Bringing History Alive Awards are already piling up. I get to write about winners. Risk-takers. Visionaries. Bullheaded folks who have...
Best of the West 2022: Western Preservation
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Jana Bommersbach
The Duke Stars on a New Stage
His personal belongings tell a lot about the big man. The wooden crate is 8-by-8-by-8 feet. Inside the oversized box are bag after bag of unopened...
Donaldina Cameron
Chinatown’s Angry Angel never backed down from a challenge. The girls she saved called her Lo Mo, Chinese for Beloved Mother; the men she thwarted...
The Most Well-Known Unknown Western Illustrator
A.R. Mitchell's paintings are so "moving." His name won’t trip off the tongue, but everyone knows his images: If the horses aren’t bucking, they’re...
Saving and Finally Honoring Edward S. Curtis
Tim Peterson's breathtaking collection is coming to Scottsdale. Tim Peterson was just entering his teens in the 1970s when he and his father...
The West’s First Preservationist Will Surprise You
In Lincoln County, New Mexico, the name John Tunstall is as famous as his hired gun, Billy the Kid. His ambition, his capitalistic competition, his...
Searching For Wyatt Earp As A Boy
The Pella Historical Society starts at home. Certainly, Wyatt Earp didn’t play cowboys and Indians growing up in Pella, Iowa. We know because it...
Queen of the Soiled Doves
MATTIE SILKS LENT STYLE TO THE WORLD’S OLDEST PROFESSION. Just the sound of her name draws a mental picture: MATTIE SILKS. No plain, dowdy woman in...
“I’m Your Huckleberry” Has a Double Meaning for Old Tucson
Saving the old girl is more than a dream. Everyone wants to save “Hollywood in the Desert”—the Old Tucson Studios that hosted more than 400 films...
Boring History? Not the Way We Tell It
Western Writers of America pack in to save the day. "At the bottom.” Your heart is going to hit the bottom of your stomach in a second when I tell...
The Best of the West: Western Preservation
My Favorites of 2020 Thank You for Helping Me Through 2020 There aren’t many jobs in which you’re lucky enough to make friends as you work out of...
They Don’t Make ’Em Like They Used To
But we’re so lucky they once did.