WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.540 Welcome back to the deep dive. Today we are pulling 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:05.240 a file that honestly it feels like it's having 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:09.359 a bit of an identity crisis. That is a very polite 00:00:09.359 --> 00:00:11.310 way of putting it. I mean, we're looking at a 00:00:11.310 --> 00:00:13.910 stack of sources here, mainly a Wikipedia entry 00:00:13.910 --> 00:00:16.710 for a man named Arizona Charlie. And if you just 00:00:16.710 --> 00:00:18.190 glance at the name, you think, OK, this is a 00:00:18.190 --> 00:00:20.949 character. Right. This is fiction. Something 00:00:20.949 --> 00:00:23.350 from a dime store novel. Does have that ring 00:00:23.350 --> 00:00:25.429 to it. Arizona Charlie. It sounds, you know, 00:00:25.429 --> 00:00:27.690 manufactured for a poster. Exactly. It sounds 00:00:27.690 --> 00:00:30.730 like he should be played by John Wayne or maybe 00:00:30.730 --> 00:00:33.950 animated on a vintage lunchbox. But our mission 00:00:33.950 --> 00:00:37.409 today is to dig past that dime novel cover because 00:00:37.409 --> 00:00:40.000 the man underneath. Abram Hinson Meadows, was 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:42.960 very real. And his life story isn't just a cowboy 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:45.619 adventure. It's this really complex bridge between 00:00:45.619 --> 00:00:47.740 two completely different versions of America. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:49.840 That's the part that hooked me on this deep dive. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.020 You have this one figure who physically bridges 00:00:53.020 --> 00:00:56.700 the gap between the brutal, dusty reality of 00:00:56.700 --> 00:00:58.460 the frontier. Yeah, survival mode. Survival mode, 00:00:58.520 --> 00:01:01.659 exactly. And the polished, ticket -selling spectacle 00:01:01.659 --> 00:01:04.700 of the Wild West show. It's the transition from 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:07.620 living the history to, well, selling the history. 00:01:07.859 --> 00:01:09.959 Precisely. And he didn't just live through it. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:12.459 He was a key architect in how that history got 00:01:12.459 --> 00:01:14.819 packaged for everyone else. But before we get 00:01:14.819 --> 00:01:16.599 to the show business, we have to deal with the 00:01:16.599 --> 00:01:20.019 fact that our source material is, well, it's 00:01:20.019 --> 00:01:22.269 a bit of a mess. It's a puzzle. It really is. 00:01:22.349 --> 00:01:24.450 We've got conflicting dates. We've got some very 00:01:24.450 --> 00:01:27.230 confusing grammar. And we have, you know, real 00:01:27.230 --> 00:01:30.049 tragedy mixed with see also links to casinos. 00:01:30.209 --> 00:01:33.010 It's a perfect stub of history, just fragments 00:01:33.010 --> 00:01:35.049 of a life that we have to try and piece together. 00:01:35.230 --> 00:01:37.829 So let's start at the very beginning, or I guess 00:01:37.829 --> 00:01:39.730 the two beginnings, because right off the bat, 00:01:39.829 --> 00:01:42.430 the source gives us a classic historical headache. 00:01:42.670 --> 00:01:45.109 The birth date. Yeah. When was this guy actually 00:01:45.109 --> 00:01:47.450 born? Right. So if you look at the bold introduction 00:01:47.450 --> 00:01:50.379 text in the source, it states. Very confidently. 00:01:50.739 --> 00:01:54.620 Born March 10th, 1860. Case closed. But then 00:01:54.620 --> 00:01:56.680 you just let your eyes drift down, what, two 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:59.299 inches to the little info box on the right? And 00:01:59.299 --> 00:02:02.599 it says March 10th, 1859. A full year discrepancy. 00:02:02.700 --> 00:02:05.219 Just sitting there side by side. And usually 00:02:05.219 --> 00:02:07.299 you'd expect the source to, you know, mention 00:02:07.299 --> 00:02:09.840 that. But it just leaves it hanging. Well, you 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:12.020 have to remember the context. We're talking about 00:02:12.020 --> 00:02:15.060 Visalia, California in the mid -19th century. 