Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Clear the street—It’s a shootout

Blackjack Ketchum gang to perform 3 times this weekend

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By TERRY SMITH
Express Staff Writer

The Blackjack Ketchum Shootout Gang will perform once Friday evening and twice on Saturday as part of Wagon Days festivities. Photo by Willy Cook

What's Wagon Days without a good shootout?

Three of them are planned this year, courtesy of the Blackjack Ketchum Shootout Gang, a cast of about 20 folks who dress and perform as outlaws, lawmen, saloon girls or ordinary town folk. There's always a story involved. It changes over the years, but it's basically just good guys and bad guys having it out with guns.

You can catch the gang at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3, on Ketchum's Main Street in front of the Casino Club. They shoot it out again at 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, this time on Main Street in front of the Pioneer Saloon. The gang moves back to the Casino Club for the final performance at 7 p.m. Saturday.

The shootouts carry on a tradition started in 1958 by local shooting enthusiasts Bob Black and Gale Dyer. According to the story, as told by Black to the Idaho Mountain Express in 2009, the whole thing started out as a prank.

He and Dyer were drinking beer at a Ketchum bar. They had their revolvers with them, since back then they were allowed to pack them for Wagon Days as long as they weren't loaded.

After a few drinks, Black and Dyer decided to load the guns with blanks, pretend to have an argument and walk outside and start shooting at each other.

That's what they did. A crowd gathered, including former City Marshal Les Jankow, who told them he'd confiscate their weapons if they didn't behave.

Later, Jankow contacted Black and Dyer, along with some other shooting buddies, and they agreed to make the shootout a regular Wagon Days event.

"That's how it all started," Black said.

Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com

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