Ambrose Bierce’s was a life of remarkable contrasts. He was born in 1842 to the poverty of a Midwestern log cabin and a family of 13 children; he...
Ambrose Bierce
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Articles
The Sundance Kid Rides Again — in New York City!
If you were a boy growing up watching Westerns in the 1960s and 1970s, you either wanted to be Butch Cassidy or the Sundance Kid after Paul Newman...
High Adventure in Big Sky Country
When Ulysses Pope abruptly walks away from his wife and sons in 1886 Minnesota, he leaves behind a cryptic note, and a family torn by doubt and...
Greed and Avarice on the California Frontier
Author David J. Langum Sr. focuses on the robust Western figure Mary Bennett Love in his book Quite Contrary: The Litigious Life of Mary Bennett...
The Imaginary Doc Holliday Revealed
Shirley Ayn Linder’s slim and concise Doc Holliday in Film and Literature is a refreshing and welcome addition to the voluminous but often dubious...
The Last Days of Custer
The Fights on the Little Horn: Unveiling the Mysteries of Custer’s Last Stand, Gordon Harper’s exhaustive look at Custer’s Last Stand disagrees with...
Rough Drafts 10/14
As summer turns to fall, my memories of the annual June gathering of Western Writers of America inspire me every day. A highlight of the conference...
Historian Jack L. August’s Reading List Reflects His Love Of The West
Dr. Jack August Jr. is an academic and public historian of the American West. Raised in Arizona, August says, “You always had a sense of optimism...
Signing Off On the Holy Grail
Inspired by the Arthurian quest to acquire the chalice of the Last Supper that received Jesus Christ’s blood from his crucifixion, collectors use...
East Texas Treasure
"You people are crazy.” Those who knew Lera Millard Thomas can still hear her scold the city council of Nacogdoches, Texas, with those words. Lera...
A Deadly Vision
On January 1, 1889, the Northern Paiute medicine man Wovoka was recovering after nearly dying from scarlet fever. As a total solar eclipse darkened...
Fighting Blades of the Frontier
“They say my bowie knife is keen to sliver into halves The carcass of my enemy, as butchers slay their calves.” These two bloodthirsty lines...