Arizona prides itself on having an abundance of eccentric. Bill Esenwein had to be somewhere near the top of the list. He was a desert rat, writer and prospector who made his home in the desert east of Congress. He earned the nickname as a result of his rapport with poisonous reptiles. He rescued them, took care of them and made them welcome in his home. Outside his cabin hung a sign, “Rattlesnake Haven.” His rattlesnake pet fetish earned him the name as the “Dr. Doolittle of Diamondbacks.

December 2016
In This Issue:
Features
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- A Babe on the Battlefield
- A Western Dynasty: Winchester
- Let’s Hang This “Damned Nuisance”
- Deadly Enemies in Trinidad
- Happy Belated, Will Rogers
- The Doctor Doolittle of Rattlesnakes
- Old Vaquero Saying
- Thank You, November
- The Magnificent Robert Vaughn, 1932-2016
- The Life and Legend of Hugh O’Brian
- If You Can’t Lynch a Cattle Thief, There’s Always Plan B
- Dora Hand
- Why Would an Old West Saloon have White Towels on the Front of the Bar?
- So Billy Sidles Up to the Bar Next to Wyatt
- Bitter Friends
Departments
- Western Events for December 2016
- What History Has Taught Me: Ron Hansen, Author
- Emperor of the United States
- Were Cowboys Superstitious?
- Hand Over the Ice Cream
- Forewarned & Forearmed
- A Pistol For Dragoons
- Hollywood’s Texas Ranger
- How Fast Could a Stagecoach Travel?
- Portrait of a Mountain Man
- North to Montana
- Why Do Westerns Feature Guns That Didn’t Exist at the Time Period?
- What Happened to the Bodies of Those Killed at the Alamo?
- The Last Stage Robbery?