John King Fisher is not as famous as some of his contemporaries but all agree he was a good man with a gun. He was arrested for stealing a horse at...
John King Fisher
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Articles
What is the origin of bib shirts?
Allen Fossenkemper Fountain Hills, Arizona Although bib shirts were not common apparel out West, they captured the flavor and romance of the...
“Uncle Jim” Roberts Had Sand
Arizona lawman “Uncle Jim” Roberts upheld the law around Jerome well into the 20th century. State historian Marshall Trimble shares one 1890s...
Crusade for a Chief
He resembled George Washington and helped save Gen. George Crook’s men at the Battle of the Rosebud during the Great Sioux War of 1876—this Shoshone...
Lyne “Tol” Barret
Lyne “Tol” Barret had a novel idea for getting rich. In late 1865, he and some friends formed the Melrose Petroleum Oil Company, the first such...
Gun Smoke and Black Powder
Reading the pulp westerns one would conclude that the Colt revolver was the only pistol used in the Old West. Remington built a fine six-shooter and...
The Boundless West
Someone once said, “Shakespeare has tragedies, the rest of us just have messes.” Fortunately for President Thomas Jefferson, his vision of a...
Arizona Rides Tall in the Saddle
From the days of the dime novels to the cowboys of the silver screen, Arizona has been the setting for numerous classic Western stories and films....
Graham’s Failed Escape
Tom Graham thought he’d gotten away from the death and destruction of Arizona’s Pleasant Valley War. He moved to Tempe to live in peace—or so he...
Butch Cassidy and the Last Standing Bank
Butch Cassidy, was given the name Robert Leroy Parker at birth, born to a poor Mormon family in Beaver, Utah. As a teen Parker set off to find a new...
In the 1985 film Silverado, British-born John Cleese plays the sheriff. Did any Britons become frontier sheriffs in the USA?
Paul Piper Dorset, England Legendary gunfighter Ben Thompson comes to mind. At the age of seven, he immigrated to America from his birthplace of...
The Most Significant July Event in Western History
It's probably a three-way tossup, depending on where your interests lie. It could be July 1, 1862 when President Lincoln set the route for the first...