TOP 10 GUNFIGHTERS OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH
1 Henry J. Talbot: Better known as “Cherokee Bob,” Talbot was a gold rush gambler who took part in several knife and gunfights in the early 1850s. In 1854 he was shot and wounded during an attempted mass breakout from San Quentin State Prison. On Nevada’s Comstock Lode he survived more potentially lethal scrapes before fleeing to Washington Territory, where he shot and killed two soldiers in 1862. A year later Cherokee Bob and a cohort were gunned down amid a shootout in the mining camp of Florence, Idaho Territory.
2 Billy Mulligan: Mulligan was one of many Tammany Hall brawlers from New York City who dominated politics in gold rush San Francisco. In 1851 he killed a gambler in a Sonora dance hall shootout and later that year was wounded twice, once in a formal duel and once in a gamblers’ gunfight. Run out of San Francisco in 1856 by the feared Committee of Vigilance, Mulligan later returned and in 1865 engaged in a violent gun battle, killing two men before being slain by a police sharpshooter.
3 Ben Marshall: One of the first of the gold rush gunmen, and among the last standing, Marshall took part in numerous bloody exploits, though he did sometimes operate on the right side of the law. Read more about his exploits on P. 50.
Gay proved himself one of the top lawmen during the gold rush. A Mexican War veteran, he served as a police
