Shooting Back

Our readers remind us of the variables and vagaries of historic truths, “well-established” facts, headlines and historical photographs

Ornate in State
Why would an outlaw have such an ornate grave?
—Christopher Owen South Wales, UK

History Unhidden
High praise to True West for having the courage to publish the “Behind Primeval Mountain Meadows” story. The Mormon Church has attempted to hide, revise or ignore this story for over a century. Kudos to Paul Hutton’s masterful exposition of this sordid piece of history. As a teacher of northwest history, I deeply appreciate True West’s continuing commitment to presenting factual history, the good, the bad and the ugly.
—Herb Flick Clackamas, Oregon

Road Trip Inspiration
Thought I’d tell you about a recent trip my brother and I made around the Southwest visiting many of the places mentioned in True West magazine. It was an amazing 3,300 miles, starting in Denver, proceeding north to Cody, down to Phoenix via Salt Lake City, over to Tombstone, then up to Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos, finishing back in Denver.
We visited the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the National Museum of Wildlife Art, seven national parks, the Desert Caballeros Museum, Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, Old Town Albuquerque (don’t miss the American International Rattlesnake Museum, honest!), also in Albuquerque the jaw-dropping National Museum of Atomic History and Science, Los Alamos, the incredible New Mexico History Museum near Old Town Santa Fe, plus 1-15 other museums and sites, small and large.
It was all great, and I hope this inspires many of your readers to get behind the wheel and visit parts of this great country they haven’t previously seen.
—Richard Woodruff Hillsborough, North Carolina

Cover Boy’s Kin
In the mid-1800s, my Great-Great-Great Grandfather Magnus Anderson, his wife, Elizabeth, and five children, along with a group of Swedes, immigrated to America from Sweden. They were to all meet up with another group of Swedes that had settled in northeastern Iowa. On the way to Iowa they camped at Nauvoo, Illinois, at the same time Brigham Young and his bunch were there on their way west. Elizabeth got real friendly with them, and she wanted to forget Iowa and go on west with them. Magnus wouldn’t stand for it and they went on to Iowa. They took the wrong branch where the river forked at Des Moines and took the Des Moines branch instead of the Racoon branch where the other Swedes were.
When spring came, they found they were on some of the finest and richest river bottom farming soil they had ever seen and decided to stay and created a settlement called Swede Point. (It eventually moved up off the river bottom and became the town of Madrid, Iowa, where I was born.)
Three or four years after the Swedes had settled, some men who had stolen some horses in the area stopped at Magnus’s farm and asked to stay the night in his barn. The law showed up to arrest the men and assumed Magnus was part of the gang. He couldn’t speak enough English to adequately explain and he, along with the horse thieves, was hanged. Elizabeth, son Sven (or Swain, in English), and, we think, one of the daughters (there’s no further record of her in the Madrid area) packed up and went west to hook up with Brigham Young and the Mormons. Elizabeth got real tight with Brigham. We don’t know for sure, but she may have even become one of his wives. 
Whatever the case, Elizabeth went on to become the Matriarch of the Southern Kingdom in Kanab, Utah. Swains Glen Park, near Kanab, is named after the son Sven, who went west with her.
I am the great-great-great grandson of Elizabeth Anderson, the Matriarch of the Mormon Southern Kingdom, in Kanab, Utah. Between Madrid, Iowa, and Kanab, Utah, there is enough documentation to conclude that this is all historical fact. My lineage goes back through my father to her son, John, who stayed in Iowa.
—Lee Anderson Chino Valley, Arizona

correction
In the July-August 2025 “Renegade Roads,” the story claimed that Billy the Kid was taken to Fort Sumner in 1881 to await hanging and he escaped Fort Sumner by killing two deputies. Actually, the Kid was captured in 1880 east of Fort Sumner and was tried and convicted in Mesilla and taken to Lincoln, where he made his infamous jailbreak. We regret the error.