California’s grape growers discovered a gold mine in distilling aged brandy. Until the mid-1800s mission grapes were the primary wine-making grape...
Alchemists of the Vine
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Articles
The Bozeman Trail
A journey on the historic route goes through the heart of traditional Lakota and Cheyenne hunting areas. Long before John Jacobs and John...
Vera’s Life in the Circus was a Zoo
Her $10 greenhorn mistake didn’t help. The first time Vera McGinnis entered the Big Top at Madison Square Garden in New York City, she looked like a...
The Tunnel Saloon Fight
Pete Gabriel vs Former Deputy Joe Phy A Miraculous Recovery MAY 31, 1888 Pete Gabriel, accompanied by his friend Mike Rice, leaves in...
The Bandit Bard
How the English-born, Civil War veteran’s career as America’s most prolific poet-stagecoach robber began on the backroads of California’s gold...
Don’t Bet Against a Sporting Girl
How soiled doves tried to beat the odds against hypocrisy and politicians For several decades, Hollywood has had a fine time portraying...
Hey, Bartender!
Set'em up and pass'em down! 216 authentic Old West Saloons and Bars you need to visit before they are gone. With swinging doors and wooden floors,...
Swinging Doors, Dance Hall Girls and Whiskey
For seven decades, True West has celebrated the historic saloon in fact and fiction. When True West’s founder Joe Small published his first issue of...
Print the Legend
Mass media dominates Brian Lebel’s Old West Auction in Mesa, Arizona. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” a newspaperman famously said...
A Proud Heritage Saved, Texas Style
Nobody’s surprised it’s so big and so bold. It started during a visit to a Norway museum in the 1960s, when Texas Tech University President...
Barbarians at the Quartz Rock
A crowd celebrated the first shot poured on Prescott’s Whiskey Row. Then and now, Prescott, Arizona’s, great calling card has been Whiskey Row. For...
Bar None
The long-gone bars, honky-tonks and saloons I grew up in are more than memories. When I was on the women’s panel at the Tucson Festival of Books...