06/29/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18hh3qThZf/
🎯 Some Western legends shrink when you check the facts. This one mostly holds up. At the Second Battle of Adobe Walls in June 1874, a buffalo hunter named Billy Dixon is said to have knocked a man off his horse at a distance so great that people have argued about it for nearly 150 years.
A tiny settlement of buffalo hunters and merchants was camped at Adobe Walls in the Texas Panhandle when a large force of Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne warriors attacked at dawn, led in part by the young war leader Quanah Parker. The roughly two dozen defenders forted up behind thick adobe walls and held off wave after wave with their powerful long range buffalo rifles. The attackers, expecting an easy raid, could not break through and eventually pulled back to the surrounding hills.
Days into the standoff, Dixon reportedly took aim at a group of warriors on a distant bluff and brought one down with a single shot from his Sharps rifle. Surveyors later measured the distance at roughly 1,538 yards, nearly nine tenths of a mile. 💥 Dixon himself modestly called it a lucky shot, and it probably was, but it became one of the most famous marksmanship feats of the entire frontier. Do you think a shot like that was skill, luck, or a little of both?
