Prologue PROVING GROUND The boy is emaciated. His mop of red hair hangs across his scarred face, obscuring a lost eye. He staggers and stumbles up...
The Trickster with the Sidewinder Gaze
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Articles
Deforest Kelley
Actor DeForest Kelley is best known as Dr. “Bones” McCoy on Star Trek. But he also had a number of connections to Tombstone—at least on film. He...
Puffing, Chewing and Dippin’
American’s love for smoking began early in our history. Among the various types of tobacco were rope cable twist, Bull Durham in a sack, and plug...
Why would a pile of small seashells be in the Arizona desert?
Dee Anne Jackson Gilbert, Arizona Some 200 million years ago, the area was a vast sea, which is why you can find seashells all over the Sonoran...
William Becknell & The Opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1822
The Mexican Revolution ended in 1821 and brought about many changes in foreign policy. Up to then Spain didn’t allow her colonies to trade with the...
The Country Jake
In 1876, Arizona cowboy Gus Gildea described seeing the young outlaw Henry McCarty near Henry Clay Hooker’s Sierra Bonita Ranch: “He came to town,...
Rough and Rugged Arizona
Mary MacGreggor and Cal Davis love and hate each other from day one. Here in 1880s Arizona Territory, they are meant to be together, both however,...
Queen of the Cowtowns
When Dodge City’s founders staked out their vision for a town near Fort Dodge in 1872, its first business was George Hoover’s bar. He sold whiskey...
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
She was born Margaret Tobin in Hannibal, Missouri, the daughter of Irish immigrants. A restless, strong-willed adventuresome lass, the pretty...
Magic Finds Tombstone
According to George Parsons’ journal the first circus (Ryland’s) landed in Tombstone on September 22, 1880. Parsons also reports going to see Prof...
Outrunning the Apaches
In the Arizona wilderness of 1881, 20-year-old courier Frederick Russell Burnham knew that the assignment from Neil McLeod, one of Tombstone’s many...
Audubon’s Wild West
John James Audubon, revolutionary bird artist and founder of modern ornithology, traveled the American frontier in pursuit of his goals and recorded...