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:18.960 This isn't the digital age. Record keeping was... 00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:23.159 Let's call it aspirational. Fuzzy is the word 00:02:23.159 --> 00:02:25.479 I was going to use. Aspirational, fuzzy, it works. 00:02:25.659 --> 00:02:28.460 People were born at home. Records were handwritten. 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:30.840 Sometimes they were lost in fires or floods. 00:02:31.379 --> 00:02:33.939 So the fact that we can't pin down his birth 00:02:33.939 --> 00:02:36.340 year is actually pretty telling of the world 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:38.620 he was born into. It was a world on the margins. 00:02:38.860 --> 00:02:41.039 And he wasn't exactly born into a quiet household 00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:43.629 where they could obsess over paperwork. The source 00:02:43.629 --> 00:02:46.729 notes he was the sixth of 12 children. 12 children. 00:02:46.789 --> 00:02:49.030 John Meadows Sr. was running a massive operation 00:02:49.030 --> 00:02:51.629 just keeping that family fed. Imagine the noise. 00:02:51.969 --> 00:02:54.090 Yeah. But speaking of the father, John Meadows 00:02:54.090 --> 00:02:57.610 Sr., this brings us to one of the most baffling 00:02:57.610 --> 00:03:00.270 sentences I have ever read. I mean, I had to 00:03:00.270 --> 00:03:02.150 read it three times. I know exactly which one 00:03:02.150 --> 00:03:04.030 you're talking about, the one with the president. 00:03:04.389 --> 00:03:07.550 Yes. Let me read this verbatim so you can share 00:03:07.550 --> 00:03:10.409 my confusion. The source says. After Abraham 00:03:10.409 --> 00:03:12.550 Lincoln became president, his father changed 00:03:12.550 --> 00:03:15.129 his name to Charles to move the family to a ranch 00:03:15.129 --> 00:03:17.229 in Diamond Valley, north of Payson, Arizona. 00:03:17.610 --> 00:03:20.229 There is so much packed into that one sentence. 00:03:20.370 --> 00:03:23.430 It's... Okay, let's unpack it. His father changed 00:03:23.430 --> 00:03:26.449 his name to Charles. Who is the his and who is 00:03:26.449 --> 00:03:28.810 the Charles? Did John Meadows Sr. change his 00:03:28.810 --> 00:03:31.009 own name to Charles or did he change the boy's 00:03:31.009 --> 00:03:34.060 name, Abram, to Charles? Grammatically, it's 00:03:34.060 --> 00:03:36.759 a disaster. It's completely ambiguous. But if 00:03:36.759 --> 00:03:39.280 we look at the context, I mean, our subject is 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:42.860 known to history as Arizona Charlie, not Arizona 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:45.319 Abram. Right. So the logical leap is that the 00:03:45.319 --> 00:03:47.180 father changed the son's name. OK, that makes 00:03:47.180 --> 00:03:49.680 sense. But the why is the really juicy part. 00:03:49.780 --> 00:03:53.509 The text explicitly links this decision to. After 00:03:53.509 --> 00:03:55.610 Abraham Lincoln became president. And that is 00:03:55.610 --> 00:03:58.990 a huge clue about the political temperature of 00:03:58.990 --> 00:04:01.030 the room. Why would Lincoln becoming president 00:04:01.030 --> 00:04:03.330 make a father change his son's name and move 00:04:03.330 --> 00:04:05.349 a family of 14 people to the middle of nowhere 00:04:05.349 --> 00:04:07.469 in Arizona? Well, you have to look at the timeline. 00:04:07.810 --> 00:04:10.370 Lincoln's elected in 1860. The Civil War kicks 00:04:10.370 --> 00:04:13.490 off in 61. Now, California was a union state. 