Featured set of the day: Sheriff's Lock-Up
Posted by Huw,
chuckschwa has chosen a Western set for us today:
6755 Sheriff's Lock-Up was the first of the Western themed sets I received as a Christmas gift in 1997. While I love the modular 6769 Fort Legoredo, the little sheriff station and jailhouse will always be my first love.
The minifigs are evenly split between the good guys and bad guys: A sheriff, cowboy, and two bandits. There's even a white horse for our hero to ride off on into the sunset.
The parts selection is fantastic. Western (also known as Wild West in the USA) is known for being one of the first LEGO themes to introduce modern firearms. Winchester-inspired rifles and cartoonish revolvers replace the flintlock rifles and pistols of the prior Pirates line. These fit nicely in both the lawful and unlawful hands of the 4 minifigures, or in the saddle clip of their trusty steed. There are a total of 7 firearms in this set, just enough for a dual wielding shoot-out.
Image from ThePlasticBrick.
The theme is also known for introducing the log textured bricks and panels: 3 excellent new parts for all kinds of frontier home decor. We also get giant barrels used for cover or when the bandits need someplace to hide from The Law. One green prickly bush adorns the 16x32 tan-colored plot on which the station and jailhouse are built.
The station is quaint, with a large front porch and overhanging roof for gunfights. The interior is big enough to fit everyone sans horse inside. The jailhouse is less spacious. Along with the barred door and 2 barred windows, there is an open torch-lit window used, presumably, to hand coffee to the thirsty bandits... or for prisoners to light their dynamite! A small wood wall sits atop the jailhouse, doubling as a redoubt for the station.
Lots of great printing on both the figures and 1x2 tiles. The most exquisite of these figures is the gold-toothed Dewey Cheatum, whose "Suit Suit Vest" is embroidered in hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades.
The printed tiles give us a very handy pack of dynamite (more on that later), a wanted sign for Flatfoot Thompson, and a Full House (3 kings and a pair of aces). There's even a printed safe to keep your 4 gold coins in. These could alternatively be hidden under the card playing table, which also features a chair the Sheriff can "kick-back" in.
There are 3 stickers in the set. While very detailed and necessary for the station, the window stickers are difficult to apply for young hands, leaving decades old fingerprints beneath the panes. The Sheriff sign, while easier to apply, is placed against two stacked 1x10 light gray bricks. Separating these parts would remove the sticker, so they are stuck for life in plastic prison.
The greatest thing about this set is its play feature. While the Sheriff and his deputy are inside the station playing cards, the bandits can bust each other out of jail. Built-in beneath the jailhouse wall is a Technic spring. Sliding the 1x2 dynamite tile (or the explosive Full House hand) into a small opening in the back trips the spring and blasts the wall off the jailhouse! The bandits are free to make their escape.
Image from ThePlasticBrick.
Sheriff's Lock-Up boasted quite a lot of useful parts and play value for myself and my brothers. We had all grown up on the classic American and "Spaghetti" western films and tv shows. Being able to recreate similar moments in LEGO was a real gem.
The good: Fun play features. Balanced minifigure selection. Excellent printing and parts selection.
The bad: Some precarious, but necessary, sticker applications.
The ugly: Flatfoot Thompson's grimacing face!
107 likes
15 comments on this article
Western is a theme I kick myself for never getting a lot of as a kid. I love to reminisce about the early days of Star Wars, Bionicle, and Harry Potter waves... but I kick myself to this day for passing up a chance to get the Fort Legorado re-release in Legoland in 2003 because I wanted some early release Rakshi instead. I tried to make up for it by buying up a handful of the Lone Ranger sets a few years later.
I had this one as a kid. It my deepest regret that young me removed the stickers, never to be seen again.
Ahhh...when I was kid all I could think of when I saw this was “the western version of Lagoon Lock Up.” Reverse the buildings and add a blast away wall. Sets back then told such great stories without having to try so hard.
^ @KasonM i had forgotten to mention 6267 Lagoon Lock-Up! Yep, nearly the same story right down to the baseplate size and name :)
I am hearing the saddle clip break just looking at the sets picture. :(
Western , Castle , Space , Adventurers are all in need of a non-licensed comeback + more Pirates sets.
I had the whole first wave of Western sets when I was a kid. They’re genuinely ALL amazing and having them all set up into one big western town was an absolute dream.
Bandit’s Secret Hideout is in the running for my all-time favorite set, so much so that I bought the Lone Ranger Silver Mine Shootout because of its passing resemblance.
Never bought any of the Native American sets, as the builds didn’t appeal to me. But the first wave was a dream come true. I can remember as an even LITTLER kid saying “They should make Wild West Lego!” and then lo and behold, I went to TRU one day and there they were.
