If not for Mark Twain’s love of the Mississippi River, which brought him often to St. Louis, an artist who would come to be known for his mission oils and nocturnal adobe scenes may never have made it to California. During the same year California oranges were first shipped east by rail, Coca Cola was invented and the Statue of Liberty was unveiled in New York Harbor, Will Sparks exhibited his art at the St. Louis Exposition of 1886. It was there that Mark Twain, whose Adventures of Huckleb

July 2007
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
- Best Reads (And They Aren’t All Westerns)
- Captain J.A. Brooks, Texas Ranger
- A Ranger War & Billy the Kid
- A People at War
- The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War
- On the Wrong Track
- Hunt Down
- Northfield
- People of the Nightland
- Whips of the West
- The Complete Roadside Guide to Nebraska
- Wild Ride
- Tìo Cowboy
- Storytelling in Yellowstone
- Rio Bravo Still Sings
- Seraphim Falls
- A Girl is a Gun
More In This Issue
- A Tragic End to a Classic Cowgirl
- Civil War in the West
- Preservation: Song Of Praise
- Silver City Shoot-Out
- Rifle Packin’ in the Old West
- The Beecher’s Island Boys
- In 1969’s Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, are the characters Joe LeFors and Lord Baltimore based on real people?
- Did cowboys in the Old West really wear that much clothes, even on sunny days?
- Where is Wyatt Earp’s second “wife,” Mattie Blaylock, buried?
- What’s the difference between an Old West marshal and a sheriff?
- Why do so many Westerns show bacon and beans as the campfire meal? And how did the characters cook the beans so fast?
- Did Bat Masterson actually have to use a cane after being shot by Sgt. Melvin King in 1876, or is this just part of the legend?
- Cheyenne, Wyoming
- Casa de Adobe
- Mining Vs. Ranching