TIMOTHY ISAIAH COURTRIGHT
"Big Jim"
©Lee Paul

Although he spent his boyhood in Iowa, Jim Courtright earned his notoriety as a gunslinger-lawman in Texas. He was the kind of man willing to oblige anyone with big trouble if the occasion called for it, and he wasn’t one to mince words. While still a boy practicing out back of the barn in Iowa, he learned the art of the quick draw, becoming like greased lightning with a single or twin Colts that he wore suspended on each hip. He knew exactly how to measure a man by the general appearance, and particularly by the manner, in which a man wore his gun. Considered one of the deadliest shots of all time, it took a great gunfighter to bring him down.

Jim Courtright was born Timothy Isaiah in 1845 on the family farm, which was probably located in Iowa, but which some sources claim might be closer to Springfield, Illinois. His father Daniel worked hard to provide for his family. There were already four daughters at the time Timothy was born, and another son would come four years later, but Timothy was the first son, and Daniel expected much from the boy. Daniel was a hard-working farmer, frugal by nature, a man who feared God, read the Bible, and ruled his family with an iron hand. He never pampered his children, and as soon as Timothy was able to walk, he was doing farm chores right along with the others.

Timothy’s early childhood is not really known. He was fetching wood, hunting eggs, carrying water almost from the time he took his first step. As he grew older, he was out in the fields, if for no other reason than to watch and learn. It was a rough life, and one which Timothy abhorred. When he was fifteen, he left home, never to look back.

Timothy became a rover, a man with no home. He traveled in a western direction, calling himself "Tim," but since he was six feet tall and skinny, weighing only one hundred forty-five pounds, someone dubbed him "Big Jim." The name stuck. It’s not known exactly what he did in Iowa when he left home at age fifteen, but the work on the farm had made him tough, and he was incredibly agile for his height. As an expert shot, he may have hired himself out as a hunter for the settlements.

Big Jim remained in Iowa until he enlisted in the Civil War at the age of sixteen in the 90th Illinois, 15th Corps of the Irish Legion. His marksmanship soon brought him to the attention of General John "Black Jack" Logan, the corps commander. At the Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, in February 1862, Jim stopped a bullet intended for General Logan, although both men were wounded in the attack. Jim’s heroism led to a lifelong friendship, and even after the war, Logan never lost contact with him.

It was said that General Logan was never one to waste good material, be it man or motion. In May 1863, one of his men, McGuffy of Company G, straggled by the headquarters of General Daniel Butterfield. He was thinly and poorly clad; one foot was partly covered by an old army shoe, and the other with an old blanket, tied on with strings, both feet cut and bleeding. He was plodding on, intent only upon overtaking his regiment, when he was halted by a sentinel in a clean uniform, paper collar, and trim rig. The sentinel wanted to know the badge of his corps. McGuffy said, "Badge! What the blazes is that?" When told that it was the insignia which distinguished him from other troops, and being told the 11th wore a half moon and the 12th corps wore a star, McGuffy promptly spun about, giving his cartridge box a slap. "That’s the badge of the 15th corps, forty rounds of cartridge," he exclaimed. When General Logan heard it, he promptly adopted the "cartridge box with forty rounds," as the badge of the corps.

As a member of Logan’s Union army, Courtright got to see a great deal of the country. He also learned the fine point of blood-letting. He became Logan’s most trusted spy and scout, sneaking in and out of enemy camps from Missouri to Arizona. Jim had a great admiration for Logan, and many believe this is why he wore his hair long to imitate the general. His work as a spy-scout was good training for his detective work in the years to come.

It was in July 1865 that Courtright, still an Army scout, met James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok in Springfield, Missouri. Wild Bill was also a Union scout. His father had been the operator of a general store, which was used as part of the underground railroad where runaway slaves were hidden and smuggled to "safe" farms. As a boy, Hickok helped guide slaves to freedom. When he hired out as a spy for the Union, he earned his famous nickname. One story is that he was given this name to distinguish him from his younger brother, Lorenzo, who was called "Tame Bill." Another story has it that he stopped a lynch mob from hanging a youth, and a woman shouted, "Good for you, Wild Bill!" However it came about, the name stuck and would follow him to the grave and beyond into legend. Big Jim and Hickok became fast friends.

Big Jim was a dispatch rider. He rode from one outpost to another during the Civil War, and it was a dangerous life. With the law of self-preservation uppermost in his mind, it was always the survival of the fittest. In Little Rock, Arkansas, where he stopped at a farm house for a drink of water, he met Sarah Elizabeth "Betty" Weeks. She was only fourteen at the time, but it was love at first sight. In the Autumn of 1866, after a brief courtship, the two were married. With the uncertainty of army life, it would be a couple of years before Jim would take her from home.

