Outlaw John Wesley Hardin

August 24th, 1877 – Outlaw John Wesley Hardin was captured in Pensacola, Florida. Hardin was notoriously reputed to be the fastest gunslinger around and to have killed over 27 men, some sources have the number over 70. Law enforcement got word that Hardin was hiding out on the Florida/Alabama border and when Texas Rangers caught up with him, Hardin was on a train in Pensacola. When approached by the lawman, Hardin drew his gun and it got caught in his suspenders. He was sentenced to 25 years in a Huntsville prison and after only 17 of those years was released and pardoned. Hardin was killed in 1895 when a “lawman,” Constable John Selmon Sr., shot Hardin in the back of the head as Hardin played dice in a saloon in El Paso. Selmon Sr. was later killed before his trial while playing cards with a US Marshall, George Scarborough, who was then killed in a shootout exactly six years later. There is a reason it was called the Wild West.