I saw the re-release of this set a lot in the Lego Shop @ Home magazines of the day; I always thought it looked neat, but I never got it myself... mostly because I usually bought Lego from the local shops, instead of ordering from the magazine, and I feel like? The re-releases were Lego shop exclusives?
In any case, really cool to get such an in-depth look at it here, so many years later. I didn't realise that's how the exploding wall worked, by slotting the dynamite tile into place :o Pretty clever, especially for its time!
In fact, a lot of those pieces I didn't realise were first created for Western. I had the guns and dynamite pieces from Adventurers, the log bricks from that one little X-treme Team Raft set, the white horse from Knights' Kingdom... I didn't know this was where so many of them first came from.
I also didn't know the bandits had official names. Always cool to learn when that's the case. And thanks for sharing all this! :D
I really enjoyed this review very much--so many thanks for that. What I would have enjoyed hearing even more about, as we have with other FSOTD posts, is what this set really meant to the author at the time of receipt and how it played an important role in their overall LEGO experience. It is that personal connection/inspiration that I find makes FSOTD a much appreciated theme over regular reviews. Thanks again to @chuckschwa for an enjoyable read.
This was my first set in this series and the biggest unfortunately. As you said, the play ability of this was beyond the imagination! The small sets to add to this were perfect enough too, the double barrel shotgun cart 6790 and the wagon 6790 for more of each, good and bad, made for quite the shoot outs on grandma's living room floor...
Lego has a ton of wasted potential, imagine the Native American setd they can make these days.
I loved this set. I always wanted the bank that went with it, but never could find it as a kid. Now every year I have phases where I'm tempted to get those sets second-hand.
I wish they'd release a new wave of Western, but with today's attention to details. A modular-type expert range depiction of a western town would be amazing.
What a great set! Sadly my Western layout has to put up with some of the Lone Ranger sets, western-themed CMFs and a not particularly good saloon MOC (using pieces from that lego movie set).
Lego really needs to bring these back, especially with modern pieces. And theres also no reason why Native Americans couldnt be given more of a 'voice', perhaps showing off some of their culture to young audiences since political correctness over 'Injuns' (as they used to say in the films) is one of the main reasons Lego probably doesnt make these anymore.
The argument that these arent relevant anymore is somewhat silly after all
1. America is a huge market for lego and I do believe this period of American history is still popular
2. Technically there is less of a market for pirates since 1950s swashbuckler films were never that popular and there havent been many apart from POTC. On the other hand there have been a LOT of western films though.
3. I do think certainly the exploding feature and ambushes, shoot outs etc. would still be popular, especially again if updated with modern pieces. Plus of course all the AFOLs would soon buy up all the sets.
The Lone Ranger sets didnt do very well because the film didnt do very well. That doesnt mean that kids arent interested in western themes.
I will keep saying this to the point im a broken record, when it comes to 'classic' themes in recent years Lego has quite frankly put bugger all effort into them.
I have a few of the Kingdoms theme (best castle theme of this century in my opinion) but the following castle theme (I think it was called Castle, this was about 2013 or 2014 I think) was quite terrible, there was no effort put into it, compared to the Kingdoms theme let alone classic castle.
The same goes for pirates. The main problem with pirates is that lego never made affordable ships and also usually only ever made 1 'big' pirate ship with nothing for it to fight other then some stupid rowboat!
Now lego sadly is turning away from everything and focusing on apps and virtual reality. How many kids still use ipad over an Iphone 11 these days? How many kids even know what a PC mouse is, let alone a book?!! Technology and childs interests have changed over time but kids love of the Lego System of Play has not! I still see tons of children buying NORMAL sets which dont rely on some Xbox, Apple Inc. whatever rip off to sell.
Lego needs to reinvest in these 'old' themes with new pieces and old and new characters, perhaps with the traditional characters being 'older' like Redbeard in the new Barracuda set. I suppose things like the old Adventurers card game could be replaced by computer based stuff but traditional sets will sell, if Lego puts the same amount of effort it puts into these silly coupla year themes like Mario and Minions or the 'modern success story' Ninjago.
Wow, this explosion mechanism is so clever! The Western theme came or during my darkest ages, I never knew it had such great play features.
This was my Christmas present from "Santa" in 1996! I had been pining for Bandit's Secret Hideout, but I was happy to get the Sheriff's Lock-Up nonetheless. That exploding jail feature was the most amazing thing about it. I never forgot it. Nowadays, I am integrating that function into a Star Wars MOC.
For those curious, aside from the bandits Flatfoot Thompson and Dewey Cheatum, the sheriff was named Wyatt "Wild" West. This set was missing the third bandit (arguably the coolest one, in my opinion), Black Bart. The guy in the white cowboy hat went unnamed.