Ed Arata’s history with Sutter Creek, California, goes back to the Mother Lode days when gold was plentiful and his grandfather worked at the Knight...
The Mother Lode Spirit
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Jana Bommersbach
America’s Cowboys Get Their Due
First, thanks go to the Franciscan priests who established 21 missions along the California coast starting in 1769, bringing with them the first...
Miss Yakama Nation’s Yakama War
Emily Washines believes Yakama War history offers more than “us vs. them.” This former Miss Yakama Nation knows the American Indian perspective of...
The Painter’s Cabin
Visiting the Maynard Dixon cabin is like walking into a Maynard Dixon painting. For the last seven years of his life, Maynard and his wife, muralist...
An Electric Dream Burns Out
Splendiferous. That sums up the opulence of the 1890 G.W. Frank House in Kearney, Nebraska—the showplace of a man who promoted this piece of the...
America’s Most Famous Firehouse?
If Las Vegas, New Mexico, isn’t careful, this heritage town is going to end up with the most famous firehouse in America. The E. Romero Hose &...
Sitting with Wyatt Earp
Dreams of a “fly-on-the-wall” moment in Western history certainly include sitting with Wyatt Earp in the 1920s as he set the record straight about...
Hot Air & Kind Words
The “Prince of Press Agents,” a spinmeister in a Stetson—he made “Buffalo Bill” Cody a household word around the world. But chances are the name...
An Angel and the Train Man
Along with True West’s 65th birthday, this column celebrates a landmark too—my 10th anniversary of exploring the people and groups who are saving...
Lincoln County’s New History
"My Aunt Jenny had been taken by the Indians as she was four....” The family bought her back with 500 pounds of shelled corn a decade later, in the...
Arizona’s Most Historic Place?
John Wayne had a favorite room. Margaret Mitchell and Zane Grey came to rejuvenate. President Lyndon Johnson loved the stables. The Marshall Plan...
The Scandalous Saddle
As absurd as this may sound, the sidesaddle took hold in the 14th century to protect the virginity of a teenaged princess traveling across Europe to...