1

Paul Bunyan

Image: Abby Savage

Paul Bunyan , the colossal lumberjack of American folklore, is said to have cleared forests from the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest. With his blue ox, Babe , he performed incredible feats of strength, like carving out the Grand Canyon just by dragging his axe behind him, and creating the Great Lakes with his footprints.

Originating in oral traditions among lumberjacks, Bunyan’s exaggerated exploits gained momentum with the American westward expansion during the 19th century and soon became deeply ingrained in the popular imagination.

2

Johnny Appleseed

Image: Aarón Blanco Tejedor

Born John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed wandered the American frontier planting apple trees and spreading goodwill in the early 19th century. A devout Christian, he became a folk hero for his kindness, environmentalism, and pioneering spirit.

Contrary to the popular image of Johnny Appleseed randomly scattering apple seeds, he was a skilled nurseryman who meticulously planted apple tree nurseries. Each nursery was carefully fenced to shield the saplings from livestock and wildlife. After establishing these nurseries, he entrusted them to neighbors but revisited them periodically.

3

Pecos Bill

Image: JosephHershMedia

Pecos Bill , a fictional cowboy raised by coyotes in the wilds of Texas, became a larger-than-life figure known for taming cyclones and roping tornadoes. His adventures, first popularized in the early 20th century, embody the frontier spirit and Texas mythology, blending humor with tales of rugged individualism.

Among his many tales, one credits him with creating the Gulf of Mexico . According to legend, during a severe drought in Texas, Pecos Bill lassoed a storm cloud in California and brought it to Texas. The resulting deluge caused extensive flooding, ultimately forming the Gulf.

4

Davy Crockett

Image: Joseph Corl

Davy Crockett , known as the "King of the Wild Frontier," was a real-life frontiersman later turned politician whose exploits were mythologized even during his lifetime. Born in East Tennessee, he quickly gained fame for his sharp hunting skills and captivating storytelling.

During his time in the U.S. Congress, he staunchly opposed many of President Andrew Jackson’s policies, particularly the Indian Removal Act, and championed the rights of small landowners. Crockett’s life ended with valor at the Battle of the Alamo , solidifying his folk legend as a symbol of courage and patriotism. His legacy remains an enduring part of American history.

5

Calamity Jane

Image: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen

Martha Jane Canary, better known by her alias Calamity Jane, was a frontierswoman and scout famed for her sharpshooting skills and daredevil exploits. During her youth, she stepped up to provide for her large family, taking on various jobs, from ox team driver to scout for Fort Russell. Eventually, she embraced the rough and adventurous lifestyle that made her a legend.

Despite her fearsome reputation, Calamity Jane was compassionate and often helped those in need. Her adventures in the Wild West alongside figures like Wild Bill Hickok cemented her status as a legend of the American frontier.

6

Molly Pitcher

Image: Garry T

Molly Pitcher, the nickname given to Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, became famous for her bravery during the American Revolutionary War. Although several historical figures are known by this moniker for similar deeds, Mary Ludwig Hays distinguished herself during the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778, where she served as a water carrier for the soldiers.

When her husband, an artilleryman in the Continental Army, fell to enemy fire, she took his place, swabbing and loading the cannon with such bravery and determination that she earned a commendation from George Washington.

7

Daniel Boone

Image: Scott Longerbeam

Daniel Boone was a legendary frontiersman and explorer who blazed trails through the Appalachian Mountains and into Kentucky. Born in 1734, Boone became famous for his expert hunting and survival skills, as well as his role in establishing the Wilderness Road, a trail that facilitated westward migration through the Cumberland Gap.

After serving as a militia officer during the Revolutionary War, he was briefly taken in by the Shawnees in the Northeastern Woodlands. After a few years, he returned and continued to help protect the Kentucky settlements.

8

Buffalo Bill

Image: Judy Beth Morris

William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a legendary figure of the American West, known for his Wild West shows that toured the United States and Europe. Born in 1846, Cody was a skilled buffalo hunter, Army scout, and showman who brought cowboy skills and frontier life to audiences worldwide.

He earned his nickname after the Civil War by providing Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat, hunting record numbers of the animal. He even engaged in hunting competitions with his partner, Bill Comstock. His legendary figure has been frequently portrayed in film and television, especially during the height of the Western genre in the 1960s.

