Gold Nuggets and Gambits: Exploring the Untamed Riches in Photos from the Wild West

Year: Late 1800s
Location: Western U.S.

This photo is a picturesque summary of what life was like as a cowboy in the late 1800s. This man is dressed in a Wild West getup, and he’s charged with herding and ranching all day with his trusty steed.

Life As A Cowboy ©Everett Collection/shutterstock.com

Don’t let the boots and hat fool you—being a cowboy was hard work. Challenging and demanding, the job involved long hours, harsh weather conditions, and physically-demanding tasks like herding cattle and keeping livestock safe from predators, both animal and human.

Year: 1902
Location: Sherman Ranch, Genesee, Kansas 

In 2023, cattle prices soared to around $1,900 to $2,300 a head, as Americans ate more beef in 2023 than they had in the entire ten years since. As far as retail prices, they averaged about $7.35 a pound.

Rounding Up Cattle In Kansas ©US National Archives/Wikimedia Commons

Back in the early 1900s, when this photo was taken, cattle cost around $4 to $7 per head. This picture was taken at Sherman Ranch, which was then one of the largest ranches north of Texas, raking in a lot of money, thanks to its many heads of cattle. 

Year: 1909
Location: Seattle, Washington 

The Klondyke Dance Hall and Saloon was infamous in its time. It was part of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition in Seattle, Washington, and this photo was taken in 1909. This dance hall, as well as the “Streets of Cairo” exposition, came under fire for so-called “indecent acts.”

Klondyke Dance Hall & Saloon ©Frank H. Nowell /Wikimedia Commons

The A-Y-P Exposition, indecent or not, was a huge moneymaker for the city. It lasted almost 140 days, bringing in $1.096 million in admissions and making a $62,676 profit ($2.11 million in today’s money).

Year: 1869
Location: Corinne, Utah 

Corinne, Utah has always been a small, yet proud, town. This picture shows Corinne as it was during the Wild West days, and it had its own little hub of industry, with hardware stores and other commercial locations.

Corinne, Utah In 1869 ©US National Archives/Wikimedia Commons

So, what’s Corinne like now? This Box Elder County town has a population of around 861. Though tiny, it has a rich history. It was almost the capital of Utah, for starters, and it was also a hugely-important railroad hub back in the day. When it was settled, Corinne was also a safe haven for people of no religious affiliation, as well as people of all faiths. 

Year: Mid-1800s
Location: Western U.S.

Back in 1862, which might have been around the time this photo was taken, the Homestead Act passed, offering pioneers 160 acres of land (a value of $800 back then) in “public domain states.” The homesteaders could have a five-year residency on this quarter-section, guaranteed.

Wild, Wild West Homesteaders ©Bettmann /Getty Images

Longer, if they wanted to stay. Though this was an amazing opportunity and value, homesteading was hard. The woman in this photo and her family faced solitude, isolation, backbreaking labor, and natural and medical disasters. Life was hard back then, and freedom came with sacrifice. 

Year: 1870s
Location: Deadwood, South Dakota

We’ve included a couple of photos of Deadwood, California on this list, as what town is more quintessentially Wild West than that? This is the real Deadwood, the town on which the HBO series of the same name was based.

Deadwood (The Real One) ©Fotosearch/Getty Images

The South Dakota city is famous for its Gold Rush history. Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are just two of the outlaws buried in Deadwood, and the town itself is a huge tourist attraction, despite having just 1,201 permanent residents.   

Year: Mid-1800s
Location: San Francisco, California 

Here, we can see San Francisco, California during the Gold Rush. Seemingly overnight, the Gold Rush turned San Francisco upside-down. It began in the mid-1800s, when a man found gold at a mill, and that news brought 300,000 people to California.

San Francisco, CA During The Gold Rush ©Everett Collection/Shutterstock.com

San Francisco was home to not only miners, but people serving miners with accommodations and food. San Fran turned into a booming city full of hotels, saloons, stores, and makeshift tent houses constructed by new arrivals, just hoping to find some gold nuggets.  

