Why Is The Front Passenger Seat In A Car Called 'Shotgun?'

The age-old squabbles you've probably had with your siblings (or besties) over who got dibs on the front seat by declaring "I call shotgun" first has become ingrained into our culture. Keep in mind, this is an idiom used in the United States and may be odd to those who didn't grow up here. So why is "riding shotgun" a reference to the front passenger seat, and where did it come from in the first place?

To uncover the mystery, we need to jump back to the days of the Old West. Before the widespread use of trains, wagons and stagecoaches (which some might say were the precursors to our modern station wagons) with real horsepower were the primary modes of transportation. They weren't used just to move people from one place to another, but also valuables like payroll money and gold, so they became perfect targets for highwaymen and other black hat types like Black Bart, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid.

To help protect passengers and valuables, the stagecoach companies hired guards armed with shotguns who would sit next to the driver (known as a "whip") occupying the box (aka the driver's seat). In all respects, the armed guard sat in the front passenger seat, but as one might assume, it was never referred to as a shotgun seat during the era. That term came much later.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), "riding shotgun" became associated with someone traveling as an armed guard next to a driver in 1912. One of the earliest references in print appears in an issue of The Ogden (Utah) Examiner newspaper from May 1919, which had an article titled, "Ross Will Again Ride Shotgun on Old Stage Coach."

The 1921 short story by Dane Coolidge called "The Fighting Fool" describes a character as "ridin' shotgun for Wells Fargo." Although Wells Fargo is now known as just a bank, it earned its chops as an express delivery service connecting the Pacific to the Atlantic Coast using stagecoaches, steamboats, and trains. The classic western film "Stagecoach" (1951) starring John Wayne featured a character named Marshal Curley Wilcox (played by George Bancroft) who said, "I'm going to Lordsburg with Buck. I'm gonna ride shotgun." During the film, the Marshal does "ride shotgun" to help protect a stagecoach against marauding Apache Indians.

"Riding Shotgun" was another western (starring Randolph Scott) released in 1954, which may very well have cemented the term into the American lexicon. "The Magnificent Seven" splashed across silver screens in 1960, starring several famous actors like Steve McQueen (who not only loved racing but had an extensive/expensive car collection), Yul Brynner, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn). McQueen rides shotgun next to Brynner (see image above from the film) and may have cast the die because, according to OED, the association of riding shotgun with the front passenger seat came to fruition the following year (1961). Oh, and if you're curious about correctly playing the shotgun game — there are "official" rules.