Long before Dallas had a skyline, a tollway or a single overpriced craft cocktail, it had a dentist named John Henry Holliday. In the 1870s, the man history would remember as “Doc” filled cavities in a young frontier town and, by most accounts, emptied a few bottles along the way. Few people driving down Main Street today know they are retracing the steps of one of the West’s most famous gunslingers. Texas filmmaker Tanner Beard would like to change that.

In 2011, Beard made his first feature, a Western called “The Legend of Hell’s Gate: An American Conspiracy,” which premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival that same year. It was ambitious and personal, and it was among the first Westerns ever shot on the RED ONE digital camera. It was also, in Beard’s view, unfinished. Fifteen years later, he is back in the saddle. The result is “Once Upon a Time in Texas,” a full reimagining that pairs digitally remastered footage from the original shoot with roughly 20 minutes of newly filmed material, a brand-new score, fresh visual effects and a new narrative spine.

That backbone belongs to Isaac McKinnon (Clive Standen), a new character whose search for his long-lost brother carries the story from San Francisco in 1905 back to Texas in 1876. Along the way, history and legend collide as the cast of Lou Taylor Pucci, Eric Balfour and Henry Thomas return in a story that now runs straight through Dallas.

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From the “middle of nowhere” to the gates of hell

Beard’s love of Texas lore started at home, in a town most Dallasites could not find without a GPS.

“I’m from Snyder, Texas, originally,” Beard says. “It’s 80 miles south of Lubbock, 80 miles north of Abilene, 80 miles east of Midland. We call it the middle of nowhere. But it’s home to the killing of the white buffalo in 1876, which I actually touch on in this movie.”

The town takes its name from William Henry “Pete” Snyder, a trader from the buffalo-hunting era.

“It’s kind of cool that the white buffalo, this majestic creature, comes from the story of how my hometown came to be,” he says.

Tanner Beard behind the camera on the set of his debut feature, later reimagined as “Once Upon a Time in Texas.”

The film’s original title came from a different childhood haunt.

“I grew up going to Possum Kingdom Lake,” Beard says. “I was fascinated to hear the legend of Hell’s Gate, like, how Hell’s Gate got its name, and I found out it was this cool Western story.”

The tale, as Beard tells it, involves a band of men fleeing pursuers through the canyon. One of them declared he would go through the gates of hell before he let himself get caught. In the film, Balfour’s character, Will, delivers that very vow while refusing to abandon a heavy load of cargo.

“Everything that we leave here is like leaving gold in the grave,” he says.

The greatest saloon night Dallas never recorded

The film’s biggest addition is a sprawling Dallas sequence. It rests on a delicious historical “what if” that Beard stumbled upon during research.

“Doc Holliday, around that time, was a dentist in Dallas and had his first recorded gunfight on Main Street,” he says. “Bass Reeves was actually a bounty hunter around that time. Sam Bass was an outlaw running around the Chisholm Trail. And Belle Starr, the famous female outlaw, was around during that time in Dallas.”

The local connections hold up. Belle Starr spent part of her youth in Scyene, a settlement just east of Dallas. Sam Bass later made North Texas his hunting ground, robbing trains around the Dallas area before his final stand in Round Rock in 1878. Bass Reeves, who inspired a generation of lawmen and plenty of modern TV, worked the territory just north of the Red River.

“What if they all intersected through the Legend of Hell’s Gates,” Beard asks.

It’s the kind of question that makes Westerns irresistible: the proven record on one side, the campfire story on the other and a whole lot of mythology in between.

A director in conversation with his younger self

Few filmmakers get to revisit their debut. Even fewer get to rebuild it from the ground up.

“That was 15 years ago. That was the first movie I ever made,” Beard says. “And so now I’ve gotten to come back and do a kind of an anniversary director’s cut.”

Dallas’ Glenn Morshower as J.H. Gordon and Russell Quinn Cummings as King Fisher.

Eric Balfour and director-actor Tanner Beard in “Once Upon a Time in Texas”; Balfour also appeared in the 2003 remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

San Antonio’s Henry Thomas as John St. Helen in “Once Upon a Time in Texas.”

What began as a restoration soon became something larger. 

“I shot additional footage because I just didn’t feel like the conversation I started when I was 25 was really properly [finished],” he says. “My 25-year-old self got to collaborate with my 40-year-old self and finished the first movie that I never made.”

The new title reflects that growth. 

“It used to be called ‘The Legend of Hell’s Gate,’ and it’s just not what we did with this reimagining,” Beard says. “Of course, it should be ‘Once Upon a Time in Texas’ … with all of the stories in it and the love letter back to Texas.”

Homegrown talent and Texas heart

With his new frontier, Beard filled the story with a cast of actors with Texas roots. 

“So many Texans were cast as these characters because the talent pool here should start from here,” he says. “Jenna Dewan grew up in Dallas. Summer Glau is from Southern Texas. Kevin Alejandro, Henry Thomas and Glenn Morshower are from Texas. Barry Tubb is from Snyder… they’re all from Texas, so it’s a beautiful thing.”

That conviction runs deeper than casting, too. Beard, who also appears in the hit series “Landman,” founded Silver Sail Studios in Fort Worth to give North Texas productions a permanent home. When asked why the region can compete with Los Angeles or Atlanta, his answer has nothing to do with tax incentives.

“How about heart,” he says. “You get here, and you’re around people who have enough pride in themselves and enough self-worth that when they put their name on something, they care. The crews, the people, the heart and the magic that happens here in Texas are the reasons I wanted to build a studio here.”

Leaving a good set of tracks

The film’s emotional core comes from Beard’s own family. Late in the story, Pucci’s character, Kelly H. Browning, reflects on old regrets and offers a simple lesson: “Always leave a good set of tracks.”

“That’s my dad’s mantra,” Beard says. “He’s been saying that to me for most of my life. It’s just, ‘Hey, leave a good set of tracks behind you.’ You know, don’t do anything in this life that you’re not proud of, and you don’t have to be looking over your shoulder.”

Fifteen years after his debut, Beard has doubled back to make sure his own tracks are exactly where he wants them.

“Once Upon A Time in Texas” opens statewide Oct. 16 and hits on-demand Nov. 17.