Jim Courtright
1848 - 1887
Jim Courtright was the kind of man willing to oblige anybody with big
trouble provided he was a reputable gunslinger. He knew exactly
how to measure a man by the general appearance and particularly the
manner in which he wore his gun. Longhaired Jim was like greased
lightning with a single or twin Colts and he head learned to shoot
accurately out back of the barn in Iowa where he spent his
boyhood. It wasn't until he entered the Civil War that he got to
see the country and also learned the fine points of bloodletting.
As an army scout, under General Logan of Texas, Arizona, and New
Mexico, he had plenty of time to grow long hair and provoke barroom
fights and thus satisfy that strange hunger of the killer.
Jim was one of the few gunfighters who was both
dark-headed and dark eyed, as the majority had washed out blue eyes,
and the pallid complexion of nightlife.
Jim had a gunfight in Fort Worth with half the town getting the
opportunity to see him unlimber and kill, so it is little wonder he was
offered an appointment as marshal, which he accepted. He went to
work by cutting down a few smart alecks to let the town know that Jim
Courtright meant business. He played up to the political element
and eventually ran a shakedown business in which he found himself out
of a job and without friends.
He
went on to a mining town in Lake Valley, New Mexico, and managed an
appointment there that was considered a suicide job the way the lawmen
had been bumped off. Jim didn't fool around. He rubbed hard
at the top men and got them heated to a point of drawing on him and
then methodically cut them down in street fights. One man he
literally cut to pieces by breaking his hands first and then his legs
until he knelt and pleaded for his life. No quarter was given and
it was good advertising for Jim. He tore the head off of the
second gunslinger. Jim liked the job. However, the mines
petered out and the town folded up.
Jim had reached a plateau in gunfighting fame where the
expression ran: "Look out. Here comes Jim
Courtright." His walk took on a swagger and his manner was casual
– like a cat.
Jim couldn't get a job. He was forced to take one from
General Logan as a foreman of his ranch in the American Valley in New
Mexico. There was no question as to Courtright being a fine
horseman let alone a good gunman. It was his job to flush out the
rustlers on the ranch and kill them without quarter. But when Jim
got to shooting he never knew exactly when to let up he not only did in
the Mexican rustlers but honest homesteaders fell under his vicious
gun. He gave no quarter whatever. This riled the
towns-people and so much pressure was brought to bear on the General
that he had to let Jim go and advised him to leave in a hurry.
He
no more than reached Fort Worth again than he was arrested by the U.S.
Marshal. Jim escaped and managed to go on to South America, but he
returned in a few months and stood trial and was acquitted.
He
had to take on a job as a bouncer in saloons and gambling casinos,
killing several men on the self-defense alibi. He finally decided
to open a detective agency, which he called the Commercial Detective
Agency. This was, in reality, a front for the clandestine
business of shaking down gambling men who had to pay rather than risk
being either frisked or shot down.
Finally,
Luke Short showed up in Fort Worth, a gunfighter of considerable
reputation, and established himself in what he named the White Elephant
Saloon. Jim was on his heels to give his so-called protection
that Luke might run his business in peace. But the Dodge
gunfighter told him to go to hell that he could do all the gunslinging
necessary to keep himself clear of leeches.
On
February 1887, the famous street fight between Courtright and Luke
Short took place. Luke got in the first shot which tore off
Courtright's hammer thumb, while Jim made a border shift without
effect, being too late, and Luke blasted him three times as he
staggered and sank to his knees in the street, then fell over on his
face. He died in his thirty-ninth year, but it took a great
gunfighter to bring him down.
Calamity Jane | Clay Allison | Curly Bill | Dave Mather
Doc Holliday | Jesse James | Jim Courtright | Joaquin Murrietta
John Ringo | John Wesley Hardin | King Fisher | Luke Short
Old Man Clanton | Pat Garrett | Wild Bill Hickok | Wyatt Earp
OK Corral | Artist - Lea Franklin McCarty