Calamity in Wax

Dodge City, Kansas

Wild West historians can't seem to agree if Martha Jane Canary -- "Calamity Jane" -- got her nickname because calamity always seemed to follow her or because she caused the calamities herself. Her mural at the Famous Gunfighters Wax Museum in Dodge City, Kansas, suggests that she was a human tornado -- "a rough talking, tobacco chewing, straight shooting Cow Girl" according to her placard -- with her spilling a bottle of booze and breaking a saloon chair. All historians agree that Jane had a drinking problem.

In front of the mural are wax dummies of Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, who's splattered with either blood or drips from a leaky wax museum roof. Bill may have visited Dodge City a time or two -- "His reputation was enough to make a cowboy tremble," according to his placard -- but Jane never did, and the two didn't hook up until they landed in Deadwood, South Dakota, where Bill was killed. Again, historians can't agree if they were ever a couple, but they are buried together. Jane lived to be 51, old age for a waxy Wild West saloon hellcat.