York, was elected vice president in 1900, and became president less than a year later with the assassination of President McKinley.
As president, Roosevelt fought the trusts, created the National Park System, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and turned the United States into a world power. When he left office in 1908 he embarked on a year-long African safari. He ran for president in 1912, was wounded by a would-be assassin, lost, and spent a year exploring and mapping the River of Doubt (later renamed the Rio Teodoro) for the Brazilian government. He was a strong advocate for our entry into World War I, and it was assumed the presidency was his for the asking in 1920, but he died a year before the election.
During his life, he wrote more than twenty books—many of them still in print—and over 150,000 letters.
THOMAS ALVA EDISON
Born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847, Edison is considered the greatest inventor of his era. He is responsible for the electric light, the motion picture, the carbon telephone transmitter, the fluoroscope, and a host of other inventions. He died in 1931.
NED BUNTLINE
Buntline was born Edward Z. C. Judson in 1813, and gained fame as a publisher, editor, writer (especially of dime novels about the West), and for commissioning Colt's Manufacturing Company to create the Buntline Special. He tried to bring Wild Bill Hickok back East, failed, and then discovered Buffalo Bill Cody, who did come East and perform in a play that Buntline wrote.
BAT MASTERSON
William “Bat” Masterson was born in 1853. In his late teens, he and brothers Ed and James left their family home to go out west as buffalo hunters. He spent some time as an army scout, seeing action against the Kiowa and Comanche Indians. He moved to Dodge City, Kansas, in 1877, and shortly afterward became Wyatt Earp's deputy, after which he was elected sheriff of Ford County.
Brother Ed was also a lawman. Masterson saw him murdered and instantly responded with deadly force, killing his killer. He then became a gambler, and was in Tombstone just before the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. After a few more gunfights, always on the side of the law (or as the law), he became a writer, wound up in New York, and became friends with Theodore Roosevelt, who appointed him marshal of New York from 1905 to 1909. He died at his typewriter in 1921.
JOHN WESLEY HARDIN
John Wesley Hardin, like Bat Masterson, was born in 1853. He was a killer from a very early age, had at least one encounter with Wild Bill Hickcock, and when he was finally apprehended and tried in 1878, he was convicted of killing forty-two men. He wrote his autobiography and obtained his law degree while in jail, was released in August of 1895, set up a law practice, and was killed shortly thereafter by John Selman Sr.
TEXAS JACK VERMILLION
A friend of both Holliday and Wyatt Earp, Texas Jack Vermillion (later known as Shoot-Your-Eye-Out Vermillion) participated in Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Ride, and was saved in at least one shoot-out by Holliday.
GERONIMO
Born Goyathlay in 1829, he was a Chiricahua Apache medicine man who fought against both the Americans and the Mexicans who tried to grab Apache territory. He was never a chief, but he was a military leader, and a very successful one. He finally surrendered in 1886, and was incarcerated—but by 1904 he had become such a celebrity that he actually appeared at the World's Fair, and in 1905 he proudly rode in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade in Washington, DC. He died in 1909 at the age of eighty.
THIS IS WYATT EARP'S DESCRIPTION and recollection of Doc Holliday, in his own words:
By the time I met him at Fort Griffin, Doc Holliday had run up quite a record as a killer, even for Texas. In Dallas, his incessant coughing kept away whatever professional custom he might have enjoyed and, as he had to eat, he took to gambling. He was lucky, skillful, and fearless. There were no tricks to his new trade that he did not learn and in more than one boom-camp game I have seen him bet ten thousand dollars on the turn of a card.
Doc quickly saw that six-gun skill was essential to his new business, and set out to master the fine points of draw-and-shoot as cold-bloodedly as he did everything. He practiced with a Colt for hours at a time, until he knew that he could get one into action as effectively as any man he might meet.