Some months ago, Lew Holzman wrote to tell me about a Cowboy Action Shooting event in Norco he thought I'd like to attend. A member of one of these societies, he took as his "registered" identity the longtime Jewish mayor of Deadwood, South Dakota, who he discovered in one of my books. This is how Lew described this increasingly popular, history-based sporting event.
 

When I started Cowboy Action Shooting, I learned that every shooter has a cowboy alias which is unique, and registered to him/her when joining the Single Action Shooting Society (S.A.S.S.). I wanted to have an alias of a real Jewish person from the old West. I went to Harriet Rochlin's book "Pioneer Jews" and decided upon Solomon Star, the mayor of Deadwood, Dakota Territory, because the name had a nice sound to it.

Subsequently, I did more research on Solomon Star, first writing to the Public Library and Adams Museum in Deadwood, and later on the Internet. I am glad I chose this alias. Mayor Star was represented as an upstanding citizen who served in several public offices and was involved in the transition to statehood for the Dakotas. He knew Teddy Roosevelt, who had spent time in the Dakota Territory, and was of the same political party. One article said he was so popular that his funeral in 1917 "rivaled any president's."

Cowboy Action Shooting is a sport I read about in the American Rifleman back in 1988. It involves dressing either like a movie cowboy or in 1880-90 period costumes, and shooting original or reproduction single action revolvers, lever rifles and shotguns whose original patents were before 1900. Steel plates at varying distances are the targets. Scoring is by a timer that records the time of each shot from the starting "beep." A penalty, usually 5 seconds, is added for each missed target. Lower times beat higher. When I started there were under 1000 members of S.A.S.S. Now there are over 60,000 members and probably at least that many more in the sport, who do not yet belong to S.A.S.S.

See Lew’s latest biographical article on Star. Click here.
 

For more information about Cowboy Action Shooting, visit www.sassnet.com.