From Arkansas to Alaska, from Texas to Montana, True West Magazine for sixty years has dedicated itself to traveling along America’s byways and highways in search of the most historic and unique places to visit, relax and experience the heritage of the West.
Our annual Heritage Travel Guide is filled with many of our favorite towns, parks, forts, hotels, saloons and restaurants. We hope that our guide will help you plan an adventure of a lifetime in the land we love, the American West. See you on down the road!
| *** THE BEST OF THE WEST HERITAGE TRAVEL 2014 *** | |
| Best Place to Live Like an Old West Cowboy Editor’s Choice: Cave Creek, AZ Reader’s Choice: Tombstone, AZ Best Old West Gunfighter Town Editor’s Choice: Calico, CA Reader’s Choice: Tombstone, AZ Best Preserved Pioneer Town Editor’s Choice: Lincoln, NM Reader’s choice: Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, Grand Island, NE Best Old West Art Town Editor’s Choice: Jackson Hole, WY Reader’s Choice: Santa Fe, NM Best Town for Historical Entertainment Editor’s Choice: Deadwood, SD Reader’s Choice: Tombstone, AZ Best Architecturally-Preserved Editor’s Choice: Virginia City, NV Reader’s Choice: Virginia City, NV Best Historical Town Tour Editor’s Choice: Bisbee, AZ Reader’s Choice: Dodge City, KS Best Promotion of a Historical Place Editor’s Choice: Fort Smith, AK Reader’s Choice: Dodge City, KS Best Old West Town to Live In Editor’s Choice: Cody, WY Reader’s Choice: Prescott, AZ Best Historical Cemetery of the West Editor’s Choice: Concordia, El Paso, TX Reader’s Choice: Boot Hill, Tombstone, AZ Best Preserved Historical Fort of Editor’s Choice: Fort Davis, TX Reader’s Choice: Fort Larned, KS Best Historical Railroad of the West Editor’s Choice: Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, Durango, CO Reader’s Choice: Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad, Elbe, WA Best Preservation of a Historical Editor’s Choice: Windsor Hotel, CO Reader’s Choice: Buffalo Bill Ranch, NE Best Preserved Historical Trail Editor’s Choice: Oregon Trail Reader’s Choice: Santa Fe Trail Best Preservation Effort of the West Editor’s Choice: National Ranching Heritage Center, Lubbock, TX Reader’s Choice: Dodge City, KS |
Best “Who Slept Here?” Hotel
Editor’s Choice: La Fonda, Santa Fe, NM Reader’s Choice: Irma Hotel, Cody, WY Best Heritage Hotel Reader’s Choice: Strater Hotel, Durango, Editor’s Choice: Irma Hotel, Cody, WY Best Heritage Bed & Breakfast Editor’s Choice: Ellis Store, Lincoln NM Reader’s Choice: Boot Hill Bed & Breakfast, Best Historical Saloon of the West Editor’s Choice: Bucket of Blood Saloon, Reader’s Choice: Crystal Palace Saloon, BEST TREASURE HUNTING DEVICE Editor’s Choice: Garrett AT Gold, Garrett Metal Detectors, Garland, TX Reader’s Choice: White’s Metal Detectors, Best Historical Restaurant Editor’s Choice: Pink Adobe, Santa Fe, NM Reader’s Choice: Buckhorn Exchange, Denver, CO Best Chuckwagon Cook-off Editor’s Choice: Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium, Ruidoso, NM Reader’s Choice: Llano River Chuckwagon Cook-off, Llano, TX Best Chuckwagon Show & Supper Editor’s Choice: Bar D Chuckwagon, Durango, CO Reader’s Choice: Sons of the Pioneers Chuckwagon Dinner Show, Branson, MO Best Heritage Guest Ranch Editor’s Choice: White Stallion Ranch, Tucson, AZ Reader’s Choice: Rancho de los Caballeros, Wickenburg, AZ Best Old West Mounted Re-enactment Editor’s Choice: Defeat of Jesse James Days, Northfield, MN Reader’s Choice: Custer’s Last Ride, Little Bighorn Battlefield, MT Best Old West Re-enactment Group Editor’s Choice: Dr. Buck’s Wild Bunch Reader’s Choice: Six Guns and Shady Ladies Best Wild West Show Editor’s Choice: Wild Western Festival, Glendale, AZ Reader’s Choice: Don Endsley’s Great American Wild West Show (Various) Best Cowboy Poetry Gathering Editor’s Choice: Cochise Cowboy Poetry and Music Gathering, Sierra Vista, AZ Reader’s Choice: National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Elko, NV Best Cowboy Music Gathering Editor’s Choice: Santa Clarita Cowboy Music Festival, Santa Clarita, CA Reader’s Choice: National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration, Lubbock, TX |
Photo Gallery
A quiet scene on 5th and Allen Streets in Tombstone, Arizona, 1881, these streets lit up with danger in October, when the outlaw Cowboys faced off against the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday in the famous Gunfight Behind the O.K. Corral.
– True West archives –
One of the top tourist attractions in Texas, the Alamo preserves the history of the courageous defenders who fought against insurmountable odds in the 1836 battle; this photo of the Alamo was taken after the U.S. Army added the hump to the chapel during the war with Mexico that lasted until 1848.
– True West Archives –
America’s first female superstar, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, is shown here, the summer before she sailed for England with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.