00:04:13.900 --> 00:04:15.759 But it had a lot of Confederate sympathizers, 00:04:15.860 --> 00:04:17.879 especially in the southern agricultural parts 00:04:17.879 --> 00:04:20.420 like Visalia. It was a tense place. A very tense, 00:04:20.459 --> 00:04:23.319 divided place. So you think the name Abram, which 00:04:23.319 --> 00:04:25.500 sounds a lot like Abraham, as in the president, 00:04:25.699 --> 00:04:28.639 might have been a liability? It's possible. Or 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:30.540 maybe it was the opposite. Maybe the father. 00:04:31.069 --> 00:04:34.069 John Sr., was a Confederate sympathizer who didn't 00:04:34.069 --> 00:04:36.370 want a son sharing a name with the union president. 00:04:36.550 --> 00:04:39.009 Or they were union supporters in a Confederate 00:04:39.009 --> 00:04:41.209 -leaning town and just needed to get out. Either 00:04:41.209 --> 00:04:44.290 way, it suggests that the name Abram was politically 00:04:44.290 --> 00:04:47.829 charged. Right. And the fact that they moved 00:04:47.829 --> 00:04:52.110 to Arizona territory, that is not a casual move. 00:04:52.250 --> 00:04:55.350 Moving to Arizona in the 1860s wasn't like retiring 00:04:55.350 --> 00:04:57.709 to Phoenix today. It was moving into a war zone. 00:04:57.949 --> 00:05:00.300 It was an escape. It was a reinvention. They 00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:02.899 were fleeing something, politics, debt, social 00:05:02.899 --> 00:05:05.120 pressure, who knows. And they headed for the 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:07.439 frontier where questions weren't asked. But as 00:05:07.439 --> 00:05:10.199 the source makes very, very clear, the frontier 00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:12.759 had its own set of problems. And this brings 00:05:12.759 --> 00:05:15.379 us to the real turning point. If this was a movie, 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:17.779 this would be the inciting incident. The move 00:05:17.779 --> 00:05:19.980 to Diamond Valley. Right. We jump forward to 00:05:19.980 --> 00:05:23.480 July 15th, 1882. The family is on this ranch 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:27.259 in Arizona. Charlie is a young man now, 22, 23 00:05:27.259 --> 00:05:29.839 years old. And the source is incredibly blunt 00:05:29.839 --> 00:05:32.779 about what happens. It says John Meadows Sr., 00:05:32.779 --> 00:05:35.240 the patriarch, and Henry, the older brother, 00:05:35.379 --> 00:05:37.860 were killed. And it doesn't just say killed in 00:05:37.860 --> 00:05:40.399 a skirmish. It names names. It says they were 00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:43.899 killed by a party of Sibicu Apaches led by Nashradish. 00:05:44.139 --> 00:05:46.319 And we need to pause on those names because they 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:49.480 anchor this in a very specific, very violent 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:52.500 reality. The Sibicu Apaches. were involved in 00:05:52.500 --> 00:05:55.160 a desperate struggle for their land. Nachiwashi 00:05:55.160 --> 00:05:57.560 was a significant leader who had led a breakout 00:05:57.560 --> 00:05:59.600 from the reservation. So this wasn't a random 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:02.680 crime. This was war. It was. This raid was likely 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:04.879 part of the prelude to the Battle of Big Dry 00:06:04.879 --> 00:06:08.480 Wash, which historians mark as the last major 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:11.279 battle between the U .S. Army and Apache warriors 00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:14.160 in Arizona. So Charlie isn't just living in the 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:17.180 West. He is at ground zero of the Apache wars. 00:06:17.420 --> 00:06:20.129 And look at the position he has left in. The 00:06:20.129 --> 00:06:22.750 source explicitly states that after his father 00:06:22.750 --> 00:06:25.449 and older brother were killed he was left the 00:06:25.449 --> 00:06:28.329 man of the house. That phrase carries so much 00:06:28.329 --> 00:06:31.470 weight. Man of the house. He's barely into his 00:06:31.470 --> 00:06:33.829 20s. He has just seen his father and