On May 10, 1869, the greatest commercial and transportation innovation of America’s first century was completed—the transcontinental railroad. That...
The last quarter of every publishing year brings a plethora of new Western history books into my mailbox. Here are some great books that I know True...
In 1925, Kathryn Downing-Smith, the wife of one of Patrick Gass’s grandsons, wrote a letter to her niece Pearl about Gass. She offered keen insight...
Looting, wildfires, pollution, vandalism, time, the elements—Western ghost towns have lots of enemies. Thankfully, they’ve also got friends like...
El Tiradito, is located in Tucson’s Barrio Viejo and is supposed to be the world’s only shrine for a sinner. There are many versions of how the...
How did Old West pioneers acquire honorific titles? Daniel Scuiry Berkeley, California An honorific is defined as a title that conveys esteem or...
Miles Kellogg was a saloon owner and professional violinist in Tombstone in the early 1880s. The legends say that he was a passenger on the Bisbee...
Carrie Amelia Moore, born in Kentucky on November 25, 1846, grew into a crusader who chopped her way to legend as Carrie Nation. In 1867, Carrie...
Samantha Fallon is one of those Tombstone characters who hasn’t gotten much attention. She arrived in town in 1879. She owned The San Jose House,...
Historians, students, collectors and fans of Western American art will be in debt to William Reynolds for many decades after his publication of Joe...
It was just three days after three men died in Tombstone’s street fight behind the OK Corral. Ike Clanton—who had run from the battle—decided to...
Pioneers were sipping ice cream soda waters as early as the 1860s, but ice cream sodas wouldn’t come along until the next decade. Ice cream soda...