was a cowardly and brutal murder, said Texas Jack. Yet all of us border men are continually in such danger. It is only a question of time when we must yield to that common fate, to become the marks of some cowardly bullet or die like men while obeying duty's command. As Texas Jack left Dakota Territory behind him, he must have realized that his life was forever

changed. His old friend Wild Bill was dead. His dramatic partnership with his best friend Buffalo Bill was over. And as he arrived in Philadelphia, he discovered that his problems were only beginning. The number one fear of city planners before the World's Fair was about to happen. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch. And organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify.

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but that didn't mean there weren't other wooden buildings. Enterprising businessmen watching eager visitors thronging to the grounds didn't care about permits. Right after Jack's Hotel was built, the street filled with illegal buildings. These were constructed of wood and erected without permits. The space around the three legal hotels began to be filled with exhibition halls that held huge canvas paintings and exotic animals, and brothels, restaurants, barbershops, and beer halls. The owners of the existing buildings complained to the city, but they were told the offenders would have to be taken to court and told to remove the structures.

Some called the spectacle of Elm Avenue Centennial City. Others called it Shantytown. Whole blocks were full of wooden buildings, each next to the wall of its neighbor. Whole blocks were full of wooden buildings, each next to the wall of its neighbor. Oil lamps and calcium lights in blue, red, green, and white lit up the alleys and entrances. A half a mile of densely packed sidewalk wove between saloons, beer gardens, minstrel shows, shooting galleries, hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Oyster stands stood on every corner, restaurants, and attractions. Oyster stands stood on every corner, as did girls selling fruit, women with baskets of boiled crabs, and men carrying tin ovens holding hot sausages. The whole of Elm Avenue was a powder keg, and every oil lamp, stove, calcium light,

fireplace, and lit cigar was a potential match. And on the afternoon of September 9, 1876, it happened. Thousands of visitors on the grounds of the Centennial Exhibition noticed smoke rising from the park's entrance. Many worried that the main building was on fire. As hundreds rushed toward the gates, they saw flames leaping from the buildings on Elm Avenue just across the street. They saw flames leaping from the buildings on Elm Avenue just across the street. A cook at the Broadway Oyster House was refilling a gasoline stove when fuel, flame, and a moment of carelessness combined with tragic results. The first alarm went out from the Globe Hotel a little after 4 p.m. Philadelphia fire crews had demonstrated their speed the day before by racing steam-powered fire engines down Elm Avenue. But now, with an actual inferno raging, it took 20 minutes to reach the area.

When they plugged their hoses into the nearest fire plug, nothing came out. It was clogged. Some of the firemen tried to clear it out, while others raced toward the next source of water. Fifteen minutes later, a second alarm sounded from the United States Hotel down the block. It was Saturday, and there were now more than 100,000 people crowding the Centennial grounds. Many of them followed the smoke to watch the fire, and they packed the street and made it even harder for the firemen to set up. Police arrived to control the crowds as the flames grew hot enough to scorch the fences around the exhibition grounds. Two of the fire engines that raced to the scene were reserved to battle the flames if they jumped toward the exhibition itself. Buildings were consumed so fast that proprietors only had time to grab their cash boxes and

make a run for it. Valuables and personal belongings were left to the flames. Most of the street was burned beyond recognition, and what wasn't burned was soon demolished by city officials. When Texas Jack returned to Philadelphia, he found his hotel, his weapons, and his fortunes gone. Jack and Jessopina tried to distance themselves from their losses. They returned to their Massachusetts home and made preparations for his upcoming hunt. Sir John Ray Reed III was a British baronet.

