Western Figure. Born in Troy Grove, near Ottawa, Illinois, he took part in the Kansas struggle preceding the Civil War, was a driver of the Butterfield stage line, and gained fame as a gunfighter. He was an assistant station tender for the Pony Express at the Rock Creek, Nebraska, station. He served as a Union scout in the Civil War. After the war, he became deputy United States Marshal at Fort Riley (1866), Marshal of Hays, Kansas (1869), and Marshal of Abilene (1871). His reputation as a marksman in desperate encounters with outlaws made him a frontier legend. Hickok once shot and killed his own deputy in error, which was the downfall of his career as a lawman. After a tour of the East with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show(1872 to 1873), he went to Deadwood, South Dakota, where he was murdered by Jack McCall while playing cards at the #10 Saloon. The hand Hickok had held, a pair of Aces and a pair of Eights, thereafter became known as "The Dead Man's Hand."

Western Figure. Born in Troy Grove, near Ottawa, Illinois, he took part in the Kansas struggle preceding the Civil War, was a driver of the Butterfield stage line, and gained fame as a gunfighter. He was an assistant station tender for the Pony Express at the Rock Creek, Nebraska, station. He served as a Union scout in the Civil War. After the war, he became deputy United States Marshal at Fort Riley (1866), Marshal of Hays, Kansas (1869), and Marshal of Abilene (1871). His reputation as a marksman in desperate encounters with outlaws made him a frontier legend. Hickok once shot and killed his own deputy in error, which was the downfall of his career as a lawman. After a tour of the East with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show(1872 to 1873), he went to Deadwood, South Dakota, where he was murdered by Jack McCall while playing cards at the #10 Saloon. The hand Hickok had held, a pair of Aces and a pair of Eights, thereafter became known as "The Dead Man's Hand."