Wild Bill Hickok-Davis Tutt Duel

On July 21, 1865, in the town square of Springfield, Missouri, gambler and gunman Wild Bill Hickok faced off against fellow gambler Davis Tutt after a simmering poker debt and a dispute over Hickok's prized pocket watch. The two men met in public, squared off at a distance, and fired a single shot each; Tutt missed, but Hickok's bullet hit him in the chest and killed him.

Authorities arrested Hickok and charged him with murder, but he pleaded self-defense, and a jury ultimately acquitted him. Newspaper and magazine accounts turned the Hickok-Tutt shootout into a national sensation, and this duel became the iconic model for the one-on-one quick-draw gunfights that later defined classic Western movies and dime novels.

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