I’m gonna kill ya for what ya done to my pore little sister!”įrank West shot Alvin Kittleby in the chest, and as he fell to the ground, train passengers screamed, fainted or ducked for cover. According to one source, Alvin hollered, “There ya are, ya lowdown polecat! I’ve been waitin’ for ya. At the first performance, citizen Frank West leaned against a corral fence by the railroad at the time the noon train stopped for lunch, and Alvin Kittleby approached.
When the next train came into town, the main players took their places. Townspeople were recruited and cast as outlaws and lawmen. At least, that’s one origin story of America’s wildest western city. The idea was allegedly born when a train conductor told one Palisade resident that his passengers were always disappointed that the West wasn’t as wild as the stories proclaimed. During the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, Palisade (named for the valley that obstructed the railroad’s construction) was the site of an elaborate hoax during the early 1870s staging lifelike gunfights and bank robberies during the 1870s in a bid to attract tourists. The American West has had a reputation of being wild since the continent was first colonized, but the inhabitants of one Nevada town, Palisade, made sure they really embodied the sentiment.