One of the things Yellowstone spinoff 1883 fans have noticed is how realistic the show seems to be. This isn’t the kind of show that’s soft-pedaling how things were. The show tends to depict people getting killed for saying the wrong thing. There’s usually no hesitation. Someone gets in an argument, that person is going to hear gunfire soon.
The realism in the show doesn’t just extend to the action on screen. The travels of course are also based in reality. Taking the Oregon trail across the country was something that absolutely helped shape how this country came about.
It turns out that the new Paramount+ exclusive has also introduced at least one character that was a real-life, rooting-tooting cowboy during this period of time and setting.
1883 Star Makes Cameo Based On Real Life Cowboy
While Yellowstone‘s Dutton clan is a made-up family, it turns out that some of the people they’ve run across really did exist.
In the second episode of the popular spinoff, Marshal Jim Courtright makes a memorable appearance.
“There’s only one killer in Ft. Worth, and that’s me,” the lawman drawls after a particularly bloody shootout.
The Billy Bob Thornton-played marshal makes an instant impression in his short stint on screen, yet of all of the cowboy characters that appear in the show’s fictional version of Fort Worth, Courtright stands out, because unlike the Duttons and Sam Elliott’s scene-stealing Shea Brennan, Courtright actually happens to be based on a real-life gunslinger.
Of course, 1883 isn’t a documentary. There’s a little bit of poetic license when it comes to the show.
Those who saw Billy Bob Thornton play the lawman should know that the character in the Yellowstone spinoff is more of an homage.
Who Is Jim Courtwright?
Relatively little is known about Courtright’s early life. In his late teens, he served in the Union Army during the Civil War. A famed shooter – something that definitely comes into play in the show – Courtright served for a time as an army scout.
In 1876 – seven years before the Duttons arrived in town – Courtright ran for and won election to the post of city marshal of Fort Worth. The city was a notorious gambling and drinking town, as it is depicted in 1883.
His talent with a gun quickly won him a reputation, and the city’s murder rate supposedly fell precipitously under his watch. At the same time Courtright was known to be involved in a number of shootout deaths during his reign.
He remained in the job until 1879. That of course is where the show deviates from reality the most. He was not Ft. Worth’s marshal when Billy Bob Thornton gave life to him on the Yellowstone spinoff western.
However, it appears the program came rather close to paying the kind of homage that would do the gunslinger proud.
