Arkansas-Oklahoma-Missouri

Discover the Western Frontier on a tour of three gateway states to the Old West.

- ERIK J. WRIGHT

A road trip through the states of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma would quicky prove to nonbelievers that the violent ways of the frontier flourished here, too. While the thick underbrush, tall trees and rolling hillsides conflict with the popular image of the Western United States, the three gateway states embody the spirit and the history of the Wild West.

Arkansas

Beginning in the state’s far northeast corner near the Missouri bootheel lies Paragould, the county seat of Greene County. For decades, from the 1870s through the turn of the century, Greene County and Paragould was an epicenter of violence and lawlessness. Named for the railroad magnates whose tracks crossed in the middle of town, Paragould is perhaps most famous for the 1909 murder of Charles Gragg by James Trammell. The killer fled to San Francisco and was apprehended before fleeing a second time, never to be heard from again by local authorities. But it turns out that Trammell had escaped to New South Wales, Australia, where he died an old man in 1966. Today, the site of the killing is preserved as a boutique clothing store along a quaint and restored downtown shopping district.

Traveling southwest past Little Rock you’ll find Hot Springs. If one can look past all the glitz and glamour of the gangster era, the intrepid visitor will discover a rich Western history. It was here that legendary lawman Bat Masterson visited and stayed at the famed Arlington Hotel. In March 1899, Hot Springs Chief of Police Thomas C. Toler and Garland County Sheriff Bob Williams fought for authority over the town’s gambling and the illegal kickbacks that came with it. The feud boiled over with supporters from both factions on Central Avenue in Hot Springs, and five were killed and three wounded.