Plains folklorist Roger L. Welsch has edited a lively collection of stories by some master yarnspinners--those old-time traveling horse traders. Told to Federal Writers' Project fieldworkers in the 1930s, these stories cover the span of horse trading: human and equine trickery, orneriness, debility--and generosity. View More...
The cruel winter of 1860 on the Iowa plains propels JJ Adams to seek out the warmth of California for his young family. But his amazing life story takes numerous unexpected detours, which ultimately result in his son, Will, growing into a gun-toting western hero. View More...
When Calamity Jane and the Lady Wildcats was first published in 1927, Thomas Beer, with tongue in cheek if not in check, noted the book's underlying theory: "The women of the pioneer epoch--say, from 1840 to 1890--had their feet planted on a resonant drum of man's sexual necessity. They could choose the measure of the dance and the amount of noise to be exacted from creatures in a state of animal tension. Wifehood, polyandry, and an excused rapacity were open to the shrewd." Arguments and assents to that theory aside, Aikman's book is still good fun. Our fascination with Calamity Jane has, if ... View More...
Deputy Sheriff, Town Marshall, Deputy U.S. Marshall, Train Agent, Livestock Inspector, Dan Tucker was the quintessential lawman during the violent frontier period of southwest New Mexico. By his own deadpan account, he was "obliged to kill eight men" in Grant County alone -- not counting four other outlaws he personally dropped from the scaffold. Disinclined by nature to back down from anyone, Tucker was involved in some one dozen shooting scrapes, was shot four times, and he arrested Russian Bill and Sandy King. Yet Dangerous Dan Tucker is more than a gunman's story. Author Bob Alexander skil... View More...
From the bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark's exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on... View More...
Utah's Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area offers breathtaking natural resources, powerful historical drama and intriguing cultural traditions. This rich legacy is built on old-world values of cooperation, industry, ingenuity and true grit--as well as a miracle or two. From frontier justice and lost treasure to the lasting contributions of a Presbyterian minister and a Jewish settlement, talented regional historians, educators and storytellers bring to life these legends, lore and true tales from the heart of Mormon country. View More...
Few western American have been more often written about than William F. Cody, the Buffalo Bill of history, the dime novel, and popular lore.
There are several important aspects of this biography. The whole career of the plainsman is presented - it is the only biography, in fact, that contains any major assault on the army records dealing with Cody's scouting career - and it relates with skill and insight the truths behind the legends exploited in contemporary dime novels, the stage, and the Wild West show.
During the last decades of the nineteenth century in the Old West, cowboys and Indians, lawmen and outlaws, ranchers and farmers shared the border between Canada and the United States--and mostly ignored it. American traders and cowboys with their cattle came north to the territory that later became Alberta, and the Blackfoot traveled south to Montana to visit their kinfolk there. Bull trains regularly carried supplies from Fort Benton, on the Missouri River, across the border to Fort Macleod, a small ramshackle town in the foothills of the Rockies. The Banker and the Blackfoot conjures up viv... View More...
THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLERTombstone is written in a distinctly American voice. --T.J. Stiles, The New York Times "With a former newsman's nose for the truth, Clavin has sifted the facts, myths, and lies to produce what might be as accurate an account as we will ever get of the old West's most famous feud." --Associated Press The true story of the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, and the famous Battle at the OK Corral, by the New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City and Wild Bill. On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, eight men clashed in what would be known as the most famous shootout... View More...
Throughout Teller County, history lovers can find abandoned towns and forgotten main streets that once bustled with life and commerce. Even before Teller was carved from surrounding counties, the scenic mountains and lucrative mines of the gold rush era brought thousands of settlers and attracted resort owners and tycoons eager to exploit the rich setting. Seemingly overnight, towns in the Cripple Creek District and other places popped up, flush with gold and people looking for opportunity. As the ore disappeared, the miners moved on in search of the next big lode. One by one, the towns were a... View More...
