Allan Affeldt knows what it takes to restore a historical hotel or saloon. We’re inside the Legal Tender Saloon, Bistro and Music Hall, a historic...
Born Again!
read more
Articles
Different Accomodations
John Reno’s love for luxury put him in a prison cell. Reno and associates burglarized the Daviess County, MO treasury in November 1867—and came away...
The Cross Draw
A True West reader asks if Old West gunmen and cavalrymen using the cross draw were as fast as using a normal draw. I went to two fast-draw experts,...
Shaken, Stirred and Strong
Mixologists, or bartenders, of the time were often skilled and jokingly referred to as pharmacists or chemists with a “medicine” chest. Prior to...
Eva Dugan: The Only Woman Hanged in Arizona
Twenty-year-old Eva Dugan took the alias Claw-Finger Kitty while she was working as a prostitute during the Alaska Gold Rush and some thirty years...
Crook Fails Custer at the Rosebud
On a blisteringly hot Saturday in mid-June 1876, Brig. Gen. George Crook fought to the draw Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors led spiritually by...
The Searchers
A question came in recently from a True West reader about the premise of Alan Le May’s great novel, The Searchers, the story of a middle-aged Civil...
What History Has Taught Me: Howard Terpning
As a kid I enjoyed building model airplanes. The best art training I ever got was being Haddon Sundbloom’s apprentice for a year and a half. The...
The Other Assassin
Charlie Ford is the lesser known of the brothers who killed Jesse James—sibling Robert actually pulled the trigger. Charlie was the one with...
Anarchy on the Rails
In 2019, Jack Kelly’s The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America (St. Martin’s Press,...
The Fruits of their Labors
Robert Ford hoped that killing Jesse James would bring fame and fortune. But Ford and brother Charlie were convicted of murder; Missouri Governor...
Did Ballistics Forensics Ever Come into Play in Solving Crimes in the Old West?
Did ballistics forensics ever come into play in solving crimes in the Old West? David Aufiere Columbia, Louisiana Ballistics science has been around...