To describe Joseph Rutherford Walker as a typical frontiersman would be to label Abraham Lincoln a typical president. Walker was a man of many...
A Man of Many Firsts
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Articles
The Boss With The High Forehead
In 1874 a young New Yorker, John P. Clum, 22, accepted a difficult assignment, to be the Indian Agent for the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation...
Gold Rush Days in the Mother Lode
California's Mother Lode was a magic rectangle on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. It was only 60 miles long and 40 miles wide but yielded a...
What is a Cowboy?
What is a cowboy? Billy Murphy Las Cruces, New Mexico A cowboy is generally considered to be someone who tends cattle herds on North American...
Santa Claus, Arizona
On a stretch of arid desert northwest of Kingman arises what was perhaps the most unusual roadside attraction ever to grace the highways of...
Two Guns Ghost Town
They called the Arizona town Two Guns—supposedly after one of the early settlers, a crotchety old guy who called himself Two Gun Miller. There’d...
How Many Indians Died at the 1876 Battle of The Little Big Horn?
How many Indians died at the 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn? Vanessa Grandos Scottsdale, Arizona The best number to go by is 31 warriors plus 10...
True West Moments: Ben Johnson Knew How to Set A Horse
Some of the old Cowboy stars were accomplished horseback riders, but very few could “set a horse” as if they were one with the animal. Cowboy actor...
A Merry Christmas at Ft. Yuma
A little-known Christmas story is that of the time when the generous folks at Nogales, Arizona “adjusted” the Mexican border to accommodate some...
True West Moment: Horses Hate Horseradish
Back in the old days the word “horse” was often used to describe something large. So, when the pioneers saw a large white radish, they put the two...
I’m a Fan of AMC’s Hell on Wheels. Is the Route Constructed from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Sacramento, California, Still In Use Today?
I’m a fan of AMC’s Hell on Wheels. Is the route constructed from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Sacramento, California, still in use today? Mark Wilson...
Clayton Moore
At one point in the classic movie Shane, the hero (played by Alan Ladd) wins a brutal fistfight with several of the bad guys. One of the baddies is...