She was one of the guiding lights of Arizona literature, the territory’s first female office holder and she helped cinch Arizona’s statehood. But...
Voice for Freedom
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Jana Bommersbach
America’s Best Train Experience
The best train ride in America runs through some of its most beautiful land and some of its richest Western history. Besides, this ride is a whole...
Kid Exhumation Nixed
Nobody is going to dig up Billy the Kid. Nor his Mom. And anyone who still wonders if young Billy was killed 123 years ago by Sheriff Pat Garrett—as...
Survival
A life-or-death price tag came with settling the Old West: By their wits, their guts and their best guesses, Westerners had to learn to survive. If...
Uncrowned Heroine, Among Great Men
America’s first female explorer was a teenager and new mother who carried her infant on her back as she walked across half the country. She was a...
Picked to “Carry A. Nation”
She so believed the Lord picked her to “Carry A. Nation” into Prohibition, this ax-wielding, saloon-destroyer changed the spelling of her first...
“Homos on the Range”
The most surprising thing about homosexuality in the Old West is not that it...
Inspired by the Prairie
Her writing is so vivid, you can see the yellow jam made from the ground cherries that grew prolifically on the prairie; you can almost hear the...
Supermen and Women, Not Pygmies
When I finally announced that I was going to become a doctor it broke the heart of all my friends and I was publicly disgraced. Women that I had...
Singing of the Wrongs and Heroism of the Indians
“It makes little difference ... where one opens the record of the history of the Indians; every page and every year has its dark stain.... “Neither...
So-called Cattle Kate Rises from Rubbish
Cattle Kate was the only woman ever hanged in Wyoming for cattle rustling, and history long portrayed the act as “good riddance to bad rubbish.”...
Victorio’s Right Hand
“The stories of Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and Custer pale beside the tale of another warrior—one who fought relentlessly, successfully and against all...