At first, I thought of Kit Carson as a quasi-fictitious character, some mythic gunslinger or Wild West show performer. I didn't realize he was a...
Hampton Sides
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Articles
Cowhorse Tango
If you've ever gripped your seat on a roller coaster, then you have an inkling of what it feels like to ride a cutting horse. My first time riding a...
Crookedest Railroad Turns New Bend
Model railroads didn't do a thing for Jim Clark when he was a kid growing up in Milwaukee and California in the 1940s and 1950s, but the real thing...
Not Just a Sea Plague
"Before the railroad, in the days of stage-coaching, the Western traveler subsisted principally on fried bacon and canned tomatoes," wrote Lt. John...
Low Slung Guns
A popular misconception among some Old West re-enactors and wardrobe experts is that everyone wore their gun-belts high on their waists and that the...
Trains, Mules and Horses
Chester A. Arthur is the only U.S. president to make an extensive overland march, mostly on horseback, and the first to visit Yellowstone National...
Why Does Everyone Love Louis…
So here I sit, hawking my novels at a book signing, and this old gentleman's stopping by to tell me this story. I know immediately he's not...
Clean Shots
The most successful gunfighters in the Old West were firm believers in maintaining their firearms. As the story goes, handsome, homicidal John...
Major Dundee
Sam Peckinpah’s devoted fans have never been able to decide whether Major Dundee was a masterpiece mutilated by an unsympathetic studio or the noble...
Redemption Falls (Fiction)
Joseph O’Connor is ambitious in both scope and style with his winding odyssey of a narrative, but the author’s far-flung goals are so...
Gall: Lakota War Chief (Nonfiction)
Here is an excellent biography to shelve alongside Robert Utley’s volume, The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull, and Kingsley...
Hidden Treasure in Engineer Mountain
With several peaks reaching 14,000 feet and sheer canyons and steep switchbacks, riding in the San Juan National Forest can be challenging. Riders...