in American folklore, cowboy hero of the Pecos River region of Texas who was an exaggerated personification of Western stamina and values; his vivid exploits are analogous to those of the legendary giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan of the North Woods.

Created by journalists, primarily Edward O'Reilly in Century magazine, the Pecos Bill character was based on little authentic oral tradition and no historical prototype. He is said to have been born in Texas about 1832 and raised by coyotes after his parents lost him near the Pecos River. As a man he rode a mountain lion and used a rattlesnake as a lasso, besting the toughest of cowboys. He died, according to one tradition, after washing down a meal of barbed wire with a drink of nitroglycerin. Although Pecos Bill stories were read primarily by nonfrontier Americans, they were adopted by cowboys of Australia and the Argentine.