9

Wild Bill Hickok

Image: Pablò

James Butler Hickok, famously known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a legendary figure of the American Old West. Born in 1837, Hickok gained fame as a skilled marksman, gambler, and lawman.

Though his exploits were certainly exaggerated by the outlandish tales he told about himself, he was involved in several notorious gunfights during his life. Most notably, he dueled with Davis Tutt, a local gambler with whom he had various disagreements, particularly over their mutual affection for the same woman.

10

John Henry

Image: Lucio Patone

John Henry was a legendary steel-driving man whose man-against-machine tale epitomized the strength and resilience of the American worker. An African American freedman, his dangerous job involved hammering steel drills into rocks to create holes for explosives used to blast open railroad tunnels.

According to the legend, John Henry's prowess was tested in a race against a steam-powered drill. He won the race but tragically died after victory, hammer in hand when his heart gave out from the immense physical stress.

1

"Buffalo Bill" Cody

Image: Illinois State University, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

If we had to name the most famous cowboy in history , Buffalo Bill Cody would probably be a top contender. Throughout his lifetime, Cody greatly contributed to shaping the image we have of the American West.

Born in Iowa in 1846, he earned his nickname while working for the Union Pacific Railway, where railroad workers were amazed by his hunting skills. But history had bigger plans in store for Cody, and he would soon become an actor , traveling throughout the eastern United States performing plays based on stories of the Wild West for more than 30 years.

Eventually, poor business management and a certain change in popular interests led Buffalo Bill to ruin and he retired from show business just two months before his death in 1917. He was, however, mourned by millions of people who considered him a hero.

2

John Henry "Doc" Holliday

Image: Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz

John Henry "Doc" Holliday was born in 1851 in Griffin, Georgia, into a wealthy family. He earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree in Philadelphia but was shortly thereafter diagnosed with tuberculosis and advised to live in the drier, hotter climate of the West.

In Dallas, Texas, he pursued his trade as a dentist but also discovered saloons and whiskey. Soon, realizing that gambling could be much more lucrative than dentistry, he began his professional gambling career.

The rest of his life was spent among crooks, gunfights, and jailmates in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. At only 36 years old, his lungs could not keep up with his gunslinging way of life and he finally met his death in 1887 in a hotel bed in Colorado. It is said that his last words were, "This is funny."

3

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid

Image: yavuz pancareken

The lives of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid became legendary pretty quickly. As early as 1903, their exploits inspired the first modern film —Edwin S. Porter's _The Great Train Robbery_— and since then, their adventures have not ceased to be portrayed by popular culture. In a way, they symbolize the definitive end of the romanticized Western era at the hands of 20th-century industrialization and urbanization.

Both cowboys were members of a gang known as "The Wild Bunch," which earned them a reputation as bank and train robbers. According to lore, after several years of crime and run-ins with the law, the bandits managed to escape to Latin America. Eventually, they were caught and killed in Bolivia in 1908. The fact that their graves were never found helped fuel the myth that they had, in fact, returned to the United States and lived in anonymity for many more years.

4

Jesse James

Image: Steve

Jesse James's life is one of the most emblematic of the Wild West. His criminal career began after his involvement with pro-Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. Along with the Younger brothers, he created a gang with which they robbed banks, trains, stagecoaches, and stores from Iowa to Texas and from Tennessee to California.

It is believed that throughout the years they netted more than a quarter of a million dollars. Despite the gory nature of their heists and murders, the gang often had public sympathy.

Jesse's death is as controversial as his life. At only 34 years old, he was shot in the back by one of his gang partners, who hoped to obtain a state reward in exchange for his betrayal. The public was not happy with the government conspiring to assassinate a citizen, no matter how criminal, and the matter became a scandal, resulting in Jesse James's rise to mythical status.

5

Annie Oakley

Image: International Film Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From an early age, Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses, better known as Annie Oakley, took up hunting to help support her family. At the age of fifteen, she won a competition against the famous marksman Frank Butler, to whom she later married. Together, they appeared in several exhibitions across the country and, in 1885, joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

Annie was able to open the edge of a letter, shatter glass balls thrown in the air, and hit dimes held between her husband's fingers or apples placed in her poodle's mouth by shooting from 30 paces away. Her life was so rich and fascinating that she was the inspiration for several movies and plays.

