Local historian J.R. Edmonson does not hesitate when asked who everyone in Fort Worth knows. “Steve Murrin, a third-generation cowboy whose...
Ken Burns’s Best Work Ever
Ken Burns is more than a chronicler of American history and culture. As early as 1981, when Burns presented his film on the history of the Brooklyn...
R.W. Hampton
I will always be a cowboy at heart. I worked hard to “earn my spurs”; I feel proud knowing that I rode with that special tribe, and they called me...
Spirit West River Lodge
When Lynn and R.G. Finney’s sons were small, the family lived in a Victorian-sized house that had belonged to her grandmother. When they had an...
Sea of Sage
Go trail riding in Snow Canyon State Park in St. George, Utah, and you’ll be riding through Utah’s Dixie. When Brigham Young called upon the...
Vaquero Firepower
During Mexico’s Revolution of 1910, the rebel forces fought for their freedom with a vast variety of firearms that ran the gamut from blackpowder...
Preservation: Saving the Neighborhood
Saving the Neighborhood Wyoming was still living the Wild West when the state’s first governor’s mansion was built in Cheyenne in 1904. It housed...
Collecting American Outlaws
Growing up in Missouri in the 1930s, Wilbur Zink loved listening to family legends as he sat at the kitchen table. The one that most impressed him...
Puttin’ Up the Pantry
“I have just bought fifty-seven pounds of apples to make jelly for the winter; they were two and a half cents a pound,” wrote Mrs. E.M.H. of Lake...
The Misery of Mining in the Old West
For many miners, the report of 34-year-old Dr. Anthony J. Lanza came a “day late and a dollar short.” Near the beginning of the last century, this...
Mapping the Black Hills: Valentine T. McGillycuddy
Valentine T. McGillcuddy, weak and on the verge of becoming an alcoholic after a stint as a doctor at the Wayne County Insane Asylum in Detroit,...
Patton’s First Two Notches
May 14, 1916 Second Lt. George S. Patton and his force, riding in Dodge touring autos, approach the San Miguelito Ranch from the south,...