Year: Dodge City, Kansas
Location: 1871 

Dodge City is located in Southwestern Kansas, and it is home to historical sites such as the Fort Dodge Jail, Boot Hill Museum, Gunfighters Wax Museum, and the Home of Stone Museum. Its population is just under 28,000.

The First Home In Dodge City ©WRIGHT, Robert Marr /Wikimedia Commons

This picture was taken when the first home was constructed in what would become Dodge City. Made of sod, this home was built in 1871 in Second and Trail, and it was one of many that were constructed before the city was incorporated in 1875. 

Year: 1907
Location: Okanogan, Washington 

There weren’t any buses to take the kids to school in rural Oklahoma in the early 1900s, so these children decided to take the next best thing: their cow. Back then, the price of a cow was $4.55 to $6.30 a head, so this family probably wanted to get their money’s worth.

Kids Riding A Cow To School ©US National Archives/Wikimedia Commons

This photo was taken in Okanogan, Washington, a city that now has a population of 2,373. The city was one of the last regions in Washington that Europeans settled, and it was used as a thoroughfare to get to British Columbia.     

Year: 1871
Location: Western U.S.

Buffalo Bill, born William Cody, was one of the most famous entertainers and figures from the Old West. Buffalo Bill was a bison hunter, showman, and a soldier, and this picture features him engaged, as a young man, in the pursuit of hunting.

Buffalo Bill, 1871 ©JJs/Alamy

Cody was famous as a hunter, getting his nickname for killing almost 5,000 bison in eighteen months during the 1860s. He made a lot of money from his bison hunting, using the proceeds to open the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in 1883, launching an entire genre of Wild West entertainment exhibits.

Year: 1867
Location: Virginia City, Nevada 

Mining was a big industry in Virginia City, Nevada, the location where this photo was taken. Here, you can see miners leaving the mine after a long day at work, no doubt exhausted, dizzy, and hungry.

Mine Workers Leaving The Mine Shaft ©US National Archives/Wikimedia Commons

Virginia City was the place to be during the mining boom, and its Victorian buildings from that era still stand.  Virginia City was home to mills that operated around the clock, processing ore from the local Chollar Mine, which employed a lot of the town’s men. 

Year: 1893
Location: Arizona

Though you might have thought that the relationship between Natives and settlers during the Wild West times was fraught with violence, that wasn’t the case all of the time. Apache here are delivering hay to pioneers in Arizona at Fort Apache.

Apaches Delivering Hay ©US National Archives/Wikimedia Commons

Apache traded with white settlers and local tribes to get what they needed. That said, some bands of Apache chose to conduct raids (not considered an act of war by the tribe), rather than engage in trading.  

Year: 1905
Location: Hazen, Nevada 

Hazen, Nevada was a wild place to be in the Old West. This picture contains some “disreputable” places, including the Shamrock Saloon. Hazen was built in 1903 to house laborers working on an irrigation project south of the town.

"Disreputable" Places, Nevada ©US National Archives/Wikimedia Commons

It quickly built itself up, with hotels, churches, schools, saloons, and houses of ill repute lining its streets. In addition to its disreputable venues, Hazen is also famous for its creepy past, as it became known for its excessive amount of hangings, despite having such a tiny population. 

Year: 1889
Location: Table Bluf, California 

The Table Bluf Hotel and Saloon was the lynchpin of Table Bluf, California. The bar was run by one Seth Kinman, who owned it for many years (along with a home there). He and his family are all buried in town.

The Table Bluf Hotel and Saloon ©Sushiflinger /Wikimedia Commons

Table Bluf had a unique history. Though it was a Wild West town during the late 1800s, it would, in the 1970s, become part of an evangelical movement that saw young people flock to live at a Gospel Ranch. From the Wild West to the Jesus Movement, Table Bluf has seen it all.