My wife Dana and I rode into the heart of the Alabama Hills, a place I had been to thousands of times in my 50-plus years, even though I’d never set foot here before. Situated west of Lone Pine, California, in the beautiful but stark Owens Valley, the Alabama Hills have been the setting for more than 350 movies, TV shows and commercials—many, many of them Westerns. Since 1920, when Fatty Arbuckle starred in The Round Up, the Hills helped define the image of the West. Its rounded, bouldery

May 2009
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
- Longhorns and Outlaws (Children’s Books)
- Blood on the Prairie (Fiction)
- The Last Renegade (Fiction)
- My Eyes Have a Cold Nose (Fiction)
- Big Sycamore Stands Alone (Nonfiction)
- As Big as the West: The Pioneer Life of Granville Stuart (Nonfiction)
- The Sutton-Taylor Feud (Nonfiction)
- Searching for Tamsen Donner (Nonfiction)
- Return of the Gun (Fiction)
- Finding Chief Kamiakin (Nonfiction)
- Custer Into the West (Nonfiction)
- Music of the Alamo (Nonfiction)
- Standing Up for Liberty Valance
- Jonah Hex Liftoff!
- Rawhide: Season Three, Vol. 2
More In This Issue
- Who are some of the top bad guys in Westerns?
- Who is the American Indian Massai?
- In a typical Westerns saloon scene, most patrons wear hats. Wouldn’t hats be removed upon entering?
- Why don’t we hear more about the Arizona Rangers?
- Did any Old West outlaw find that crime did pay?
- Preservation: Monument for a Madam
- Mark Lemon
- Lawton, Oklahoma
- The Rifleman’s Rifle Returns
- Cowboy Bunkhouse
- Ghost Town King
- Trailing Narcissa Whitman & Eliza Spalding
- Rare Russell is Collector’s Bargain
- Old West Foods in the 21st Century
- Miles and Miles of Miles City
- The Fastest Killer in the Old West
- House Party Shoot-Out
- Top 10 Western Museums of 2009
- Back Trail to the Reel West
- What can you tell me about China Mary of Tombstone fame?
- Western novels often use the term “drifter,” but did cowboys use it?
- Herding Belligerent Bison