We were honored to meet Brenda Fohlmeister from San Antonio, Texas. She is a direct descendant of Phil Coe.
Phil was the co-owner of the infamous Bull's Head S
aloon in 1871, when he and his business partner, Ben Thompson, decided to paint an extremely graphic and inappropriate depiction of a bull on the side of their building. After public outcry, Marshal Wild Bill had to ask them to remove the painting. Coe being the strong willed Texan refused so Wild Bill took matters into his own hands and made the painting more kid friendly with a bit of white paint.
Abilene on the south side of the tracks became a hotbed for post Civil War fallout. Coe would lead the charge for Texans. As Coe vowed that Wild Bill would be dead before the end of the cattle season, the cool wind of October started to move in, and Coe had to make his move.
As the rowdy cowboys on Texas street were making things a bit uncomfortable, Coe fired two shots at Wild Bill, one split a hole through Bill's coat, and the other shot hit the ground ahead of Bill. As Bill returned fire, he put two shots in Coe's abdomen and left him to bleed out.
As Wild Bill frantically looked around for some other Wild cowboy to take their shots, a silhouette of an armed man came running straight at Hickok from the alley. Wild Bill shot the man only to find out that it was his friend and theatre security guard Mike Williams who was only coming to Wild Bill's aid in the dangerous standoff. Wild Bill was never the same man after that. He joined up with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and five years later, was shot in the back in Deadwood, South Dakota.
There are some that believed that Wild Bill and Phil Coe were fighting over a common love interest. Whatever the reason, the two legends of the Old West, met their untimely demise at the hands of a firearm.
