In 1857 Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives commanded an expedition to explore the Colorado River. After wrecking their 54-foot paddlewheel steamboat,...
The Men from Music Mountain
read more
Bob Boze Bell
The Cowboy’s Dream
He was born in Philadelphia as Alonzo Megarge III in 1883. Inspired by a Buffalo Bill Cody performance, Alonzo moved to Arizona at age 13 and sought...
Cole Younger Never Got The Lead Out
When the James-Younger Gang attempted to rob the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota, on September 7, 1876, the outlaws ran into a hornet’s...
Killin’ Killeen
Chambermaid May Killeen was a beautiful woman. She had many suitors, including Tombstone’s most colorful bachelor, Buckskin Frank Leslie....
Old West Gangsters
Wyatt Earp had no luck selling his version of the Tombstone events during his lifetime. But shortly after his death in 1929, gangster movies became...
O Homo
He showed up in Tombstone in the summer of 1881, without a gun, without a name and without clothes. The bronzed visitor insisted on being called “O...
The Gunslinger Aims to Kill
In the Old West, men who had a reputation for being dangerous with a gun were referred to as gunfighters, gunmen, badmen, shootists, pistoleers and...
A Snowball’s Chance
Abraham Henson Meadows was born under an oak tree in a snowstorm. After his family moved to Arizona in 1877, he grew into a big-strapping cowboy,...
The Cloud King
Although he was born in Fresno, California, in 1875, Maynard Dixon spent much of his art career in Arizona (he died in Tucson in 1946). He made his...
Straight-armed at The OK Corral
The earliest known reference to football in Arizona is from George Parson’s Tombstone diary, dated January 12, 1882: “Grand foot ball racket this...
Starry, Starry Fight
March 21, 1886 Hogtown is full of cowboys from surrounding Texas ranches at a baile (a gathering for dancing). After midnight, in the early minutes...
The Battle of the Bulls
In November of 1846, the so-called Mormon Battalion encountered wild cattle along the banks of the San Pedro River. Aroused by the invaders, several...