I feel like Americans tend to idealize the old west as some representation of the American spirit where men were tough risk takers who lived free in the vast western expanse, but I'm generally led to understand that the old west wasn't much like this 20th century pop-culture view of it.

Was this a product of the boom of "Cowboys and Indians" media in the early to mid 20th century? Or was it viewed similarly by easterners contemporaneously?