Walter Noble Burns and the West

Walter Noble Burns was a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, traveling the world to cover news stories.

And then he discovered the Old West. It was already pretty much gone by the time he got interested in it. But Burns wrote three of the most important books in the field: The Saga of Billy the Kid (1926), Tombstone: An Iliad of the Southwest (1927), and The Robin Hood of El Dorado: The Saga of Joaquin Murrieta (1932).

All combined myth and history—and boosted interest in the Old West.