During this time, the dime novel appeared, and stories of the adventures of the army scouts swept America, especially those of Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. This led to the birth of the wild west shows, which featured marksmanship, riding, and various other phases of frontier adventures. When Jim received his discharge from the army in 1870, he joined one of these shows. He stayed with it for about a year, and then he and Betty returned to Little Rock, where their first child was born on 8 October 1872. After working for Betty’s father for about a year, Jim decided to try farming across the Trinity River in Texas, where the Oakwood Cemetery is now located in Fort Worth.

When this venture proved unsuccessful, Jim turned once again to the wild west shows. He joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, along with Betty, who was also a crack shot. At this time, the show consisted mainly of Indians, sharpshooters of both sexes, and stagecoach drivers. The billboard featured Annie Oakley, Lillian Smith, John C. Morgan, Betty Courtright, Jim Courtright, and several others. In Virginia City, Jim was shot and injured by the explosion of a pad in the blank cartridge, which caused a wound on his forehead above his right eye. He ended up in the hospital, and a day after the accident, the show left town. Jim was left behind without funds, and it so angered the citizens of Virginia City that they took up a collection to pay his hospital stay.

When Jim was well enough to travel, he and Betty returned to Fort Worth, where he had better success in politics. On 5 April 1876, after he expertly gunned down a local tough with half the town getting the opportunity to see him unlimber and kill, he was appointed to the job of City Marshal. Fort Worth was a cow town, and nowhere else in Texas, except El Paso, did citizens enjoy a more boisterous, belligerent, and devil-may-care attitude. Courtright did his job well. He found plenty of opportunities to display his speed and accuracy with a six-gun, as well as demonstrate his utter fearlessness.

Jim Courtright had a good job as city marshal, but he was not a politician. He threw his allegiance to a political faction when he should have been paying attention to police business. The party he backed lost the election, and he found himself out of a job.

At about this time, famed Texas Ranger James B. Gillett was now the marshal of El Paso, and he was asked by Colonel A. J. Fountain of Mesilla, New Mexico, to take over the duties of town marshal of a newly created mining camp called Lake Valley. Every one of the previous marshals had been murdered, and Fountain was looking for the toughest lawman he could find to bring law and order to the camp. Gillett wasn’t interested, but he recommended Jim Courtright for the job. In response to a telegram, Courtright journeyed to El Paso, where Gillett introduced him to Fountain. A deal was struck, and Courtright moved to Lake Valley, New Mexico.

The lawman’s job in Lake Valley was considered a suicide job. Courtright did not fool around. He quickly learned that two men had been making life miserable for the miners, and he proceeded to rub hard at these two. He got them heated to a point of drawing on him, and then he methodically cut them down in street fights. One man he literally cut to pieces by breaking his hands first and then his legs, until the outlaw knelt and pleaded for his life. No quarter was give, and it was good publicity for Jim. He tore the head off the second gunslinger. Before long, the camp was peaceful, and things began to bore him. When the mines played out, and the citizens left for greener pastures, he once again found himself out of a job.

Courtright did not have long to ponder his unemployment. His old friend Jack Logan from his Civil War days lived over in the next valley, and Jim moseyed over there, asking for a job. Logan owned a large ranch near Silver City, and he was having a devil of a time with nesters and cattle rustlers. He needed a gunman, and he hired Big Jim on the spot. As foreman of the ranch, it was Courtright’s job to rid the range of the squatters and flush out the rustlers, killing them if necessary without quarter.

One group of squatters included two Frenchmen who had nested on a choice bit of Logan range. In 1883, Courtright and fellow gunman James McIntire rode out to see if the two Frenchmen had heeded the warning to move out. McIntire was the same man who later wrote a book called Early Days in Texas or Trip to Hell and Heaven. He said that he had had a vision of being sent to hell, and that this book was the result of that vision. He had been the city marshal of Las Vegas, New Mexico, when a mob had tried to take outlaw Dave Rudabaugh from the train, while Dave and Billy the Kid were prisoners of Pat Garrett. He knew how to handle trouble.

It didn’t take long for the two Jims to locate the camp of the two Frenchmen, and a shoot-out commenced which left the two Frenchmen dead. A universal hue and cry arose over the deaths, warrants were duly sworn out in Austin, Texas, for the Territory of New Mexico, a $1,000 reward was posted, and Jim McIntire thought it prudent to leave the district. Courtright didn’t feel the need to flee, and not totally understanding the legalities of territorial jurisdiction, he went back to Fort Worth. He thought that since his actions had taken place in New Mexico, he would have no problem in Texas, but he was wrong. John Richmond, the officer from New Mexico who had ridden to Austin for the warrants, requested the assistance of Texas Rangers Lieutenant Grimes and Corporal Hayes to help serve the warrant, and when Jim showed up in Fort Worth, he was promptly tossed in jail.

