Picture a scenario where you are just having fun on your smartphone, but then you find yourself in the Cowboy era of America, where it’s set roughly EDIT: 130 years ago.
Picture a scenario where you are just having fun on your smartphone, but then you find yourself in the Cowboy era of America, where it’s set roughly EDIT: 130 years ago.
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Honestly? Probably die.
I’ve read blood meridian enough times to be nervous
Probably go rob a train or something.
As a person of color, I’d be fucked lol.
Grab some six guns and head to the saloon. Then start growing a big mustache.
Probably die of cholera or smallpox
Depends where I was sent? Try to survive, find work, fit in.
Die of from some horrible waterborne disease that cleaned out of our water supply so we are no longer immune
Die of a simple illness.
I’m a woman-I’m screwed.
Find my best friend Arthur and tell him about my plan.
Probably be a prostitute or something tbh
Exercise my Second Amendment rights.
Invent antibiotics because I sure as hell don’t want to live without them.
Sit where I am, and keep doing what I’m doing. My living would lead me to a same honest life. I’m also armed to where if you ran up on us you’d be very very challenged lol 🤠
I might be one of the only Asian women of Japanese descent in the country at that time… I know my great gramps came in an early wave ~1900, but only men were coming over at that time. I’d probably get hate crimed.
Invent antibiotics. Cure Arthur’s tuberculosis. The rest is just details.
Find a way to get to Tahiti
I’m Native American soooooo
Board a train back east
120 years ago was 1905. I’d invest in the fledgling Ford Motor Company
Die of dysentery if my elementary school education is anything to go by. Although my ancestors were settling farms in the region during that time and I’m here so maybe we’d solved for basic sanitation well enough to stick to beverages based on boiled water. So I’d probably die in pregnancy/childbirth instead – like women here in Texas are doing to this day! So basically, same shit but while wearing a fucking prairie dress.
Am I in New York or what would become Arizona?
Buffalo hunter.
Assuming this was gonna be more than a one day stay, I’d be grateful I’ve had laser hair removal, hoping my menstrual cup was with me (did my purse come with me when I time traveled?), and really pissed I’m not going to be able to refill my medications.
Then I’m gonna get working on becoming a scientist who invents antibiotics or can at least convince people of germ theory without being sent to the lunatic asylum.
I feel like I should explain why so many people are replying with answers about dying from diseases.
There was a video game that every American kid played during the 80s and 90s, called Oregon Trail. It was very common in schools back then. In this game, students pretended to be pioneers traveling across the old west in a wagon. It was very common to die from diseases in this game. Usually dysentery.
If you were to ask any American between 30 and 50 where the phrase “you have died of dysentery” came from, most would instantly know it was from Oregon Trail.
Even if they forget everything else they learned in history class, they remember dying from dysentery on the Oregon Trail.
look up my grandparents who would have been 30 and 29 years of age 120 years ago. They were living in San Francisco, so, depending on where I was the “Wild West”, it might take not too long a trip to get there. I might get there for the funeral of my uncle, their oldest, who died in child birth. If I stuck around, I might be their for the birth of my Uncle Jack, their next oldest, in 1906.
Promptly die of heart failure, probably, without the fistful of medicine that I take daily to keep that from happening.
I’m an older woman with complex health issues, I’d die pretty quickly. Even in my younger days, that sounds like a nightmare. (Also it’s 2025, so you’d need to go back further than 1905.)
Am I still in the same place as I am now, or am I transported somewhere else. Because if I’m in the same place which didn’t even exist yet, I’d be stuck on a barrier island.
Be miserable, even if I find a way to thrive. We live in the easiest time in human history.
I played the Oregon Trail as a child. The outcomes would not be good.
Shoot a buffalo
Ford a river
Fix a broken wagon wheel.
Die of dysentery
Die. In short order. Probably from dysentery.
Make moonshine.
try and find a train to san francisco
I’m going to write a ton of “prophecies”. Weird, crazy specific shit that will all come true in roughly 100 years. Then I’m going to make up a ton of shit for what happens from 2025-2035.
Then I’ll probably just be the crazy kook that died because he didn’t know how to survive but left a bunch of crazy ramblings.
Eat beans around a campfire and zing Hedley Lamarr, if the prophecy holds
Ride horses!! Take them out on the beach. I would also learn to sew my own clothes and maybe even do that for work because I’m decent at it now. I would definitely have dogs too. They could come with me on my rides.
Edit: I’m a woman so I’d be a spinster at my old ripe age of 36
I’d look up my family because I know where they lived.
