Long before Matt Dillon, Chester and Miss Kitty wrapped their hands around a warm cup, coffee was a staple on the frontier. In 1849 while surveying...
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Articles
Did Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday’s Fathers Meet While Serving in the Mexican-American War?
Did Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday’s fathers meet while serving in the Mexican-American War? Marko Fancovic Zagreb, Croatia In 1847, Nicholas Earp...
A Broken Heart, A Broken Neck
Hayes Lyons helped kill a man in Montana Territory in 1863—and for that, the Vigilantes came looking for him. He had a chance to leave the area,...
Sitting Bull’s Dancing Horse
A strange and heartbreaking moment transpired outside Sitting Bull’s cabin in 1890, while he was being assassinated during an attempted arrest at Standing Rock Reservation…
What Killed Off The High Chaparral?
A half century ago, a new Western arrived on NBC, and four seasons later, it was gone, leaving a legacy of just under 100 episodes—less than a...
Esteban Ochoa
The Confederate occupation of Arizona began when Captain Sherrod Hunter and his “Arizona Rangers,” numbering some fifty to a hundred men rode into...
Music to Our Eyes
Across the bottom of a half-plate tintype, in the emulsion, was scribed, “Camp Verde, Arizona.” The 1871 image, the earliest identified tintype...
Modernization of Mexico’s Army
Stephen B. Neufeld’s The Blood Contingent: The Military and the Making of Modern Mexico, 1876-1911 (University of New Mexico Press, $29.95)...
A Hard End for a Vigilante Leader
James Williams gained a certain amount of success and notoriety when he led the Montana Vigilantes in 1864. The group hanged 21 men in just one...
Hot Air & Kind Words
The “Prince of Press Agents,” a spinmeister in a Stetson—he made “Buffalo Bill” Cody a household word around the world. But chances are the name...
Commodore Perry Owens
Commodore Perry Owens drifted down to Texas in the early 1870s then on to Indian Territory where he took a job on the Hilliard Rogers ranch near...
Did Most Old West Towns Have “No Carry” Gun Laws?
Did most Old West towns have “no carry” gun laws? Gerard Smith Coos Bay, Oregon As frontier towns matured, city fathers realized they needed gun...