Who is Dallas Stoudenmire?

Dallas Stoudenmire is, perhaps, the most underrated of all the old west gunfighters. Where as Wyatt Earp was often said to be without fear when facing an opponent, Stoudenmire seemed to thrive on running head first towards gunfire. That may be a little bit of hyperbole, but if so, it isn’t by much. He survived several ambush attempts and never once ducked for cover. Though, he did once avoided ambush by passing out drunk in the saloon and remaining there on floor until the would-be-saboteur gave up and his anger simmered away.

While Billy the Kid was known for the Lincoln County War, or Wyatt and Doc for the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Dallas Stoudenmire had a gunfight known as the 4 dead men in 5 seconds gunfight. On top of that he was quite well known for his skills in detective work. Regarded a genius by some, he was certainly a thinker and possibly even a bit eccentric. But like all old west gunmen, he lived a life of danger that eventually caught up with him. And, like most old west gunmen, he enjoyed drinking to an extent which certainly sped along his demise.

A Look at Leon Metz’ Dallas Stoudenmire

The Story of Dallas Stoudenmire

 

Leon Metz is a qualified western historian author, but even so, there still just hasn’t been much to say about Dallas Stoudenmire. Pretty much everything that’s known comes from his time as the Marshal of El Paso, and so, given our limits of information, this book is, understandably, not a very long read. Fortunately, Metz still gives us plenty of reason to pick it up and enjoy.

To the delight of some, and to the chagrin of others, one thing that Metz doesn’t do is load the book with pages and chapters of social and economic conditions of the areas relevant to the life of Stoudenmire. I hear complaints, sometimes, of authors filling in a book with too much information about the history of said valley, or context on how a certain town was built up, and who moved in first, and how they all voted to build a well, and then the well couldn’t be built because of a municipal issue, and then, fifteen years later, our subject gunman finally came riding into town. This is obviously facetious, but the point being that some love more and more context, and some find it tedious.

Metz goes the less-is-more route in this book, but still gives plenty of context. In fact, I’d say his historical summation of El Paso was just the right balance. The strongest points in this area are probably his looks at the various players of the time in El Paso. In only roughly 130 pages he gives a great snapshot of the current climate that Dallas walked into, and connects you to the man and his dilemma’s.

The biggest problem I had with this book is wishing that there was more to say about Dallas Stoudenmire, but there just isn’t much known. Given Metz’s wonderful telling, and the intriguing nature of Dallas Stoudenmire, I really wish we could have a book two or three times the page count, but in absence of that, thank goodness we have what we do.

If Dallas Stoudenmire is a character you don’t know much about you should really get familiar. And this is just the gunfighter that you can learn about with out the inevitable continuous heavy involvement of the world of Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid.