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The Most Destructive Hunter in American History
The British nobleman who killed thousands of animals in an unprecedented spree
Nowadays, our billionaire egomaniacs build spaceships for themselves. But in the nineteenth century, well before space travel, how could a self-centered plutocrat indulge his impulse for wastefulness? Let’s not tell Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson about the example of Sir St. George Gore — the eighth baronet of Gore Manor in Ireland — who managed to make his mark by spending three years in the American West slaughtering everything in sight.
Gore — no name was ever so fitting — came to the US in 1854 in the midst of a craze among British nobles for hunting American bison. After the California gold rush, the American West was becoming more accessible for white people. Railroads were built into once-remote areas and wagon trains traversed the continent. These changes brought the natural abundance of America into the imaginations of people around the world — and within reach of their guns.
The hunt
Gore had a large estate that threw off a lot of yearly income; he had nothing better to do than travel around and spend his money. Wealthy Brits like him apparently loved the idea of “roughing it” in the West, and the bison there could not have been easier to…
