Mark Twain’s critical view of the exotic coconut tree, which he described as a “feather-duster struck by lightning,” didn’t keep American pioneers from appreciating the fruit it bore. Coconuts, despite being from tropical locales, became popular in the American West in the mid-1800s. Usually spelled cocoanut or cocoa nut, the fruit could survive the sea voyage during an era of unrefrigerated sailing vessels. As early as 1860, The Daily Evening Bulletin in San Francisco, California, a

April 2015
In This Issue:
More In This Issue
- Broncho Billy Anderson
- Tap into History at Helldorado’s “El Gato de Cristal”
- Frank Canton
- Surviving Captivity
- Albert Afraid of Hawk
- Apache Endurance
- The End of the Civil War and Custer’s New Frontier
- Talk About a Mistake
- Bisbee Massacre Hanging
- Wovoka, Medicine Man
- Hired Gun’s Last Weapon
- Calamity, we Hardly Knew Ya
- Cole Younger and the Little Girl
- Big Day for the Duke
- Tom Mix: Prescott’s First “Junior Bonner”
- A Fatal Sweet Tooth
- Roy Bean’s Hanging
- The Gun that Won the Western
- Clell Miller’s Bones
- A Dead Ringer for George Washington
- Fifty Shades of Rawhide
- Bucking the Norm
- The Real Butch and Sundance
- Allan Pinkerton Lied
- O’Reilly’s Legends & Lies
- Is the Great Emancipator also the Father of the West?
- “Levi, we Need Durable Pantaloons.”
- Phoenix Disliked from the Start
- U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves
- Ely S. Parker
- The Horrell Brothers’ Revenge
- Andy Devine’s Divine Voice
- A Pimp, Really?
- The Last Train Holdup in Texas
- Arizona is in Love…
- Lincoln’s Western Past
- Mannie Clements Found Out that Dead Men Tell no Tales
- Larcena Pennington
- Blonde Marie
- Whirlwind of the Prairies
- Death in the Mississippi
- The Lynching of Red Yeager
- The Baron of Arizona
- Did John Wesley Hardin get the drop on Wild Bill Hickok?
- One Man’s Dream
- Every Dog Has its Day
- Blood on the Tracks
- In Search of the West
- Valiant Surgeons in Army Blue
- The Great Texas Treasury Raid
- Fratricide on Missouri Frontier
- What did outlaws like Frank and Jesse James do with all the loot they stole?
- Did Wild Bill Hickok really have the Dead Man’s Hand of aces and eights when he was killed?
- April 2015 Events
- Jefferson Davis: Across Five Aprils
- Wayward Western Women
- When Winter Killed
- Who was the first white woman to scale Pikes Peak?
- Life and Death of a Valiant Texas Ranger
- The 1857 Bonneville expedition against the Apache reportedly carried 700 gallons of vinegar. Why?
- In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Lee Van Cleef (the Bad) is missing part of a finger. What happened to it? Also, did Eli Wallach play the Ugly? I have been told Van Cleef did.
- What was the cost of the westward wagon trains?
- The book True Grit states Rooster Cogburn died from “night hoss.” What does that mean?
- The West’s Forgotten Scout
- Cord McCoy
- Rough Drafts 4/15