Back in my hometown, where I grew up, there was a bar named Too Tall that is now closed down. That was the place where people would get together to tell tall tales, speak on local lore, and have spirited discussions over a few beers. This series is an attempt to recapture the essence of that place and provide you with anecdotes to discuss while sitting on a barstool. So pour yourself a cold one, and take some mental notes as we take a look at the most unique photograph ever taken. Maybe. 

The Gathering 

A gang of outlaws, a group of lawmen, a judge, and a future president walk into a bar. Seems like a far-fetched set up to a bad joke, doesn’t it? The picture above begs to differ. The photograph in question, dubbed “The Gathering, 1883,” is one of great mystery and foggy circumstances. I first saw it on Instagram a few months back and, at first glance, I didn’t register it as anything all that special, but when I read the caption, I was intrigued.

Apparently, it shows some of the greatest legends of the Old West gathered, posing for a picture in front of a resort in Hunters Hot Springs, Montana. Wyatt Earp, Teddy Roosevelt (pre-presidency), Doc Holiday, Morgan Earp, Liver-Eating Johnson, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Bat Masterson, Harry Britton, Judge Roy Bean, and Ben Greenough are all supposedly present. If true, it’s essentially a who’s who of 1880 celebrities, kind of like a group of famous people taking a selfie at the Emmys today. Naturally, I was skeptical of its legitimacy. To me, it didn’t seem like would-be presidents, bandits, and gunslingers mixed all that well. I had to learn more.

The Unfortunate Truth

It seems like a picture that is just too good to be true. And, well, it probably is. While many of the people in the photo were famous at around that time, never before had there been an instance in which so many were all seen together. And you might think that information proving or disproving such a meet-up would be pretty easy to find, but you’d be wrong. It was difficult to uncover anything at all about the picture’s history or authenticity, much less a sure-fire “Yep, it’s real.” or “Nope, fake.”

With some digging, I managed to find out that despite people wanting the picture to be real, there is some glaring evidence to the contrary. For instance, Morgan Earp had been dead for a year by the time The Gathering was taken. This pretty much rules out his presence entirely. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have only been 17 and 16 years old, respectively, in the photo if they were there. At first, their attendance may seem plausible, but it is overshadowed by the fact that the two weren’t known to be in Montana until three years later in 1886. What’s more, Bat Masterson was involved in the Dodge City War in 1883, which makes it unlikely that he was there either. The more one looks into the credibility of this photo, the more it seems to fall apart and fade away into dust. Fact quickly morphs into fiction. 

Wild Dreams and Western Fantasies

Even though so many aspects of this photo have been disproven, I still see plenty of people maintain its validity. They say stuff like, “Well, maybe the date is just wrong.” and, “Sure, maybe Morgan Earp wasn’t there, but Wyatt could have been. And Roosevelt could have been there too.” And sure, it’s feasible that Roosevelt found himself surrounded by outlaws and cowboys in Montana when he traveled out West in the 1880s. But is it likely he is in this photo, sitting in front of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday? Probably not. There is nothing to say that he wasn’t there, but that doesn’t make it true, unfortunately.

Still, I understand why people want it to be true. Hell, I wish it was. The Old West is more than just cool six-shooter gun fights at noon and daring train robberies in the dark. It symbolizes the romantic wayward cowboy lifestyle, the excitement of lawlessness and wilderness, and a simplified, more free existence. People hold onto these things and look at the figures of that time as idols. So, no wonder they see a photograph like this one and begin to daydream about what it would have been like to sit in on the most famous and infamous men of the time having a drink and shooting the breeze, whether they were even there or not. The Wild West is as close to a perfect setting as you could get for storytelling, and this photo is an example of that on a micro-scale. The canvas is right there; you only need to dream up a story to paint onto it. True or otherwise.