Who would’ve guessed that, in the last decade of his life, a lung lost to cancer, John “Duke” Wayne would star in a dozen films, three of them—1969’s True Grit, 1972’s The Cowboys and 1976’s The Shootist—among the best of his career?
The premise of The Cowboys was refreshingly original: with a

July 2017
In This Issue:
Features
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- The Legendary West
- Phoenix Gets a Name
- Charles Stevens
- Never Wasted a Bullet
- Joseph Lee Heywood, a Northfield Hero
- A Lyrical History of the West
- How Often Were Post Offices Robbed on the Frontier?
- Get a Grip, Cowboy
- What History Has Taught Me: Bob Love
- Frontier Reveille
- Johnny Lingo: In the Land of Pronunciation Legend Rules
Departments
- Mollie’s Miracle
- Magic City of the Plains
- Just How Good Were the Good Old Days?
- Western Events For July 2017
- Trapped!
- She’s So Money
- Mark Twain’s Vittles and Viands
- Who Established the First Commercial Brewery in the Early West?
- Was “Wild Bill” Hickok’s Failing Eyesight the Result of a Venereal Disease?
- Were Bounty Hunters as Despised as Most Westerns Depict?
- And the War Begins
- Texas Captains of Cotton and Cattle