Truth can be difficult to divine from fiction in stories of the wild west. But there have been many, over the years, who purported to witness the demise of outlaws, such as Billy the Kid and members of his notorious band of rustlers. And those stories tend to illustrate a simple rule- men who lived by violence, often died by violence.
The appeal of one strange object, which achieved dizzying popularity in my lifetime, and today lives on mostly for nostalgia, is not so difficult to explain. All you need to do is turn one on and wait.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.