Galen Clark was, for want of a better term, a loser. Yet all of his trials and tribulations ended up giving this country a great natural treasure:...
A Loser and His Park
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Articles
The Long Fight to Become a State
As early as the 1870s Arizonans began pushing for statehood. Haunted by their notorious past, of cattle rustlers, Indian wars, feuds in places with...
Shot Down In A Blaze of Gory. Yes, Gory.
Unlike in the movies (where actors get paid to die on screen), being on the wrong end of a shoot-out was a sad day in the Old West. Bad shots,...
Is This Doc Holliday?
A man in his middle 30s sits in a pushchair, its wheels and his lap covered by a blanket. He is emaciated. His neck is wrapped to conceal infected...
Younger Brothers – The Lost Interviews
Late in the day on September 21, 1876, hordes of newspaper reporters converged on the little burg of Madelia, Minnesota – three of the Northfield...
The First Sheriff of Maricopa County
On February 14th, 1871, Maricopa County was created from Yavapai and Pima Counties. Like many political events in Arizona’s Territorial history the...
A Hardcase Confederate Soldier
Cullen Baker was a hardcase, a Confederate soldier who kept fighting after the Civil War ended. He and his gang pulled a number of robberies in...
Licks and Slicks
An Old West quiz: if you were a cowboy and had “licks” and “slicks,” what were you doing? You were on a cattle roundup. Thanks to the Federal...
Tunstall Ambushed
February 18, 1878 Late afternoon light tips the tops of the foothills leading down into New Mexico Territory’s Ruidoso Valley. The Tunstall party...
Salting the Mines
Unscrupulous prospectors trying to peddle their claims for profit upgraded their dubious mining properties in a “manner contrary to nature” by a...
The Last Train Holdup in Oklahoma
The so-called Al Spencer Gang pulled off the last train holdup in OK. It was early in the morning of August 21, 1923 when the Katy Limited pulled...
She Dared to Wear Pants!
In 1895, when Vera McGinnis was only three years old, she jumped an irrigation canal on a burro named Croppie, and she was off to the races,...