
During her arduous journey into the war zone of Arizona in 1874, Martha Summerhayes gave high praise to a riverboat pilot, Captain Jack Mellon, known as the “Wizard of the Colorado.” Mellon, who came to the river in 1864 and spent 46 years navigating it, virtually invented the “crawfish” method of cutting through sandbars. River runners swore all Mellon needed was two inches of water and he could traverse the sandbar-studded waterways of the Colorado with his cargo-laden steamboats.
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In 1999, Bob Boze Bell and partners bought True West magazine (published since 1953) and moved the editorial offices to Cave Creek, Arizona. Bell has published and illustrated books on Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, as well as Classic Gunfights, an Old West gunfight book series. His latest books are The 66 Kid and True West Moments.