The Story of the "King of the Cowboys."
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Johnny
Ringo
The Story of the "King of the Cowboys." |
"He was recognized by friends and foes as a recklessly brave man, who would go any distance, or undergo any hardship to serve a friend or punish an enemy." Tombstone Epitaph |
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The Book This Webpage Is Based On! Johnny Ringo (2002) by Steve Gatto. 6
x 9; 246 pages; 26 b&w photographs;
Hardcover
-Signed by the Author- $34.95 plus S+H
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The Story of the "King of the Cowboys."
On a hot July afternoon in 1882, a woodhauler named John Yoast discovered a lifeless body in a clump of trees near Turkey Creek, Arizona Territory. The name of the dead man was John Ringo, sometimes called John Ringgold, notorious cowboy, Texas feudist, suspected outlaw and rustler, and more recently, a reputed cowboy gang leader in Arizona. Seven months earlier, John Ringo had thrust himself into the forefront of the Earp-Clanton feud, which had its beginnings with the gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone on October 26, 1881. After that shootout, Ringo became the champion of the cowboys and the chief antagonist of Wyatt Earp.
For more than a century, mystery and controversy have circulated about the details of Ringo's demise, making his death one of the most hotly debated deaths in Old West history.
John Ringo's passing did more than signal the consumation of the life of a notorious and dangerous man that had attained infamy throughout parts of the Southwest. It strangely began the cowboy's after-death journey into becoming a legendary cowboy whom writers romanticized to the point that he was considered one of the deadliest gunfighters of the Old West. By the 1960s, cinema and television had made Johnny Ringo a popular Western character known throughout the United States and in parts of Europe.
As a result, the public's perception of John Ringo has been based largely on the legendary Johnny Ringo - deadly gunfighter, gentleman outlaw - "the fastest gun in all the West, the quickest ever known."
This is the story of the real Johnny Ringo.