Wild Bill Hickok's Real Name: James Butler Hickok

Wild Bill Hickok → James Butler Hickok

Quick answer: Wild Bill Hickok's real name was James Butler Hickok. He was born on May 27, 1837, in Troy Grove (then called Homer), Illinois, and died on August 2, 1876, in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

How James Butler Hickok became "Wild Bill"

Hickok was born James Butler Hickok and grew up on an Illinois farm. "Wild Bill" was a nickname, not a legal name, and historians generally note that its exact origin is uncertain (Britannica). The name stuck after magazine and dime-novel coverage turned him into a national figure, most famously an 1867 Harper's New Monthly Magazine profile that mixed fact with heavy exaggeration (Britannica).

Scout, soldier and lawman

As a young man Hickok went west to Kansas. During the Civil War he worked for Union forces as a scout, wagon master and spy, according to Britannica. After the war he scouted for the U.S. Army on the Plains (Britannica).

His reputation as a gunman grew from a series of shootings, including the 1865 duel with Davis Tutt in Springfield, Missouri, which is often described as one of the first true "quick-draw" showdowns of the Old West (National Park Service). He later served as a lawman, including acting as sheriff in Hays City, Kansas, in 1869 and as marshal of Abilene, Kansas, in 1871 (Britannica).

Wild Bill on stage

Because this bio sits in our "actors" list, it's worth noting Hickok really did perform. In 1873–74 he toured eastern theaters with Buffalo Bill Cody in the stage show Scouts of the Plains. By most accounts he disliked the stage and left the company (Britannica).

Deadwood and the "dead man's hand"

Hickok married circus owner Agnes Lake Thatcher in March 1876, then headed to the Black Hills gold rush. On August 2, 1876, while playing poker in a Deadwood saloon, he was shot in the back of the head and killed by Jack McCall. McCall was later tried, convicted and hanged (Britannica).

The cards Hickok is said to have held, black aces and black eights, became known in poker lore as the "dead man's hand." He is buried in Deadwood's Mount Moriah Cemetery, near Calamity Jane.