6

Billy the Kid

Image: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

According to legend, Henry McCarty, better known as Billy the Kid, killed at least 21 people during his career as a notorious outlaw in New Mexico. However, he cemented his place in the pantheon of frontier legends not so much for his murders as for his personality and incredible marksmanship skills.

Born in the late 1850s in the Irish slums of New York City, McCarty had to reinvent himself as a gunslinger after the death of his mother when he was just a teenager. His life and the events surrounding his death at the hands of legendary lawman Pat Garrett were immortalized in numerous films, books, and songs. In fact, Billy the Kid holds the record as the most portrayed individual in cinematic history.

7

Lucille Mulhall

Image: Melissa Walsh

By 1900, split riding skirts allowed women to compete in rodeos without shocking Victorian-era audiences. But the truth is that women have been participating in exhibitions even in the early days of the Old West.

Lucille Mulhall is considered America's first legendary cowgirl. Born in 1885, Lucille grew up on her family's ranch in Oklahoma, where she acquired her incredible cattle-roping skills. She began performing in shows as a teenager and, throughout her career, competed in many rodeos, setting a few roping world records.

8

Belle Starr

Image: Pixabay

Perhaps the most famous female gunslinger in the history of the West was Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, better known as Belle Starr. Born in Missouri in 1848, Belle had a fairly well-to-do childhood and was a bright student. However, when her family moved to Texas after the Civil War, the young girl stumbled upon the James-Younger gang. After falling in love with Cole Younger, she became a member of the gang.

That love affair didn't last long, but a few others followed, which led her to live outside the law for the rest of her life. Her alleged riding and gun skills increased her fame throughout the country, turning her into a legend.

9

Wyatt Earp

Image: National Archives at College Park, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Wyatt Earp belonged to a large family whose members were famous for being gunfighters, gamblers, bison hunters, miners, and lawmen. While all were notorious Wild West characters, it was Wyatt's exploits that have gone down in history. His life is testimony to the ambiguity that prevailed at a time when there was no distinction between upholding the law and transgressing it.

After a long life traveling the American West as a deputy sheriff, bounty hunter, and saloon owner, in 1905 Wyatt settled permanently in Los Angeles, California. He became a film consultant in Hollywood, befriending producers, directors, and actors. It is even said that John Wayne took Earp’s stories as inspiration for some of the tough characters he portrayed on the big screen.

10

"Wild Bill" Hickok

Image: Turuncu Sakal

James Butler Hickok, better known as "Wild Bill," is a legendary folk hero thanks to the many stories that romanticized his life as a soldier, gunslinger, gambler, marshal, and actor. Over the years, his adventures have been retold numerous times in pop culture. The truth is that Hickok did more in his thirty-nine years of life than most who lived twice as long.

Since his birth in Illinois in 1837, he is said to have been involved in some of the most dramatic and, at the same time, most spectacular events in the history of the Wild West. His death, unsurprisingly, is also legendary. In 1876, while playing a game of poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, a man named Jack McCall shot him in the back of the head. The cards he was holding at the time —two pairs of Aces and black Eights— became the well-known "dead man's hand."

1

Alabama: The first 911 call

Today, the number 911 is synonymous with emergency assistance. Yet, before 1968, there was no universal number to call for help. In fact, citizens had to remember specific ten-digit numbers for their local police, fire department, or ambulance service.

Contrary to what you may think, the first 911 call didn’t take place in a metropolis like New York or Los Angeles. The Alabama Telephone Company developed the system to prove that a universal emergency number was a good idea. So, on February 16, 1968, Alabama Speaker of the House, Rankin Fite, made the inaugural call from the mayor’s office in the small town of Haleyville.

2

Florida: The first sunscreen

Florida is famously known as the Sunshine State, so it’s no wonder that it’s the birthplace of the world’s first effective sunscreen. That said, the invention wasn’t driven by beachgoers looking for a tan, but by the war.

In 1944, during World War II, a Florida pharmacist named Benjamin Green was concerned about the severe sunburns suffered by soldiers stationed in the Pacific. So, he developed a substance known as "red vet pet", a thick, red, petroleum product. While it was sticky and messy, it worked by physically blocking UV rays. After the war, Green refined the formula, added coconut oil and cocoa butter, and eventually founded the world-famous Coppertone brand.

