There are many questions in the FAQ related to the realism of violence (gun fights, robberies, etc.) in the old West. I'm wondering a bit about the overall portrayal of day-to-day life. Stuff like: Were there as many women and children as there are in films? Was it that common to run into the same people over and over again in different towns? Did ranchers / cowboys even travel between towns that much? Were outlaws really that well-known that people would recognize their names and faces? Etc.
A lot of what you ask depends on the time and place: the West covers a couple of centuries and can be regarded as anyplace from the Midwest (early on) to Hawaii and Alaska. But understanding that we are talking about the "West" of the "Western" - TV shows and films - the West is still enormous and covers a lot of years. In general, we can say that early on, women and children were rarer, but they became more common. Towns were fairly small (Virginia City and its sister city, Gold Hill, were large for the time, barely reaching 25,000 in the mid 1870s, but generally staying just below 20,000). Most towns were only several hundred or several thousand, so it would be possible to run into the same people all the time. Some outlaws were famous enough to be recognizable, but most were not - as long as they kept traveling.
Traveling was difficult, but looking at primary sources, I'm impressed by how much coming and going there was. One tended to visit places for a lot longer, however, so having traveled, staying a month or two (or even longer) was common.
I feel that films generally miss the international character of the West. The closer one came to the Pacific Rim (and its ports) the more likely was one to encounter all sorts of nationalities and ethnicities. Nevada had more foreign-born per capita in 1870 than any other state in the nation. And that sort of thing was extremely common in the West, in general.
And urban horses were rare except when operated as a team. Lone riders were not continually coming and going in cities (places larger than, say 4 or 5,000). People walked.
Not to hijack the thread, but were whores/prostitutes as depicted in films?
The way Hollywood has presented it seems that unless a woman got married, or became a teacher, or nurse she'd end up as a whore.
Surely there were other options for women?