brother 00:06:33.829 --> 00:06:37.209 die violently. And suddenly he looks around and 00:06:37.209 --> 00:06:39.310 he has his mother and 10 siblings looking back 00:06:39.310 --> 00:06:41.470 at him. And they're in hostile territory. The 00:06:41.470 --> 00:06:43.170 threat hasn't gone away just because the funeral 00:06:43.170 --> 00:06:45.230 is over. Talk about trauma. I mean, we throw 00:06:45.230 --> 00:06:47.649 that word around a lot today, but this is visceral 00:06:47.649 --> 00:06:50.649 survival trauma. He has to step up, defend the 00:06:50.649 --> 00:06:53.550 ranch, feed the kids, keep everyone alive. It's 00:06:53.550 --> 00:06:56.089 a crushing amount of responsibility. And I think 00:06:56.089 --> 00:06:59.029 it's crucial to understand this moment because 00:06:59.029 --> 00:07:01.089 it defines everything that comes later. This 00:07:01.089 --> 00:07:03.290 isn't show business yet. This is about having 00:07:03.290 --> 00:07:05.949 a loaded rifle within arm's reach every second 00:07:05.949 --> 00:07:08.430 of the day. It totally changes how you look at 00:07:08.430 --> 00:07:10.889 the name Arizona Charlie. Before he was a character, 00:07:10.970 --> 00:07:14.009 he was a survivor. Yes. And usually when people 00:07:14.009 --> 00:07:16.449 go through something that horrific, they retreat, 00:07:16.649 --> 00:07:18.810 they move back to the city, they hunker down. 00:07:19.050 --> 00:07:21.839 But Charlie didn't do that. And this is where 00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:23.860 the story pivots in a way that I find completely 00:07:23.860 --> 00:07:28.120 fascinating. The source says that in 1884, that 00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:30.560 is only two years after the murders. Two years. 00:07:30.699 --> 00:07:33.959 Two years. He's pivoting to public events. That's 00:07:33.959 --> 00:07:36.540 a blink of an eye in terms of grieving. He teams 00:07:36.540 --> 00:07:39.029 up with a guy named John C. Chilson. And they 00:07:39.029 --> 00:07:41.490 organized the Payson Rodeo. In Payson, Arizona. 00:07:41.610 --> 00:07:43.850 And the source makes a huge claim here. It says 00:07:43.850 --> 00:07:46.610 the Payson Rodeo claims to be America's oldest 00:07:46.610 --> 00:07:49.470 continuous rodeo. So he didn't just throw a party. 00:07:49.529 --> 00:07:52.529 He founded an institution. But think about what 00:07:52.529 --> 00:07:55.949 a rodeo actually is. What are the events? Bronc 00:07:55.949 --> 00:07:59.860 riding, roping, shooting. Exactly. These are 00:07:59.860 --> 00:08:01.959 the skills of the ranch, the skills of survival. 00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:04.819 They're the exact same skills Charlie had to 00:08:04.819 --> 00:08:07.699 use to defend his family in 1882. Oh, I see where 00:08:07.699 --> 00:08:10.480 you're going with this. In 1882, riding fast 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:12.620 and shooting straight was a matter of life and 00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:16.519 death. If you missed, you died. But in 1884, 00:08:16.699 --> 00:08:19.860 just two years later, he takes those same skills. 00:08:20.379 --> 00:08:22.899 And he puts them in an arena. He invites a crowd. 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:26.060 He offers a prize. He gamifies it. He gamifies 00:08:26.060 --> 00:08:28.800 his own trauma. It's the beginning of the commodification 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:32.100 of the West. He takes the hard, violent reality 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:34.840 of his life and turns it into a sport. That is 00:08:34.840 --> 00:08:37.159 a wild psychological pivot. It's like, here's 00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:38.980 the thing that kept me alive. Now watch me do 00:08:38.980 --> 00:08:41.179 it for applause. It's a way of asserting control, 00:08:41.340 --> 00:08:43.519 isn't it? In the real world, in Diamond Valley, 00:08:43.700 --> 00:08:46.610 chaos can strike at any moment. But in the