When Sam Peckinpah invited his close friend Jim Silke, an illustrator, to Western Costume in Los Angeles, California, in 1973 to look at wardrobe...

David Trousdale was a nondescript Wells Fargo express messenger on a Southern Pacific train.  March 14, 1912, made him a celebrity. That’s when...

Rufus Nephew, better-known as Climax Jim, was the darling of the Arizona press during the late 1890s. Thanks to the fertile imaginations of the old...

In March 1875, Brig. Gen. George Crook—on his way out of Arizona to take over as commander of the Department of the Platte—enjoyed a “farewell hop.”...

I wanted to write about Doc Holliday because I am drawn to the unfairly maligned. John Henry Holliday deserves more respect and compassion than he’s...

As Far As the Eye Could Reach:  Accounts of Animals Along the Santa Fe Trail, 1821-1880, by Phyllis S. Morgan is a wonderful essay collection that...

J. Frank Dalton wanted publicity—so much that he claimed to be famous Old West figures. In the 1940s, he said he was lawman Frank Dalton, who had...

Mike O’Rourke, 18, also known as Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce, and his roommate Robert Petty, 23, are eating in Smith’s restaurant in Charleston,...

Silent, deadly and accurate at close range, the American Indian’s handmade bow was capable of rapid fire. Because the archer’s bow threw a...

Henry Brown rode with Billy the Kid in the Lincoln County War, then after cowboying in the panhandle of Oklahoma he became a respected city marshal...

English author Winston Ramsey loves the history of the Old West. His passion for the historic places, towns, trails, events and characters is now...

Poker Alice, the colorful "Queen of the Western Gamblers," was both gambler and madam. She smoked long, black cheroots and packed a six-shooter.  ...