In a letter, written in December 1928, the 80-year-old frontiersman Wyatt Earp opined that perhaps “my health will be back to normal when this story...
Wyatt Earp in Hollywood
read more
Bob Boze Bell
The Standoff
Mike O’Rourke, 18, also known as Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce, and his roommate Robert Petty, 23, are eating in Smith’s restaurant in Charleston,...
Moonlighting Lawmen
Henry Brown rode with Billy the Kid in the Lincoln County War, then after cowboying in the panhandle of Oklahoma he became a respected city marshal...
Shot Down In A Blaze of Gory. Yes, Gory.
Unlike in the movies (where actors get paid to die on screen), being on the wrong end of a shoot-out was a sad day in the Old West. Bad shots,...
Tunstall Ambushed
February 18, 1878 Late afternoon light tips the tops of the foothills leading down into New Mexico Territory’s Ruidoso Valley. The Tunstall party...
She Dared to Wear Pants!
In 1895, when Vera McGinnis was only three years old, she jumped an irrigation canal on a burro named Croppie, and she was off to the races,...
A Serious Hualapai Insult
In 1903, female members of the Hualapai tribe wore their hair heavily banged, while the rest of their hair framed their face to cover their cheeks...
Virgil’s Arm Flapping in the Breeze
On the night of December 28, 1881, City Marshal Virgil Earp was ambushed and hit with buckshot crossing the intersection of Fifth and Allen Streets...
Val Kilmer As Wyatt Earp?
Almost everyone who reads True West magazine is familiar with Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc Holliday in 1993's Tombstone. It is a signature role and...
The Gunfight at the O.K. Barn?
After Wyatt Earp’s death in 1929 and the publication of Stuart Lake’s book Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal in 1931, moviemakers finally began to nibble...
Museums We Love
Scottsdale’s Museum of the West has been a long time coming. Our friend Abe Hays has been championing the idea of a Western museum in the Arizona...
Museums We Love
Scottsdale’s Museum of the West has been a long time coming. Our friend Abe Hays has been championing the idea of a Western museum in the Arizona...