In 1840, trapper Joseph Meek led the first emigrant wagons over the Oregon Trail from Fort Hall to Fort Walla Walla in the Oregon Territory. Today,...

Congratulations to our 2015 Best of the West winners! Along with this year’s pictorial voyage celebrating the American Indian, we bring you the...

The year 2014 will be remembered as an annum of historical reflection as historians grappled with the relevance of 19th-century history for a...

Arizona evolved slowly before the American Civil War. The 1860 census reported a population of only 6,482 people with 4,040 listed as American...

The Year 2014 proved to be a year of ups and downs for the Western, with a major film dying gutshot at the box office, while one of the most...

Alfred Jacob Miller, George Catlin, John Mix Stanley and Karl Bodmer’s romantic illustrations of America’s frontier Indians were matchless...

John B. Stetson set up shop in 1865 in Philadelphia and began selling his “Boss of the Plains” Stetson hat he had invented while living out West,...

A Western roundup of events where you can experience the Old West! ADVENTURE New Year’s Day Train Durango, CO, January 1: Start the New Year aboard...

Who was Doc Carver? Susan Mizla Manchester, Connecticut Born on May 7, 1840, William F. “Doc” Carver was a 19th-century world champion shooter and...

Who was White Apache? Joe Gallagher Ontario, California Dan Thrapp was preparing a book on “White Apache” Zebina Streeter when he died in 1994, and...

Was Geronimo a real Apache chief? Donald Anderson Phoenix, Arizona Author Morris Edward Opler, who interviewed Apache elders in the 1930s, believed...

Did Indians send smoke signals? Ronald Davis Gilbert, Arizona Many tribes did. They didn’t send complicated messages, such as “Red Cloud has 347...