In the decades after "The Great Train Robbery", various inaccurate legends developed, exaggerating its historical significance. By mid-century, mistaken claims that it was the "first Western" or even the "first story film" were common. Critiquing these inaccurate legends and citing the film's actual lack of impact on the Western genre, historian Scott Simmon comments that in fact the film's "main surprise in retrospect is how it led nowhere, either for its creator or the genre, beyond serving loosely as a narrative model for gun-wielding crime and horse-chase retribution." Claims about historical priority continued to be repeated by general-audience writers into the early twenty-first century.