The first piece of track. The very first spike. It all began here, in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s where the Union Pacific began the race to Utah in...
Omaha is Still “All Aboard”
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Articles
Justice for a Journalist
James King of William (he gave himself the last part of that name to distinguish himself from other James Kings) was a crusading newspaper editor in...
So you Want to be a Cowboy
There’s been many a young man or woman who dreamed of climbing into a time machine and transporting themselves back to the days when the West was...
Saratoga, Wyoming
The name Fenimore Chatterton doesn’t ring many bells in Western history, but it does around Saratoga, Wyoming. The businessman and politician...
The Notorious Dutch Henry
Dutch Henry Borne (also spelled Born and Bourne) was one of the most prevalent and notorious livestock thieves in the West. It’s surprising he isn’t...
The Lens of History
Since the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, the entrepreneurial “Big Four” rail barons of the Central Pacific...
Gunfight at the Chandler Ranch
According to Cochise County Deputy Sheriff, Billy Breakenridge, Richard “Zwing Hunt,” was one of the baddest of the bad hombres in that...
What History Has Taught Me: Dolan Ellis
As a kid, we lived on a small farm in eastern Kansas, where I literally had no playmates. My play consisted of doing little farm chores (gathering...
A Warning for Abolitionists
Anthony Bewley was a Methodist pastor south of Ft. Worth just before the Civil War. He was outspokenly abolitionist, and that angered his...
Morgan Woodward
Actor Morgan Woodward is known for many things, most of them unpleasant: he’s so good at playing bad that, “although it was an unwritten law that no...
Arizona’s First US Marshal
Milton Duffield was a seasoned gunman, claiming his first victim in 1854. That reputation must have helped him in some ways; in 1863, he was...
Dead Man Running
Ruben Flanoah “Noah” Wilkerson stepped out of Joe Erimmer’s buckboard, and after thanking him for the ride from Parachute, Colorado, mentally...