True West Magazine
Several movies were made in the 1950s, about the Alamo and Jim Bowie. The lyrics of a popular song were, “What a Man was six feet six Jim Bowie, Big Jim Bowie….” But in reality, Jim Bowie was “only” six feet tall. Still that was pretty tall for his day. With that nine and a quarter-inch knife in his hand he must have looked six feet six. The man who played him in the popular movie, “The Iron Mistress” was five feet six, Alan Ladd.
The legendary Jim Bowie had several knives over his life. In his day a knife was a man’s favorite sidearm. One didn’t have to pause and reload. His brother Rezin (pronounced Reason) wrote in 1838, a couple of year after his death: