If ever a man talked himself into a hangman's noose, it was Bill Longley. As with so many other notorious Texans in the mid-1870s, Longley had an ego as large as a room, and his boastful nature ultimately sealed his doom when he was finally held accountable for his crimes. And this raises a question as to whether or not Longley deserves to be discussed in the same breath with better-known shootists like Wild Bill Hickok, John Wesley Hardin or Ben Thompson. Rather than wearing the mantle of legendary gunfighter, perhaps he was nothing but a cold-blooded murderer.
Born in Austin County, on October 6, 1851, William Preston Longley was the sixth of 10 children produced by Texas Revolution veteran Campbell Longley and his wife, Sarah. He was raised on a farm near the small community of Evergreen, in what became Lee County, and received an average education for a boy at that time. When fully grown, he was a lanky 6-footer, with curly black hair, an angular face with high cheek bones and, most striking, small, piercing black eyes through which the menacing forces within Longley made themselves most evident.
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