Born into a prominent New York family on July 27, 1840, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie was destined to live his life seated in a McClellan saddle on the...

North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington mark their quasquicentennials—125 years since achieving statehood—this year and it is a good time...

Dead horses and dead men can be a hard sell in 2014, but not when it comes to a Charlie Russell painting. So says eminent Russell scholar Brian...

December 19, 1854 Three American prospectors are traversing a miner’s trail in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains (see map below). As Capt....

When the Spanish explored the West, they discovered numerous ruins clinging to cliff sides and mountain tops. Today, many of these ancient Puebloan...

John Wayne had incrementally risen from three-day pictures to six-day pictures to ten-day pictures, with corresponding increases in salary but very...

No man is an island, isolated from his time and place, so exploring the world of a historical individual not only gives a sense of reality to his...

Considering George Armstrong Custer died nearly 140 years ago, it’s remarkable that so many feel they know him today. Some think of him as the...

Florence Mildred Campbell was desperate to be the wife of John Rathom, a star reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1896, with whom she was...

  I know someone is into Billy the Kid as soon as they ask me what he was really like, as if I knew him personally. Some people are Kid Krazy,...