Bill Beck was a well-known character to the bartenders around Arizona. He’d studied law as a young man in Texas but didn’t practice long. No sooner...
Cyclone Bill
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Articles
The Loneliest Road to Old West History
With its turquoise skies, billowing thunderheads, wide deserts and blue mountains, Central Nevada is right out of a Maynard Dixon landscape....
Laudanum In The Old West
With the modern concern about the possible over-use of opioids, it’s instructive to note that those drugs were in heavy use (and abuse) in the Old...
“Duck You, Sucker!”
1971’s Duck, You Sucker! was the last Western directed by Sergio Leone. He almost didn’t helm it. Initially, Sam Peckinpah was hired to direct while...
A Toast to Gold: 150 Years Later
Raise your glass to the Sourdoughs in saloons across Alaska this year. Even more visitors are expected to take in Alaska’s frontier charms during...
Road to Gold & Redemption
If a singular word describes the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush, it is audacious. Everything about this rush for riches was audacious; the people, their...
“Granite Face of Destiny”
Clint Eastwood was not the first choice to play “The Man With No Name” in the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns. The director tried to hire Charles...
Mexican Food: An Arizona Favorite
“The cultural influences of Spaniards and Mexicans were indelibly printed on Arizona long before territorial times,” notes Daphne Overstreet in her...
The Nation Marched Forward During March
Lots of locales in the United States have good reason to celebrate or commemorate the month of March. It was March 2 of 1836 when Texas declared its...
The Luck of the Irish
The saying “luck of the Irish” was virtually born in the West. Consider: Jimmy Doyle, Jimmy Burns, and Johnny Harnan, who made their fortunes at...
The Dead Man In The Picture
One of the most iconic paintings of the old west is "The Last Spike", created in 1881 by Thomas Hill to commemorate the completion of the...
Outlaw Henry Starr
If I had to pick an outlaw who literally “rode tall in the saddle,” I would have to go with Indian Territory Cherokee outlaw, Henry Starr, who at...