BTW, 120 years ago was 1905, which is the very tail end of the wild west era if we’re being generous. If I find myself in the same place as I am right now, I am comfortably in a city and even the house that I own has already been built. (all be it with an outhouse in the back and maybe no running water or electricity?)
I’d become that weird, old cook with the chuck wagon.
Invest in the intercontinental railroad
Head east ! Lol
Probably be bored, because despite the reputation, life on the frontier was more tedium than anything else.
I’m African American, sooo, hide.
Actually, I think I’m good. I have a particular set of antiquated skills and knowledge. What exactly i would do depends on whether this time travel stint is permanent or if I’ll end up back in modern day after a stint.
Either way, I’m fucking it all up for the usual suspects
Since I ride, hunt and not a bad shot I’d probably like some of it and would probably survive, but at my age I don’t want to have to work that hard.
I’m a 50yr old woman. I’d probably become a madam. It’s either that or a teacher. But running a brothel would be more my style. No one would question why I cuss or why I’m outspoken.
I have really really really bad vision. It’s fine with contacts but even in 2025 I can’t get glasses made that truly correct my vision.
So I’d just be absolutely fucked.
Smartphone would be useless, but I think I could manipulate known events to my financial advantage. This is assuming that I don’t die of yellow fever/dengue/cholera/dysentary, or liver failure due to avoiding the water to avoid dysentery.
I would also most likely butt heads with the Temperance people
That was during the Black Cowboy era. I’d try to be a Black Cowgirl, or maybe settle in early LA like Biddy Mason.
Move east ASAP.
Die. Many of the things I rely on to survive, because of my medical issues, didn’t exist back then.
I mean 130 years ago honestly doesn’t even take you back to what is considered the golden years of the American Wild West, honestly you’re at best in its dying twilight years
Go to Paradise, Nevada. Buy a plot of land where Las Vegas will be. very cheap
Then be able to at least give my kids generational wealth.
maybe strategically buy land in other places too. Los Angeles? Palm Springs? Phoenix area?
130 years ago isn’t quite wild west but i’d probably just marry someone and pretend to have a head injury.
Kms for sure
As a 54 year old woman my choices would be limited. Too old to be a mail order bride and no way would I want to get the “French” disease working in a bordello. I am guessing die a painful death in object poverty.
Make my way to Nebraska and end Norris Brown (then make a clean get-away).
1895? With the knowledge I have today? I’m buying up as much land in Southern California as I can get loans for and flipping it to oil speculators.
There’s a movie which goes through this.It’s called Westworld.
I would dress like Zorro, ride a horse and carry a sword and speak Spanish as much as possible, and then befriend a Native. I wouldn’t call him “Tonto”, though, because that means silly in Spanish. I’d call him by his actual name.
I live in rural Nevada in a 100+ year old house built from railroad ties. My best friends are mules named Sal & Dot, I don’t have central air or heat, gold mining is the main job in town, and there is a brothel within walking distance.
I don’t reckon things would change too much for me except the “icebox” in the kitchen.
Rob stage coach?
I’m a woman…so not a lot…probably teach…
Depends on how long it takes to lose my glasses or run out of antidepressants.
But yeah, probably die.
I’m about to become the greatest sci-fi writer of all time and for the next century be considered a prophet of everything to come. Provided i can survive long enough to find a publisher but my age, sex and race would be in my favor, in addition to extensive knowledge of the West from years spent living in the modern day region. I fancy my chances, endless days spent absorbing Wikipedia knowledge has got to count for something until of course, you poke yourself off a rusty nail.
Go to my local saloon throw a bag of money at the bar keep and demand a whore, a room and a bottle
Immediately die. Which is fine because there’s no way I’m living without a dishwasher, washing machine and modern medicine.
1895? I’d marry a rancher and have some kids.
Rob a train.
1895? Not much wild west left at that time.
I imagine I’d find some cheap land and be using a mule to pull a plow instead of a Deere
I would anticipate where they are going to build railroads and build a ranch that would hopefully grow into a whole new town. And I would call it Sweetwater.
130 years ago wasn’t really wild west… my grandfather was born 120 years ago…
Do I relocate out west or stay here in New Jersey?
Probably be fine here in Jersey, invest in some smart bets, buy land for a song and build generational wealth.
Too old to be drafted.
Not sure I last long where civilization is lacking and life was HARD.
Are you familiar with the 1994 film Wagons East? It depicts settlers who, tired of the privation and hardship of the west, move back home. I expect I’d be in that wagon train east.
That movie is also famous for being the last movie that John Candy filmed. He actually died during filming, and the re-shoots and rewrites no doubt harmed the film.
John Candy’s last official film, however, was Canadian Bacon, a Michael Moore satire, which was filmed before Wagons East but released later.