rodeo 00:08:46.610 --> 00:08:49.230 arena, the cowboy is in charge. The rules are 00:08:49.230 --> 00:08:51.309 set. The good guy wins the belt buckle. It's 00:08:51.309 --> 00:08:53.590 therapeutic in a way. Or I don't know, maybe 00:08:53.590 --> 00:08:55.830 just good business. I think it's both. And it 00:08:55.830 --> 00:08:57.690 marks the moment where Abram Meadows starts to 00:08:57.690 --> 00:08:59.929 disappear and Arizona Charlie starts to take 00:08:59.929 --> 00:09:02.009 over. He's realizing that people are fascinated 00:09:02.009 --> 00:09:04.470 by the life he lives and they will pay to see 00:09:04.470 --> 00:09:06.610 a safe version of it. And speaking of paying 00:09:06.610 --> 00:09:09.269 to see it, the source drops a massive name here. 00:09:09.370 --> 00:09:11.830 It says Charlie was a contemporary of, and I 00:09:11.830 --> 00:09:14.360 quote, Buffalo Bill Cody. You really can't tell 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:16.919 the story of the West without Buffalo Bill. The 00:09:16.919 --> 00:09:19.480 source explicitly says that Buffalo Bill's Wild 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:22.259 West show is what inspired Meadows to pursue 00:09:22.259 --> 00:09:25.159 a performing career. And this confirms that shift 00:09:25.159 --> 00:09:27.500 we were just talking about. Buffalo Bill Cody 00:09:27.500 --> 00:09:30.580 was a genius at marketing. He took the frontier 00:09:30.580 --> 00:09:33.759 experience, the scouts, the Indians, the sharpshooting, 00:09:33.779 --> 00:09:36.159 and he packaged it for audiences in the East 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:39.879 and in Europe. He turned the Wild West into a 00:09:39.879 --> 00:09:42.080 brand. And Charlie saw that and thought, I can 00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:45.100 do that. I am doing that. Right. That's the difference. 00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:47.559 Buffalo Bill was a scout, sure, but he was a 00:09:47.559 --> 00:09:50.080 showman first. Charlie is fresh off the ranch. 00:09:50.179 --> 00:09:53.179 He's arguably closer to the raw reality of it. 00:09:53.299 --> 00:09:55.860 And yet he modeled himself after the showman. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:58.840 He wanted the lights. The source lists his talent 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:01.860 specifically. Sharpshooter, Sherman, and sports 00:10:01.860 --> 00:10:04.799 trickshot artist. Sports trickshot artist. I 00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:06.600 love that phrasing. It sounds so professional. 00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:08.980 It does. But think about what a trickshot is. 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:11.769 It's artificial difficulty. You know, shooting 00:10:11.769 --> 00:10:13.509 a target while looking at a mirror over your 00:10:13.509 --> 00:10:16.269 shoulder. It's flair. It's flair, but it's also 00:10:16.269 --> 00:10:19.690 a demonstration of absolute mastery. If you are 00:10:19.690 --> 00:10:22.149 the man of the house protecting 10 siblings, 00:10:22.309 --> 00:10:25.590 you need to be a good shot. But you don't shoot 00:10:25.590 --> 00:10:27.990 over your shoulder with a mirror. That's inefficient. 00:10:28.269 --> 00:10:31.090 Right. You shoot to stop the threat. But in the 00:10:31.090 --> 00:10:33.850 show, the gun becomes a magic wand. It stops 00:10:33.850 --> 00:10:36.070 being a tool of violence and becomes a tool of 00:10:36.070 --> 00:10:39.070 entertainment. It sanitizes the danger. So just 00:10:39.070 --> 00:10:41.320 imagine the scene. You have this guy, Charlie, 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:43.980 who lived through a massacre, and now he's dressing 00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:46.320 up in fringe and buckskins, traveling around 00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:48.820 and performing reenactments of frontier life. 00:10:49.059 --> 00:10:51.759 It's a complex psychology. Was