– Courtesy Heritage Auctions, June 2012 –
A photographer snapped this image of Bat Masterson in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1885, the same year the former Ford County sheriff was voted the “most popular man in Dodge City.”
– Courtesy Robert G. McCubbin Collection –
Born in Fredericksburg, Texas, in 1857, Buck Taylor found himself a protégé on Buffalo Bill Cody’s Nebraska ranch; he ended up performing cowboy stunts in the Wild West show arena under the billing “King of the Cowboys.”
– Courtesy Robert G. McCubbin Collection –
After Mexico won its independence from Spain, trade between the United States and Mexico flourished in the Mexican settlement of Santa Fe, located at the end of El Camino Real.
– Courtesy Robert G. McCubbin Collection –
In June 1863, George Armstrong Custer posed in front of the Civil War headquarters of Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, who helped to make a general out of the boy. Because of Pleasonton’s nomination, later on that month, Custer learned of his promotion to brigadier general.
— Courtesy swann galleries, April 2004 –
In 1912, traveling on an Overland stagecoach from the nearest town, La Junta, Colorado, these ladies from the Daughters of the American Revolution dedicated a marker at the ruins of Bent’s Old Fort, a fur trading empire set up on the Santa Fe Trail in 1833.
– courtesy Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site –
In 1883, Dodge City, Kansas, hosted the most impressive group of frontier lawmen to sit for a group portrait: (front row, from left) Charlie Bassett, Wyatt Earp, W.F. McLain, Neil Brown; (back row) W.H. Harris, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, W.F. Petillon.
– Courtesy Richard Ignarski –
This bustling wagon yard at New Mexico’s Fort Union was constructed by Capt. George W. Bradley in the 1860s.
– True West Archives –
Dedicating her life to preserving the memory of her husband, George Armstrong Custer, who died at the disastrous Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, Libbie outlived her “Boy General” by 56 years. She now rests forever by his side, at the West Point cemetery.
– True West Archives –
In the liberated Missouri town of Platte City, in July 1864, the teenaged Jesse James celebrated the bushwhacker victory by posing in a photography studio with his Colt revolver in hand and two in his belt.
– Courtesy Robert G. McCubbin Collection –
Found in John Wesley Hardin’s personal photograph album, this tintype was taken in Abilene, Kansas, in 1871, when the 18 year old was fresh off a cattle drive during which he claimed he had killed five men.
– Courtesy Robert G. McCubbin Collection –
Two scouts at Fort Sill, Indian Territory—James N. Jones (right) and Jack Stilwell (far right)—were captured on film around 1874, when the region was at the height of its Red River War that would see Quanah Parker and his band of Comanche surrender at Fort Sill the following summer.
– Courtesy Robert G. McCubbin Collection –
To cater to gold miners in the Black Hills, freight companies set up stage stations along the roughly 200-mile Fort Pierre to Deadwood Trail. At least 40 million pounds a year were reportedly transported in the booming region after 1877.
– Courtesy South Dakota State Historical Society –
Wyoming cowgirl Prairie Rose Henderson broke through the glass ceiling when she won the first Cheyenne Frontier Days race for women on August 23, 1899. The outdoor rodeo is still going strong and draws top professionals competing for more than a million dollars.
– True West Archives –
Nebraska holds claim to Wild Bill Hickok’s first gunfight, during which, in 1861, Hickok allegedly gunned down three men at Rock Creek’s Pony Express and Overland Stage station.
– True West Archives –
In the early 1900s, Wild West shows gave way to rodeos, giving little girls new role models in early-day cowgirls like (from left) Hazel Padgett, Dorothy Morrell, Dolly Mullins, Vera McGinnis, Alice Braham and Dell Jones, standing next to an unknown cowgirl.
– True West Archives –
Visitors to Sheridan, Wyoming, can still hang their hats at the 1893 Sheridan Inn, where Buffalo Bill Cody held auditions for his Wild West show.
– True West Archives –
President Teddy Roosevelt (at left) stands with his camping buddy John Muir on Glacier Point in Yosemite Valley, California, in 1903.
– Courtesy Library of Congress –
Photographer John C.H. Grabill helped tell the history of the Black Hills through photographs like this 1889 picture of two stagecoaches crossing a bridge, with the men waving or tipping their hats to the photographer.
– Courtesy Library of Congress –
Three years after the discovery of gold in Tonopah, Nevada, these Tonopah to Sodaville stages met on the road in 1903; the next year, the iron horse began to displace stage travel, connecting Tonopah with the Carson and Colorado branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad at the Sodaville junction.
– True West Archives –
From 1883 to 1913, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West captivated audiences all over America and even overseas. The showman (left) sits with his former acting pals, Texas Jack Omohundro (center) and Wild Bill Hickok (far left), who appeared in the drama credited as Buffalo Bill Cody’s first stage appearance.
– Courtesy Library of Congress –
Novelist Zane Grey is shown here, staring out into a titanic gorge. Ever the outdoorsman, he arranged a mountain lion-hunting trip with Buffalo Jones to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in 1907.
– Courtesy U.S. National Park Service –
Related Articles
-
Westward expansion took place during the Industrial Revolution, which was also a time of great…
-
In 1840, trapper Joseph Meek led the first emigrant wagons over the Oregon Trail from…
-
Here are the winners of our "2014 Best of the West." Sit back and see…