3

Iowa: The first electronic digital computer

If you think of the birth of computers, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Silicon Valley or the ENIAC machine in Pennsylvania. However, the world’s first electronic digital computer was built in the basement of the physics building at Iowa State University.

Between 1937 and 1942, Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry developed the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). Unlike previous mechanical calculators, the ABC used vacuum tubes and binary math, and it was the first to separate the memory from the processor.

4

New York: The first commercial brewery

New York City may be the mecca of finance, but in the 1600s, its primary concern was refreshment. Long before the craft beer craze, the first commercial brewery in the New World was established in New Amsterdam (now Manhattan) in 1632.

The brewery was built by the Dutch West India Company on what is now named Stone Street, near Wall Street. At a time when water was often unsafe to drink, beer was a dietary staple for both adults and children. This early industry laid the foundation for New York’s long relationship with brewing, which would eventually make the state a global powerhouse for beer production in the 19th century.

5

South Carolina: The first opera performance

While the high arts are typically associated with the Northeast, the first opera performed in the American colonies took place in Charleston, South Carolina.

In the colonial era, Charleston was a wealthy, culturally vibrant port city, and its citizens loved European entertainment. So, on February 18, 1735, the British ballad opera Flora premiered at a makeshift theater built in a courtroom. Needless to say, this performance predated the formal theaters of Philadelphia and New York.

6

Maryland: The first dental school

For centuries, dentistry was a trade practiced by blacksmiths and barbers who had no formal medical training. This changed in 1840 in Baltimore, Maryland, with the founding of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery.

Established by dentist Horace Henry Hayden and doctor Chapin A. Harris, it was the first school in the world to offer a formal degree in dental surgery. The founders had initially approached the University of Maryland’s medical school to include dental instruction, but they were dismissed by physicians who claimed dentistry wasn’t that important. They didn’t give up and eventually started their own college, which still exists today as the University of Maryland School of Dentistry.

7

Maine: The first city

There are many really old cities in America. However, the first place to be officially chartered as a city in the English colonies was located in what is now York, Maine. In 1642, English military commander and proprietor of the Province of Maine, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, granted a charter to a settlement then known as Gorgeana. He even envisioned it as a grand capital for his new territory. While the city’s status was eventually revoked when the Massachusetts Bay Colony took control of the area, the charter remains the first of its kind in American history.

8

Michigan: The first paved road

As the home of the American automotive industry, it is only fitting that Michigan would be the birthplace of the modern road. Before the beginning of the 20th century, most American roads were made of dirt, gravel, or bricks, which were ill-suited for the weight and speed of the newly invented automobile.

In 1909, the Wayne County Road Commission paved a one-mile stretch of Woodward Avenue in Detroit with concrete. It was the first time cement had been used to create a long-distance road surface. The experiment was so successful—costing less to maintain and providing a smoother ride—that it became the global standard for road construction.

9

Minnesota: The first shopping mall

The American shopping mall is a cultural icon, but did you know it was born of a desire to escape the brutal winters of the Midwest? In 1956, the Southdale Center opened in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota, becoming the first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall in the U.S.

The mall was intended to be a town square that would foster community interaction regardless of the weather outside. It featured two levels of shops and a central atrium. The design was so revolutionary that it served as the blueprint for thousands of malls across the globe. Fun fact: Minnesota is also home to the largest shopping mall in the world, the Mall of America, which opened in 1992 in Bloomington.

10

Arizona: The first McDonald’s drive-thru

The drive-thru is a staple of fast food culture. Yet, contrary to what you may think, the first one wasn’t created for convenience but for military compliance. In 1975, a McDonald’s in Sierra Vista, Arizona, installed a service window to feed soldiers from the nearby Fort Huachuca.

At the time, soldiers were forbidden from wearing their military uniforms in public establishments. However, they were allowed to remain in their vehicles while in uniform. To capture the business of the hungry soldiers who couldn’t legally walk inside the restaurant, the owner installed a sliding window in the wall. The concept was an immediate success, quickly adopted by the rest of the venues.