he reenacting 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:53.940 a version of his own life? When he performed 00:10:53.940 --> 00:10:56.039 as a sharpshooter, was he just entertaining the 00:10:56.039 --> 00:10:58.559 crowd? Or was he proving to himself night after 00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:01.379 night that he was the protector? that he wouldn't 00:11:01.379 --> 00:11:03.539 miss. It's almost like he's rewriting history 00:11:03.539 --> 00:11:06.059 every time he enters the ring. In the show, the 00:11:06.059 --> 00:11:08.500 tragedy doesn't happen. The hero hits the target 00:11:08.500 --> 00:11:11.600 every time. Exactly. The Wild West show allows 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:14.019 you to control the narrative. You can take the 00:11:14.019 --> 00:11:16.480 messy, painful history of the Apache Wars and 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:18.659 turn it into a thrilling spectacle where everyone 00:11:18.659 --> 00:11:21.480 takes a bow at the end. So Charlie becomes this 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:24.659 figure. He travels. He performs globally. The 00:11:24.659 --> 00:11:26.480 source mentions he went as far as Australia. 00:11:26.740 --> 00:11:30.000 He is Arizona Charlie, the legend. He becomes 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:32.379 a character in his own lifetime. But the life 00:11:32.379 --> 00:11:35.480 of a showman isn't all applause. The source gives 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:38.039 us a hint about the reality of his later years. 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:40.820 There is a reference cited, and I have to read 00:11:40.820 --> 00:11:42.899 the title of this article because it is absolute 00:11:42.899 --> 00:11:45.659 gold. Go ahead. It's an article by Marshall Trimble 00:11:45.659 --> 00:11:49.259 in True West magazine from June 2018. The title 00:11:49.259 --> 00:11:52.629 is... Fame, fortune, and a snowball's chance 00:11:52.629 --> 00:11:55.470 in hell. That is evocative. It really paints 00:11:55.470 --> 00:11:57.629 a picture, doesn't it? It sums up the frontier 00:11:57.629 --> 00:12:00.830 showman perfectly. Fame and fortune suggest he 00:12:00.830 --> 00:12:04.470 reached the heights. But a snowball's chance 00:12:04.470 --> 00:12:07.049 in hell, that suggests the odds were always stacked 00:12:07.049 --> 00:12:09.350 against him. It implies a life lived on the edge. 00:12:09.470 --> 00:12:12.409 High risk, high reward. And likely, high loss. 00:12:13.179 --> 00:12:15.559 These guys were gamblers at heart. They made 00:12:15.559 --> 00:12:17.360 money when the show was hot and they lost it 00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:19.639 on bad investments or just trying to keep the 00:12:19.639 --> 00:12:21.879 show on the road. That title tells you he didn't 00:12:21.879 --> 00:12:24.639 die a quiet, boring millionaire. No, he kept 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:27.440 moving. And eventually the show does end. The 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:29.200 source tells us that Meadows died on December 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:34.240 9, 1932. In Yuma, Arizona. He was 73 years old. 00:12:34.340 --> 00:12:36.659 Just pause and think about the arc of that life 00:12:36.659 --> 00:12:39.919 for a second. Okay. He is born in 1859 or 60. 00:12:40.509 --> 00:12:43.490 People are traveling by covered wagon. The telegraph 00:12:43.490 --> 00:12:46.470 is cutting edge technology. The map of America 00:12:46.470 --> 00:12:49.769 is still being drawn. Right. And he dies in 1932. 00:12:50.289 --> 00:12:53.169 We have airplanes. We have movies with sound. 00:12:53.210 --> 00:12:55.330 We have the Great Depression. The modern world 00:12:55.330 --> 00:12:57.830 has arrived. He saw the entire transformation. 