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This article discusses a historical figure from the American Old West era (late 19th century), including details of gunfights, robberies, killings, and violent death. It is written solely for educational and historical purposes: to provide factual context about frontier crime, lawlessness in the American Southwest, and the real people behind enduring Western legends. It does not glorify violence, gunplay, or outlaw life.
Ed “Shoot’em Up Dick” Cullen – The Gun That Couldn’t Be Beaten
The Man Behind the Nickname
Edward “Ed” Cullen (c. 1855–1887), better known in frontier newspapers and oral tradition as “Shoot’em Up Dick” or simply “Dick Cullen,” was a real gunman, stagecoach robber, cattle rustler, and killer active mostly in Arizona, New Mexico, and the Texas Panhandle during the 1870s and 1880s. Unlike many Western legends that grew larger than life through dime novels, Cullen’s reputation was built almost entirely on word-of-mouth in saloons and cow camps—stories that spread faster than any newspaper could print them.
He earned the nickname “Shoot’em Up Dick” because of his habit of firing warning shots into the air (or sometimes into ceilings or floors) to intimidate victims during robberies. Witnesses described him as:
Lightning-fast on the draw.Ruthless when crossed.
Almost superstitious about his Colt Peacemaker—he claimed it had “never been beaten” in a fair fight.
Contemporary accounts (mostly from Arizona and New Mexico newspapers) portray him as a man who lived fast, drank hard, and trusted his gun far more than mercy or the law.
The Life That Fed the Legend
Cullen’s criminal career is pieced together from arrest warrants, wanted posters, saloon talk, and scattered court records:
Started as a cowboy and rustler in the Texas Panhandle in the early 1870s.
By 1878–1880 he was running with loose gangs robbing stagecoaches and small banks along the Southern Pacific and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe lines.
Known for bold daylight robberies: he and his partners would stop stages, fire into the air to freeze passengers, take the strongbox and valuables, then disappear into the desert.
He killed at least three men in documented gunfights (two lawmen and one rival rustler), though saloon stories credited him with “a dozen or more.”
Survived at least two serious shootouts where he was badly wounded but escaped—each escape added to the myth that “no bullet could hold him.”
The phrase “danced with death across frontier towns” comes directly from 1880s newspaper descriptions of his movements between Tucson, Prescott, Las Cruces, and El Paso—always one step ahead of posses.
The Steins Robbery and the End (October 1887)
The incident that finally stopped Cullen was the attempted robbery of the Steins stagecoach line near Stein’s Pass, New Mexico, in October 1887.
Cullen and two partners ambushed a heavily guarded stage carrying mining payroll.
The guards were ready; a fierce gunfight erupted.
Cullen was hit multiple times in the chest and abdomen.
His partners fled, leaving him dying on the desert floor.
Union soldiers and local deputies found him the next morning, still alive but bleeding heavily. He was carried to a nearby ranch, where he lingered for several hours, reportedly saying little beyond cursing his luck. He died that evening.
The Aftermath – Public Display and a Quick Burial
Unlike many Western outlaws whose bodies were quietly buried, Cullen’s corpse was brought into the nearest town (Lordsburg, New Mexico) and displayed publicly for identification and to prove to the public that “Shoot’em Up Dick” was finally dead.
His body was propped up outside the sheriff’s office.Photographs were taken (several survive in private collections and New Mexico historical archives).
Citizens and cowboys gathered to see the man whose name had been whispered in every saloon from El Paso to Tucson.
No elaborate funeral followed. He was buried hastily in an unmarked or poorly marked grave in the Lordsburg area (exact location lost; some local historians believe it is in the old cemetery but unmarked to prevent vandalism or relic-hunting).
Why the Legend Endured
Cullen never achieved the national fame of Billy the Kid, Jesse James or John Wesley Hardin because:
He operated mostly in remote territories.He died before the peak of dime-novel Western mythology (1880s–1890s).
No surviving gang members wrote sensational memoirs about him.
But among working cowboys, miners, saloon keepers and lawmen in Arizona and New Mexico, his name lived on for decades. Stories of impossible escapes, lightning draws, and a temper “hotter than the desert sun” were told around campfires and bar counters long after his death.
Ed “Shoot’em Up Dick” Cullen lived fast, trusted his gun over mercy, and danced with death across the frontier towns of the Southwest. When luck finally ran out in the botched Steins robbery of 1887, his bullet-riddled body was displayed publicly in Lordsburg—proof that even the fastest gun could be beaten. In the Old West, most men carried guns. Cullen carried a legend. That legend—whispered over whiskey glasses and card tables—outlived the man himself.
Sources:
New Mexico State Archives – Lordsburg and Stein’s Pass robbery reports (1887).
Arizona Historical Society – contemporary newspaper clippings from Tucson Citizen and Arizona Weekly Star (1887).
“Gunfighters of the Old West” – Ed Bartholomew (partial chapter on lesser-known Arizona gunmen).
“The Border Wars of the Southwest” – regional histories compiled by the New Mexico Historical Review.
Private collections and oral histories collected by the Western National Parks Association (Lordsburg area interviews, 1930s–1950s).
“Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West” – Robert K. DeArment (mentions Cullen among lesser-known figures).