By the time he died in August 1895, John Wesley Hardin had finished about 200 pages of
his autobiography, up to the year 1889. Researchers Chuck Parsons and Norman Wayne
Brown believe his paramour, Helen Beulah Mrose, probably wrote the work as Wes sank into alcoholism and inertia (outside of gambling).
When he died, Hardin’s three children went to court and won the rights to the manuscript,

True West March/April 2025
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Truth Be Known
- What Has Taught Me: Deb Goodrich
- Earp, Cowboy Songs & Prairie Hygiene
- Trails of the Old West
- The Frontier Characters of South Dakota
- The Bowie Knife
- The Kindled Flame 1835
- King of the Scatterguns
- Selling the Mythic West and the Real West
- A Gut Punch Turns into a Miracle Reprieve
- The Beginnings of the Bird Cage
- Frontier Colossus