00:12:57.909 --> 00:13:00.409 He saw the frontier when it was truly wild. He 00:13:00.409 --> 00:13:02.210 saw the closing of that frontier and he saw the 00:13:02.210 --> 00:13:04.850 rise of the automobile and the, well, the beginnings 00:13:04.850 --> 00:13:06.610 of the Vegas Strip. He didn't just see it. He 00:13:06.610 --> 00:13:09.570 embodied it. He started as a pioneer and ended 00:13:09.570 --> 00:13:12.110 as an entertainer. But here's where it gets really 00:13:12.110 --> 00:13:15.529 interesting to me. The man died in 1932, but 00:13:15.529 --> 00:13:19.029 his name didn't. No, it didn't. The See Also 00:13:19.029 --> 00:13:21.649 section of the source lists two very specific 00:13:21.649 --> 00:13:23.490 things. And they aren't history books. They are 00:13:23.490 --> 00:13:27.009 Arizona Charlie's Boulder and Arizona Charlie's 00:13:27.009 --> 00:13:29.590 Decatur. Now, the source doesn't explicitly define 00:13:29.590 --> 00:13:31.649 what these are. It just lists them as Wikilinks. 00:13:31.870 --> 00:13:34.750 But if you've ever been to Las Vegas or if you 00:13:34.750 --> 00:13:37.990 just look at the naming convention. Arizona charlers. 00:13:38.409 --> 00:13:40.970 That sounds like hospitality to me. It is. They're 00:13:40.970 --> 00:13:43.549 hotels and casinos. Which is just an incredible 00:13:43.549 --> 00:13:46.470 irony. How so? Well, think about it. We started 00:13:46.470 --> 00:13:49.169 with a man named Abram, whose father changed 00:13:49.169 --> 00:13:52.409 his name to avoid political trouble. A man who 00:13:52.409 --> 00:13:55.690 suffered a brutal real -world tragedy in a canyon 00:13:55.690 --> 00:13:59.230 in Arizona. a man who fought to survive. And 00:13:59.230 --> 00:14:02.389 now, nearly 100 years after his death, his name 00:14:02.389 --> 00:14:05.490 is on a neon sign inviting people to an all -you 00:14:05.490 --> 00:14:07.909 -can -eat buffet and slot machines. It is the 00:14:07.909 --> 00:14:10.230 ultimate evolution of the Wild West myth, isn't 00:14:10.230 --> 00:14:13.110 it? It really is. We went from survival in 1882 00:14:13.110 --> 00:14:17.710 to spectacle in the 1890s with the Wild West 00:14:17.710 --> 00:14:21.019 shows to purely branding in the modern era. Arizona 00:14:21.019 --> 00:14:23.159 Charlie ceased to be a person with a tragic past 00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:25.639 and became a logo. It highlights how we process 00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:27.639 history in America. We take the rough edges off, 00:14:27.759 --> 00:14:29.559 we take the tragedy of the Sibicu Apaches and 00:14:29.559 --> 00:14:32.019 the Meadows family, and we distill it down until 00:14:32.019 --> 00:14:34.320 it's just a vibe, a cool cowboy name to put on 00:14:34.320 --> 00:14:36.700 a building. If you walked into Arizona Charlie's 00:14:36.700 --> 00:14:39.220 Decatur today and asked a person playing video 00:14:39.220 --> 00:14:41.679 poker, hey, did you know this place is named 00:14:41.679 --> 00:14:43.659 after a guy who watched his dad get killed by 00:14:43.659 --> 00:14:47.129 Natatish in 1882? they would look at you like 00:14:47.129 --> 00:14:49.250 you were crazy. They absolutely would. I'm just 00:14:49.250 --> 00:14:51.309 here for the shrimp cocktail, buddy. Exactly. 00:14:51.690 --> 00:14:54.029 But, you know, in a weird way, maybe that's what 00:14:54.029 --> 00:14:55.710 Arizona Charlie the Man would have understood. 00:14:56.070 --> 00:14:58.230 You'd think so. He spent his whole adult life 00:14:58.230 --> 00:15:00.549 trying to turn his reality into entertainment. 