His father had been director and then governor of the Bank of England. His grandfather had been director and then governor of the East India Company. The younger Reed had inherited both title and fortune and spent most of his adult life engaged in the pursuit of leisure. Like many other European aristocrats, he had read the Earl of Dunraven's book about his Yellowstone hunt two years earlier and sought out Dunraven's guide, Texas Jack. Jack sped west to meet Reed in Rawlins, Wyoming Territory. The town was the perfect place for

Jack to outfit before heading into the largely unexplored terrain of present-day Wyoming. Reed was accompanied by a cousin, and Jack was joined by another scout named Tom Sun. Sun had served as a government scout based out of Fort Fred Steel and knew the area well. Jack planned to lead his party deep into the heart of what had been Sioux country just a few years earlier. During the time he spent with General Terry, Jack had come to a conclusion. The vast majority of the Sioux had either submitted to the government and returned to the Wounded Knee Reservation, or they had escaped to Canada. Without the Sioux roaming their hunting grounds, wildlife was abundant. Officers at the fort warned Jack's guests that it remained dangerous and unmapped territory, but Jack's

guidance convinced them that the threat was minimal. The group set out from Rollins, and 60 miles to the north came upon a herd of 3,000 elk. A few nights later, a smaller herd stumbled into camp at night, startling mules and horses and sending them running from camp. Jack proved the old adage that you can take the cowboy out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the cowboy. He jumped onto a bronco and gathered the party's animals in the dark without a lantern. The party continued north to Independence Rock, hunting elk and black-tailed deer. The hunt stretched for weeks and then months

as the men hunted deep into December, encountering an abundance of game, few other travelers, and no Sioux. On Christmas Day, with temperatures dropping and snow falling, Sir Reed killed his last elk of the trip, an enormous buck with antlers that measured more than five feet from skull to tip. The hunters preserved the skull and hauled the carcass back to camp, where they roasted elk steaks over the fire for Christmas dinner. Jack and his guests headed south and reached Rollins on New Year's Eve. When the hunt was finished, a Chicago newspaper listed the number of animals killed, 267 elk, 73 black-tailed deer, and a large number of antelope, bear, and various small game. The report prompted a scathing response from a Santa Fe newspaper that called out Jack by name.

We hope the time will come, and that soon, when no newspaper in the United States can, with truth, publish such an item as this. Here are possibly a thousand animals, wantonly slaughtered for the gratification of some English sportsman who, in his own country, would not dare to shoot a rabbit without license. The elk has been nearly obliterated in this country, and the black-tailed deer is scarcer. Yet any foreigner who has more money than humanity is allowed to come here and buy a Texas Jack to lead him to the preserves in order that he may make havoc among them, so that he may go home and boast of his success. If Congress does not soon pass a law stopping this kind of slaughter, there will not be a wild animal native to the country within its bounds half a century hence.

Jack responded to the Santa Fe article by saying his guests were about the most sensible men and best hunters I ever piloted over the plains. They were hunting for trophies more than anything else and didn't kill any game and leave it to rot on the ground. The hunters put the meat to good use. The meat they didn't eat was carefully packed and sent back to Fort Steele to feed the troops during the cold winter. Once the fort was stocked, meat was sent by rail to Omaha,

where it was sold to the poor at half the price of Texas beef. The wild game purchased this way was often the only meat that a poor family could afford. The hunt had been successful, and Texas Jack had enjoyed leaving the frustration of confinement aboard a steamer and the disappointment of his hotel venture behind to trek through the wilderness of the American West. While he had hunted, he had written letters to his wife and two business associates, and he entered a new year with a new goal and a new stage show in mind. Texas Jack spent the rest of the winter with his wife at their home in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Two friends who had become business partners, Donald McKay and John Burke, had both agreed to join him in the spring for his first dramatic tour without Buffalo Bill. It might be easy to assume that Buffalo Bill was the more successful actor, but the truth was that both men were equally positioned for success. Larry McMurtry, the legendary author of Lonesome Dove, noted, when it came to organizing a modern theatrical troupe, Texas Jack for a time pulled ahead. He had, for one thing, his charming wife. Jessapina maintained her star power and the ability to ensure ticket sales that surpassed the

