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...
Pike’s Peak or Bust!
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Articles
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...
Right Brain Overload
Cotton Smith is a right-brain guy. He paints. He draws. He develops creative ad and marketing campaigns. He has written poetry, plays, short...
Tumbling Dice Wins Hardin a One-way Ticket to Hell…John Wesley Hardin vs Constable John Selman
August 19, 1895 Wes Hardin is drunk and furious. “I’ll go and get a gun,” he bellows at John Selman, Sr., “and when I meet you I’ll meet you...
The Russians are Coming
“It’s strange that a little town like Taos, New Mexico, would get two artists from Russia,” said Frank Waters, an author who lived in Taos and knew...
Custer’s Last Film
In his own time George A. Custer was quite the celebrity-soldier, so it is certainly appropriate that he has become such a frequent character in the...
Duct Taping the West
Richard Goff knows two things well: rawhide braiding and horses. Horses came first. “I grew up in the Southeast, the Carolinas, and got my first...
Warped Planks and Rattlesnakes
Tombstone, Arizona, survived. Scabtown, Texas, didn’t. Then, there are the other burgs, those that boomed, died and yet, in a way, still live. We...