Bat Masterson was the real deal. He came west in the 1870s and was at the Battle of Adobe Walls where the buffalo hunters held off the Comanche. He...

At a book signing a while back, legendary Western writer Max Evans (The Rounders, The Hi Lo Country, Goin’ Crazy With Sam Peckinpah and All Our...

Temple Houston, lawyer son of Sam Houston, insulted opposing counsel Ed Jennings during an 1895 trial in Woodward, OK. Jennings responded in kind. ...

Stagecoach Stations on the old Butterfield Overland Mail that ran from Tipton, Missouri to San Francisco between 1858 and 1861 left a lot to be...

Weird Westerns? Sci-Fi Westerns? Para-Westerns? Para-Mystery Westerns? Steampunk Westerns? Western Graphic Novels? At the Tallgrass Writing Workshop...

The James-Younger Gang was trying to rob the First National Bank in Northfield, MN on September 7, 1876.  As we know, they were shot to pieces—in...

She was a Mexican woman named Trinidad Escalante Swilling. She married Jack Swilling in Tucson in 1864 and four years later moved north to the town...

Because we are dealing with a legend everyone seems to feel that it must be authentic. I am not interested in authenticity. I am interested in...

One of the Old West’s most popular entertainers was Lola Montez. Tickets to her show went for as high as $500. This exotic Spanish beauty was...

Where is the center of the West? Try Emporia, Kansas. Last weekend, I was the keynote speaker and faculty member at the Center for Great Plains...

On the weekend of June 26-28, 2015 thousands will pilgrimage to the Battle of Little Bighorn National Monument to commemorate the 139th anniversary...

August 15, 1873.  Ellsworth, Kansas. Gunmen Ben and Billy Thompson get into a confrontation that leads to the death of Sheriff Chauncey B. Whitney. ...