00:15:00.830 --> 00:15:03.470 He understood the hustle. The casino is just 00:15:03.470 --> 00:15:06.049 the modern version of the Wild West show. It's 00:15:06.049 --> 00:15:08.850 bright lights, distraction, and a promise of 00:15:08.850 --> 00:15:12.169 a thrill. Fame, fortune, and a snowball's chance 00:15:12.169 --> 00:15:15.730 in hell. That applies to a roulette wheel, just 00:15:15.730 --> 00:15:18.309 as well as it applies to a cattle drive. It certainly 00:15:18.309 --> 00:15:20.210 does. But I want to give the man some credit, 00:15:20.250 --> 00:15:22.889 too, because while the casinos are a bit disconnected 00:15:22.889 --> 00:15:25.950 from his reality, the Payson Rodeo isn't. That's 00:15:25.950 --> 00:15:28.129 true. That is the more authentic legacy. The 00:15:28.129 --> 00:15:30.490 source says it claims to be the oldest continuous 00:15:30.490 --> 00:15:33.889 rodeo. That means every single year since 1884, 00:15:34.149 --> 00:15:37.029 people have gathered in Payson to do the things 00:15:37.029 --> 00:15:39.830 Charlie and his friend organized. There is something 00:15:39.830 --> 00:15:43.100 beautiful about that consistency. Governments 00:15:43.100 --> 00:15:46.679 change. Technologies change. Wars happen. But 00:15:46.679 --> 00:15:48.740 people are still getting on horses in Payson. 00:15:48.840 --> 00:15:50.779 It suggests that underneath the branding and 00:15:50.779 --> 00:15:53.019 the spectacle, there is a core respect for those 00:15:53.019 --> 00:15:55.960 skills. Charlie didn't just leave a logo. He 00:15:55.960 --> 00:15:58.120 left a community tradition. He took the worst 00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:00.759 moment of his life, and he built something that 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:03.919 has brought people together for 140 years. That's 00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:07.120 a powerful legacy. So when we look at the stub 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:09.840 of a Wikipedia entry, we aren't just looking 00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:12.460 at a few random dates. We are looking at a blueprint 00:16:12.460 --> 00:16:14.960 for how the West was won and then how it was 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:17.919 sold. We process history by performing it. We 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:20.100 take the scary parts and we turn them into a 00:16:20.100 --> 00:16:22.779 show. Arizona Charlie was one of the first to 00:16:22.779 --> 00:16:24.940 realize, if I can perform this, I can control 00:16:24.940 --> 00:16:27.200 it. And in doing so, he made himself immortal, 00:16:27.379 --> 00:16:29.559 or at least he made his name immortal. Which 00:16:29.559 --> 00:16:32.080 is more than most of us get. Well, we have covered 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:34.620 a lot of ground today, from the muddy birth records 00:16:34.620 --> 00:16:37.240 of Vesalia to the tragic canyons of Diamond Valley 00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:39.759 and all the way to the bright neon lights of 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:43.360 Las Vegas. A bridge built on resilience, gunpowder, 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:46.019 and a lot of showmanship. A huge thank you to 00:16:46.019 --> 00:16:48.500 everyone for listening to this deep dive. We 00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:50.620 hope this little journey into the stub of history 00:16:50.620 --> 00:16:53.419 gave you something to think about. It definitely 00:16:53.419 --> 00:16:55.539 makes you wonder what true stories are hiding 00:16:55.539 --> 00:16:57.620 behind the other brand names we see every day. 00:16:57.799 --> 00:17:01.120 Oh, absolutely. And here is a final provocative 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:04.140 thought for you to chew on. We know Charlie performed 00:17:04.140 --> 00:17:06.720 as a sharpshooter. When he was out there in the 00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:09.460 arena hitting those targets, was he celebrating 00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:12.740 the spirit of the West? Or was he, in some way, 00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:16.019 constantly reliving that day in 1882, trying 00:17:16.019 --> 00:17:18.460 to get the shots right this time? That is a haunting 00:17:18.460 --> 00:17:21.240 thought. It is. Go look into the stubs of history, 00:17:21.380 --> 00:17:23.160 everyone. You never know what you'll find. See 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:23.660 you next time.