Billy Dixon

Born in 1850, Billy Dixon became known on the American frontier as a buffalo hunter, scout, and guide during the years when the southern Plains were being violently reshaped by warfare, hunting, and settlement. He is most closely associated with the Texas Panhandle and with the Second Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874, where his reported long-range rifle shot became one of the most famous stories of the Old West.

Dixon later served as an army scout and was also remembered for his role in the fight at Buffalo Wallow, another well-known episode of the Red River War. Accounts of his life helped fix him in frontier history as both a real participant in major events and a larger-than-life western character.

He died in 1913. Much of his enduring reputation comes from memoirs and later retellings that mix documented history with the mythic storytelling of the American West, which is part of what still makes his story so compelling.