A Hawkeye State minister and a basement entrepreneur changed how the world snacks. Popcorn as we know it may seem like a fairly new concept, but...
Jolly Times In Iowa
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Articles
Cowboy & Actor Ben Johnson
He truly knew his horses. Ben Johnson arrived in California in the late 1930s after Howard Hughes bought some horses from an Oklahoma ranch where...
Paladin, Gamblers and the Oregon Trail
Did anybody have a good time on the Oregon Trail? Neal Hathaway Durango, Colorado Interesting question. Many did. Those pioneers were amazingly...
What History Has Taught Me with Leo W. Banks
LEO W. BANKS, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR After an award-winning career in journalism, Leo W. Banks turned to fiction. His first novel, Double Wide, won...
U.S. Marshals, Oklahoma and Wild Bill
For 70 years, Western law and order history has been popularized by True West’s editors. From Joe Small’s first issue in the summer of 1953 to the...
Riding for the Brand
The Prix de West in Oklahoma City celebrated cowboys and cowgirls. All Images Courtesy the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum In the years...
Ringing the Bell
For the greater good of the state, two visionary women saved a school in Nome, North Dakota. This is a story about two North...
Canton of the North
Lawman Frank Canton’s adventures in Alaska are legendary. In the summer of 1897, Frank Canton was looking for new opportunities. He’d...
Shooting Back
Blame It On The Pig I first met Kevin Jarre at a gathering of Alamo buffs at Joe Musso’s apartment. Dan Gagliasso told Kevin of the gathering. So,...
A Moving Target
When I was a kid, the Old West was 50 years in the rearview, and today my youth is 50 years in the rearview—and—to be honest, more like 60! Yikes!...
Truth Be Known
Old Vaquero Sayings “The devil knows more by being old than by being the devil.” Quotes “Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use...
Ranch Life
Ranch Life Dakota Territory photographer John C. H. Grabill, like his peer Solomon Butcher in Nebraska, was a master at capturing daily ranch life...