Go to New Mexico and find out if Billy The Kid was actually killed or if he got away (which many New Mexicans still believe to this day-as there’s a case to be made that the sheriff shot the wrong guy)
Look up my relatives. They were pretty useful. Some were rather successful outlaws
Bartender or shopkeeper. That’s where the real money would be made at the time. Use my earnings to invest in companies I know will be big and successful down the line.
Claim a bunch of land in the west and invest in oil.
Fish for fish who’ve never seen a lure before
Well, I’m nowhere near the west, so I’d probably sit around in a holler making moonshine for two years, and then venture into the nearest town to see if I could get a copy of Dracula once it came out.
Then I’d sit around in a holler making moonshine and reading Dracula. 🙂
Metalworking is one of my skills.
I also know horses and cows well.
My skill in training hunting dogs is likely enough. To become a reasonable dog pimp.
I also know what railroads and mines to invest in and when to sell.
Rape and pillage obviously. /s
My family had already been living on this property for over 70 years at that point. Id just shack up with them and work at the dairy.
I have a couple of health conditions that were less understood and treated in 1895. So I might be quite ill without modern medications.
As a woman with no family I imagine it could be difficult to find a way to support myself. Maybe I’d try to pass as a man.
Head to Utah and join up with the Saints.
Open a poker bar/brothel. Hide under the bar when gunfights break out.
Where am I? Because the “cowboy era,” (by which I assume you mean the setting of all the westerns,) was very brief and very limited in geography. It’s basically 1850-1880, sort of Kansas and west. It was very sparsely populated, so I’m either in San Fransisco, (in which case as long as I don’t get a cavity I’m having a GREAT time,) or working on a railroad, (in which case I’m Chinese and getting royally screwed,) or a puny little frontier town, (overworked and bored,) or just…wilderness. Which is mostly grass or mountains, so not easy country. But different experiences, all of them.
Given where I am now, die. From LA and go to school in Tucson and there’d be nothing but cowboys and desert
I’m a terrible historian so I wouldn’t be able to cash in on any world events.
Die probably
I would seek out a community where I could make myself useful. Then I would get a wide brimmed hat and learn to ride.
Help find Gavin
“The Wild West” was roughly between 1830 and 1930, so 1905 would have been in there, but by that point the frontier was essentially settled. All the Indigenous tribes had been subjugated and were on reservations, many Native children were enduring the horrors of the boarding schools, technological advances and social advances were ushering in a period of rapid change in many aspects, and numerous diseases were beginning to be overcome.
Depending upon where you were located in the Western states, you may or may not have been exposed to certain developments like electricity and public lighting, indoor plumbing, paved roads, electric trolleys, and early motor vehicles.
In much of the West, the horse was still heavily used for both transportation and work, depending on the job. Refrigeration was still predominantly provided by ice houses and, if in the home, ice boxes (usually enjoyed only by the well-to-do). Delivery of giant ice blocks was becoming more common.
News was primarily obtained by newspapers, which often utilized telegraph services; radio technology was still in its infancy in 1905, and commercial radio stations would not be seen for another 15-20 years, mostly in the East and in a few of the larger cities on the West Coast. Personal communication was primarily by letter, although the telegraph was also increasingly used.
The history of the United States, especially the history of the Old West, is absolutely fascinating, and it covers a huge range of topics. I’m very much an armchair Western historian, but I love reading about how things were decades and even centuries before I was born.
A lot of chatter in this thread has referenced the 80s video game The Oregon Trail and the modern Red Dead Redemption video game series, but the history of the Old West is so much more interesting and complex than either of those. A lot more can be found here on Reddit at r/WildWest, r/wildwestpics, r/AZHistory, r/TexasHistory, occasionally at r/Westerns, and even sometimes on my own subreddit, r/TheCowboyBunkhouse. There’s a tremendous wealth of knowledge about the past that’s just waiting to be explored.
Probably die within a week.
Buy a 10,000 acre farm for five dollars. Seriously though real estate speculation would be crazy easy at this point.
Weep my lost family and wife. Then I would try to get into my trade and try to use my knowledge of its evolution to become wealthy and make a new life. Or I die from diarrhea.
You ask that as if I’d have a choice.
I’d probably be a slave…or sharecropper, probably slave though.
My mom’s family was already established here 130 years ago. I know enough about local and family history to come up with a backstory that would probably get me employed and accepted as a distant relative trying to get a fresh start. Honestly, the West wasn’t very wild anymore 130 years ago. They had towns, established rail lines, irrigation, telegraph wires, a supply chain, etc. A 180 years ago would be a better challenge.
lol – trying not to get lynched or something.