drawing power of both her husband and his friend Bill Cody. While waiting for the spring and the start of his tour, Jack tried his hand as a writer. He began writing letters to sporting periodicals like Forest and Stream and The Field. He told readers about his favorite gun, a Remington rifle he called Lazy Kate. He detailed a hike up Old Baldy, a mountain just south of Virginia City, Montana, that he summited during his hunt with the Earl of Dunraven. Jack and Jessapina were interviewed by a reporter for The Spirit of the Times, a weekly newspaper targeted at upper-class sportsmen with a circulation of around 30,000 subscribers. Jack had advertised his services as a guide in the magazine,

and after his interview, was invited to submit pieces for print. Jack sent letters about his experiences hunting elk on the Sweetwater River in Wyoming and deer in the panhandle of Florida. He described bears breaking into food caches in camps and the relationship between Sioux camps and buffalo herds. He contrasted the wonders of Yellowstone Park with the majesty of Yosemite. The two most important pieces Texas Jack wrote for the Spirit of the Times were a long account of his summer buffalo hunt with the Pawnee in 1872 and his recollections about his time as a Texas cowboy. In 1877, when the piece about being a cowboy was published, it was no great compliment to call a man a cowboy. But Jack's article showed a different side of the profession whose image would someday become more synonymous with America than any other.

In 1877, Dodge City was in its second year as the queen of the Kansas cow towns. Members of the Earp family and the Masterson family patrolled its streets, and to them, the Texas cowboy was the biggest problem in town. In many places, it was an insult to be called a cowboy. During the American Revolution, cowboys, as two separate words, were British loyalists who stole livestock to help feed British troops. In the Old West era, there was no fascination or reverence for the life of a trail-riding herder. America's love story with the cowboy all started with Texas Jack. The era of the

free-range cowboy was over even before Jack wrote these lines. The railroads have now put an end to the old-time trips. The ranch itself and the cattle trade in Texas still flourish in their old-time glory, but are being slowly encroached upon by the modern improvements that will, in the course of time, wipe out the necessity of the open-range cowboy. Jack's piece in the spirit of the times was the first time most readers heard about Mustangs, Broncos, Mavericks, Yearlings, and Stampedes. Jack told his readers about singing cowboys who circled the herd at night, making up verses to calm the wary animals. He described swollen river crossings and cattle running in a panic when thunderstorms broke over the western

plains. He described the life of a cowboy in an authentic vernacular that says as much about him as it does about his life down in Texas. In his colorful, descriptive language, he took readers of the 1870s on a trip to the West for a cattle drive. And he takes modern listeners on a trip back in time. He makes reference to General Albert J. Meyer, who was the father of the U.S. Weather Bureau. Meyer became so synonymous with weather predictions that people started calling him Old Probabilities. In Jack's article, he shortens the nickname to Old Prob. On nights when Old Prob goes on a spree and leaves the bung out of his water barrel above, prowls around with his flashbox, raising a breeze, whispering in tones of thunder, and the cowboy's voice, like the rest of the

outfit, is drowned out, steer clear and prepare for action. Ordinarily so clumsy and stupid-looking, a thousand beef steers can rise like a flock of quail on the roof of an exploding powder mill and will scud away like a tumbleweed before a high wind, with a noise like a receding earthquake. Then comes fun and frolic for the boys. Texas Jack was already a household name with readers of dime novels and theater patrons after his four seasons of touring with Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok. These articles exposed him to an audience of wealthy, upscale sportsmen who had heard of Texas Jack, the guide for the Earl of Dunraven and Sir John Ray Reed, but were now charmed by his folksy charisma.

With a new wave of momentum, Texas Jack headed to New York with his wife and John Burke and Donald McKay to launch a new show and a new tour as the Texas Jack Combination. Next time on Legends of the Old West, Jack returns to the stage, but the next chapter of his life turns out to be the most difficult. Allegations of cowardice emerge, theft dooms the new production, and Jack finds solace in a whiskey bottle. That's next week on Legends of theice emerge. Theft dooms the new production, and Jack finds solace in a whiskey bottle. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes.

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Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Matthew Kearns, the author of Texas Jack, America's First Cowboy Star. Original music by Rob Valliere. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.

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