William (Bill) Doolin was born in 1858 in Johnson County, Arkansas. In 1881, at the age of 23, he drifted west working at odd jobs and eventually ended up in Caldwell, KS were he met Oscar D. Halsall of Texas. Halsall hired Doolin to work for him on his ranch on the Cimarron River in Oklahoma. Doolin soon became a top hand for Halsall.
It was during this time of working as a cowboy that he would meet most of the members of his future Wild Bunch. Working on the ranches in Oklahoma, Bill Doolin would meet George “Bitter Creek” Newcomb, Charlie Pierce, Bill Power, Dick Broadwell, Bill “Tulsa Jack” Blake, and Emmett Dalton. 

Doolin’s first brush with the law came in the summer of 1891, while working on the Bar X Bar Ranch. Several of the cowboys decided to celebrate the 4th of July holiday by riding over to Coffeyville, KS and throwing a party. There was a keg of beer there and the law showed up. Kansas was a dry state. When they tried to confiscate the beer there was a shoot-out, and two officers were wounded. From that day on Bill Doolin was on the dodge.

Located in southwestern South Dakota, Badlands National Park consists of 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. The Badlands Wilderness Area covers 64,000 acres and is the site of the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret, the most endangered land mammal in North America. The Stronghold Unit is co-managed with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and includes sites of 1890s Ghost Dances. more…