“Oh thank god” would be my first reaction
Dead due to lack of insulin
I would travel east and join the railroad…or I would join a cattle drive.
I think I would rather surrender and go live with the Indians, that would be the least horrible solution for me.
Would love this. I enjoy camping, hunting and fishing. Know how to live on farm/ranch. Know my way around a forge. Know how to hunt/prep food. Know to boil water, before drinking and why beer n alcoholic drinks were normal.
Would probably make some money and make my way to a big city. Find a field to work, medical or technology would be good choices.
I am a history major and major geek. So would be great to bring some good items a bit early in history. Especially would be nice to bring electricity out to rural areas faster.
This would be so much fun. Yeah a much harder life. But would be ok. Would miss easy search on Google, but don’t use tic-tok-Facebook-Twitter at all. Would not miss reality TV. But would see movies come into play for entertainment. And I love to read newspapers.
Once I have some money, would invest in companies that will shape-grow in the US. Would remember Black Friday 1869 and panics of 1873-1884-1893-1896-1901-1907.
Overall a great time of US history.
Rob a bank … And maybe a shoot out in the dirt streets?
Find a way to hop a train back east!
I think my state was “founded” during this time. It was mostly loggers here around then but my fiance is Mexican so it would be a really complicated situation. Although he could easily pass as white if he tried.
If he isn’t with me idk how I could cope. I just really love him and to have a life without him would be heartbreaking. I would always be trying to find my way back to our current time to find him.
In the meantime I would use my foraging and herbalism knowledge combined with my ability to read and learn more healing to help people during my journey to get back to my love.
If it moved me to the West and not my state (more northern Midwest area, Michigan) then I would have a little harder of a time but I’m sure my current survival skills and knowledge would still help me achieve a similar story as I try to find my way back to my love while helping others on my way and probably mostly trying to help the natives rather than the colonizers.
Dr. Quibble here; even with your edit 1895 was the tail end of the cowboy era if you are thinking about driving those beef cows from Texas to the rail-head in Kansas City. The Wild West Show, which was a sort of Nostalgia Tour of cowboy life started in 1883. Of course there are still cowboys today but they tend to be ranch-hands or rodeo dudes and they drive pick-ups and ATVs along with horses.
To answer your question, I would power down that phone and hide it. And since I have retail experience I’d see iffin they was hirin’ down at the dry-goods store.
There was a documentary about this. It’s called Back to the Future Part 3
I’d die. I’m disabled and use a wheelchair. I’m not lasting long
As a woman, it would be dangerous, so I would prob try to find a good man for protection
Try to live life. Thankfully I’m vaccinated against most of that shit from back then
My brother, 130 years ago was 1895. The “west” was done. The world looked way more like the modern era than the ‘wild west’ you’re imagining. There are golf courses in the freaking plains states by 1895.
In the actual open west, in the 1860s/70s? Well you have to earn a living. So I guess try to use what I know as a civil CAD designer to pass myself off as an engineer from back east. I can hand draft well enough to get by, but I’d have to get that shit honed in. Then just hope to absolute fuck that no one asked me to design anything that wasn’t a road or rail alignment.
That, or just do what I did in this era: join the Army. Shit would suck, but I’d be fed.
Either way, probably dying from cholera or measles something stupid to die from like that.
Become a schoolmarm. I’m middle-aged and not all that healthy, but I could definitely be a teacher.
Get a homestead lot. Live on it. Maybe die trying.
Honestly, the old west towns weren’t as lawless as portrayed in film and television. Vigilante justice was more common, too. But making a living was pretty hard and of course they didn’t have any good drugs for diseases.
I’ve lived off grid in Eastern Oregon. I’d make sure I had powder and shot, then get some seeds, goats and chickens.
Die from dysentery accorsing to Oregon Trail
Watch American Primeval on Netflix. Then watch the Revenant. Then watch Dances with Wolves and the Last of the Mohicans. That shit looks horrible.
Thrive
Probably be a Madame running a brothel.
I’m buying real estate.
You need to back 30-40 years beyond that for the old west dead
Die in childbirth. An emergency c section and antibiotics and fluids saved me and one of my kids. But if I lived through that? I got sepsis recently, and only a shit ton of different antibiotics and doctors who knew what the virus was and was doing to me, saved me then.
I have asthma. That would likely kill me.
So, I don’t think I’d make it.
I’m a coast boy. I could never not have islands or the ocean 4 hours away from me. I’d die inland.
I’m Filipino American so it’s either Opium Den Security or fisherman for me
Well, I already live in the area and own the appropriate firearms. I can use a pick, shovel and axe pretty well. Flourish I guess?