I’ve solved one Old West mystery. You want to know why the Star Line Transportation Company, a k a the Prescott-Santa Fe stage line, only lasted...
Riding the Prescott-Santa Fe Stage
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Articles
Gun Notches for Rawhide Jake
Jonas V. Brighton—aka Rawhide Jake—is best known to history for killing Ike Clanton in 1887 as the outlaw tried to escape arrest. But Brighton had a...
Ike Clanton finally meets his Waterloo
Ike and Fin Clanton, who had survived the Cochise County War against Wyatt Earp and his brothers five years earlier, had moved their operations to...
What History Has Taught Me: Roy Young
After 17 years as a high school teacher, band director and varsity baseball coach in his home state of Oklahoma, Roy Young opened stores...
A Broken Nose, A Broken Life
John Fletcher Fairchild’s lawman career ended because of a punch in the nose. Seriously. Family lore says Wyatt Earp broke Fairchild’s nose in a...
What was the Fare for Railroads and Stagecoaches?
What was the fare for railroads and stagecoaches? Michael Hutchinson Frankfort, Indiana All stagecoach riders paid a price in physical discomfort,...
The Power of Redemption
Jeff Power, like his ancestors, had clawed out a living in unforgiving terrain, continually forced to defend what little he had from predators, both...
Dead Men Tell Tales
Walmart shoppers grabbing a DVD of the new Vision Films Western Dead Men, directed by Royston Innes, starring Ric Maddox and cowritten by the pair,...
Johnny Ringo or Johann Rheingold
Recently, I received a letter from a gentleman in Germany asking if Johnny Ringo’s name was actually Johann Rheingold, the son of a German settler....
Burt’s Bad Boys
Arizona had its share of zany occurrences but none can top the Burt Alvord Gang from Willcox. Burt was a big, burly good ol’ boy whose major...
A Horror Story Within a Horror Story
The Hunger (G.P. Putnam & Sons, $27) by Alma Katsu takes the tragic tale of the Donner Party and infuses it with hints of witchcraft, vampirism,...
Cold-Blooded Conman
Perhaps the most cold-blooded conman early Arizona ever knew, Louis Eytinge suffered from tuberculosis and had two months to live. He should’ve died...