At the turn of the 20th century, a young cowboy obsessed over how he could best preserve true cowboy culture. Erwin Evans Smith, born in 1886,...
Camera in the Cow Camps
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Articles
The Mona Lisa of the Range
I was teaching photography at Prescott College in Arizona when I met 19-year-old Julie, the daughter of renowned wildlife artist Grant Hagen. She...
A Feast Along the Alferd Packer Trail
He was a shoemaker, Army veteran, hunter, guide, scout, miner, convict, harness maker, cane carver, horsehair braider, “jack whacker” and, of...
Comanche Moon
I won’t poke any more holes into what promises to be the final production in the Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove series, starring Val Kilmer (Inish...
Not Just Book Larnin’
You know that old adage, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”? University of Texas Professor Michael Collins proves that saying wrong. For...
Durango, Colorado
Along the Ute’s River of Lost Souls (today’s Animas River), you’ll find “water town,” first labeled as Urango by the Basque and later named after...
Was He a Hero?
How did Buffalo Bill Cody survive the ravages of time? He has a prestigious historical center in Cody, Wyoming, named in his honor and is the theme...
True Texas Cowboys
As a teen in the 1880s, my great-grandfather Tolbert Alexander Burford worked as a wrangler and cowboy during the end of the great cattle drives. In...
Northern Pacific’s Peaks and Valleys
St. Paul, Fargo, Jamestown, Bismarck, Glendive, Billings, Livingston, Bozeman, Missoula, Sandpoint, Spokane, Yakima, Tacoma. These are some of the...
Casper, Wyoming
Wild Bunch outlaw Tom O’Day may not have entered Casper willingly (in 1903, he was tried and jailed for stealing a herd of horses nearby), but many...
Geocaching Adventure
Rain had fallen for more than 24 hours, so it was not a typical morning in Phoenix, Arizona—cold, wet and the air thick with the smell of crushed...
Walk the Read
Do you know the history behind...the pedometer craze sweeping across the nation? Look to the Old Order Amish, who naturally log more than the...