How accurate was 1999’s You Know My Name, about Bill Tilghman? James Patrick Gaines Orangevale, California Like most Western movies—not that close...
Hickok’s Number One
In 1866 Westerner wrote, “The new arm of the west, called a Smith-and-Weston [sic], is a pretty tool; as neat a machine for throwing slugs into a...
Eclectic Cast of Characters
It was 1908, and a group of men came together to film a silent Western called The Bank Robbery. It’s not clear if it was based on a real crime, and...
Lash LaRue
I used to devour those Lash LaRue comics when I was about ten or eleven. We all liked him because he used a bull whip instead of a six gun. He was...
A Crafty Attorney
Temple Houston—the son of Sam Houston—was famed in Texas and Oklahoma as a brilliant attorney. He proved it in 1899 when he defended alleged madam...
Clifton’s Hardrock Jail
Mining town Clifton, Arizona, took advantage of the local’s mining expertise and blasted a jail out of hard rock. Ironically, the man who ramrodded...
Always Memorable June
In the history of the West, June will forever be remembered as the month in 1876 that saw the Battle of the Little Bighorn, or “Custer's Last...
Imagine No Cowboys
Branding the American West: Paintings and Film, 1900-1950 (University of Oklahoma Press, $39.95), edited by Marian Wardle and Sarah E. Boehme, is a...
Trails to Independence
The American West’s awe-inspiring vistas—the seemingly endless prairies of the Great Plains, the great wall of snowcapped granite peaks of the Rocky...
Frank Eaton “Pistol Pete”
Recently somebody asked me about the Oklahoma State University Cowboy’s mascot “Pistol Pete.” The West in the early 1900s had an abundance of...
The Winchester Haunting
Many have heard the story of the eccentric millionaire of the Victorian Era who spent the last 38 years of her life building, always building, a...
A Sobering Arizona Fact
No matter how big our problems have been, at least one guy always claims to have the answers to everything. You know, that drunk guy at the bar....