El Paso, Texas, is a city with a past—far more of a past than most communities in the West can claim. It’s belonged to three countries and has a...
New Kid on the Block
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Articles
The Great Race of Mercy
The place was Nome, Alaska. Dr. Curtis Welch waited anxiously for his prayers to be answered in the early morning hours of February 2, 1925....
The Top 10 Western DVD Collections
Western lovers who think of themselves as the last of a dying breed have to be feeling a little less lonely these days, as there are so many...
Wild West History Sleuths
The History Detectives’ upcoming season features several episodes of interest to readers of True West. The June 30, 2008, show (and these are...
Monument Valley’s 50th
It’s quiet. Too quiet. At any moment, I know—I can feel it—that I’m about to be attacked by a tribe of plein air painters! Oops. There goes that...
Recreating Indian-Inspired Adobes
Drawn to Casas Grandes by its rich history and fueled by an interest in sustainable architecture, Jack Anderson set out to build a business and a...
Modern Cowboys
“Sometimes you wonder why they all bunch up into cities, when there’s all of this,” observes Ron Schaefer, head cowboy at Rancho de la Osa, as we...
Big Bend Mystery Under the Sands
How long it had lain in the West Texas desert, no one knew. It was 1972, and the firearm looked as if it had been undisturbed for at least a...
The Kings of the Beaumont
If walls could talk, one of the most interesting stories any walls in the West could tell would come from the Beaumont Hotel in Ouray, Colorado....
The Emperor’s Old Guns
Imagine the elevator of a posh Vegas hotel opening its doors, revealing a man holding a toilet paper torch, wearing a king-sized sheet clad around...
Run Out of Town On a Rail
A Western romance comes to life while I ride on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief. I feel its authenticity—from the close-up scenery speeding past the window...
Horse Trading for a Better Guthrie
Many nights, during the late 1970s, Ralph McCalmont had to remind himself he was trying to save Oklahoma's "magic city." Opposition was so loud and...