Courtright did not remain a prisoner long. He had lots of friends in Fort Worth, and on Sunday, when John Richmond took him to a restaurant, against the advice of the Texas Rangers, a bunch of those friends rushed the table. In the melee which followed, Courtright secured two Colts, and when the Rangers put in an appearance, all deemed it advisable to let Courtright escape rather than to go up against those deadly revolvers in the hands of an expert.

Big Jim fled to western Canada, where he hid out until late 1886 before returning to New Mexico and voluntarily surrendering to authorities. His timing was excellent. The witnesses were scattered or had become disinterested; the jury consisted of men who were strangers to the Frenchmen and to him; and there was no public sentiment against him, which weighed heavily in his favor. He was acquitted, but was so friendless by this time that he had difficulty finding work. He decided to return to Fort Worth, and after several jobs as a bouncer in the local saloons, he opened a new business: the Commercial Detective Agency. For a monthly fee, his agency offered "protection" to those gamblers who wished to operate in the city. Jim Courtright was probably the first "shake-down" artist in Fort Worth. It was the beginning of the end. He met Luke Short.

Luke Short came to Fort Worth in 1887 and set up a gambling arrangement in the back of the White Elephant Saloon. He was born in Mississippi in 1854, but the family moved to Texas when he was two-years-old. The Kansas railroads beckoned when he was a teenager, and after a few years on the cattle trail, he decided to change occupations. In 1876, he traveled to Nebraska and started a new career as a bootlegger, peddling whiskey to the Sioux Indians, a federal offense which landed him under arrest. At least six men died from his bullets, as he defended his franchise. He escaped his captors and dropped from sight for a few years.

After a brief career as an army scout, Short settled in Leadville, Colorado, where he embarked on a lucrative gambling career. His system was simple. He collected when he won, welshed when he lost, and killed men who owed him money and would not pay. In 1879, he traveled to Dodge City, Kansas, where he dealt faro at the Long Branch Saloon, meeting friends Wyatt Earp, John "Doc" Holiday, and William Barclay "Bat" Masterson. He even followed them to Tombstone, Arizona, where he was a house dealer at the Oriental Saloon. When he killed gambler Charley Storms, who refused to abide by the rules, with three bullets before Storms fired a shot, he returned to Dodge City, where he bought a controlling interest in the Long Branch Saloon, which he promptly turned into a wildly successful combination bar, casino, and brothel.

A group of reform-minded city officials tried to shut him down by banning women employees in saloons. He protested in the State capital, but when the governor did nothing, he telegraphed all his friends. Soon the Dodge City "Peace Commission," consisting of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Charlie Bassett, Shotgun Collins, Neal Brown, and many more notorious gunmen, poured into town to help. The dispute was resolved; he received a substantial amount of money for his interest in the saloon; and he promptly left town for Fort Worth.

Luke Short was a small man, about five feet, five inches tall, and never weighed over one hundred fifty pounds. He was an expert shot and as cool they come under pressure. When he arrived in Fort Worth, he rented a back room from Jim and Betty Courtright, who owned the White Elephant Saloon. Short soon had his gambling operation underway, and on the night of 8 February 1887, Courtright demanded the protection money. Short promptly told Big Jim to take a hike. He was in no mood to hire an outsider to police his place.

An hour later, the two men faced each other in the street in the classical tradition. As if on cue, both men went for their guns. Courtright had both of his in holsters, and Short carried his in his hip pocket. It should have been no contest, but just as Courtright was in the act of bringing his revolver to bear, Short fired. The bullet went wild, but it caught Big Jim’s hammer thumb in a freak quirk of fate. It was the luckiest shot ever made in the history of the West for it saved Luke Short’s life.

The surprised Courtright attempted to throw his pistol to his left hand rather than waste time in a draw from his hip, and that split second was all the time Short needed. He fired off three shots, each one hitting their mark, one of which hit Big Jim in the heart. Courtright stumbled to his knees, then slowly fell face down in the dust. Jim Courtright was forty-two-years-old when he died.

Luke Short was absolved of all wrong doings in the death of Jim Courtright. There was little doubt in the minds of all concerned that he had acted in self-defense.

Shortly afterwards, a collection was taken by the citizens of Fort Worth for Betty Courtright, and she sold her interests in the White Elephant Saloon and moved to California, where she lived out her days.

On 8 September 1893 at the age of thirty-nine, Luke Short died peacefully in his bed at Geuda Springs, Kansas, located about one hundred miles south of Wichita. Relatives brought his body back to Fort Worth. Ironically, Jim Courtright and Luke Short, the two famous gunslingers, repose in Oakwood Cemetery, located at Grand and Gould Avenues. This is supposedly the same land that Jim had originally tried farming on his first trip to Fort Worth in 1873. If true, then he is now "home" for all eternity.

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