The words are as moving today as they were when Chief Joseph spoke them on a cold fall day in 1877: “I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are all...
Following the Nez Perce Trail
read more
Articles
1881 Marlin Rifle
While the 1873 Winchester is often called the “gun that won the West,” this rifle certainly didn’t win it by itself. There were plenty of other good...
Talking the Legs Off a Donkey
Of all the scams coming out of the Western mining era, the one perpetrated by George Babcock wins hands down. In 1894, Babcock, who was a jovial man...
Judging the Peace
Mexican raiders swam across the Rio Grande, showing off their freshly-stolen beeves, taunting Capt. Leander McNelly and his Special Force of Texas...
Training Painted Paints
It’s a breathtaking scene in a beautiful movie. Hundreds of wild horses run free across the Montana prairie in the final scene of Hidalgo. The...
Calamity Jane
Her name isn’t real and neither are most of the folklore images of her. Calamity Jane—yes, there really was such a person in the Old West—wasn’t the...
Pike’s Peak or Bust!
On the first day of summer in 1850, John Beck, a Cherokee preacher en route to California’s goldfields, stopped to do a little panning along the...
An American Starlet
“Cowboys don’t cry, they’d rather drink the ocean dry, they let the lonesome pedal steel, tell the world the way they feel.”—Ian Parks from the...
I just watched an old Army cavalry movie, and I’m wondering about the neckerchiefs and trouser stripes. What can you tell me about the cavalry uniforms of the Indian Wars?
I just watched an old Army cavalry movie, and I’m wondering about the neckerchiefs and trouser stripes. What can you tell me about the cavalry...
Is it true that the dime novel hero, Deadwood Dick, was really a black cowboy named Nat Love?
Is it true that the dime novel hero, Deadwood Dick, was really a black cowboy named Nat Love? Marina Bender Mesa, Arizona When aspiring writer Ed...
What were Rawhiders?
What were Rawhiders? J.D. Dillon Via the Internet Rawhiders were a rough-hewn class of frontier itinerants who gathered cow or buffalo hides for...
Fighting the Elements
October 2001—Greg Polutanovich’s tent lies on the ground. As rain pounds down, Greg assesses the damage at the now-closed outdoor art show in...