In 1862, the Boise Basin roared to life with a red-hot case of gold fever. Miners poured in and Idaho City and other towns sprouted. By the...
Idaho City: Queen of the Gold Camps
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Leo W. Banks
River Master of the Colorado
Cecil Kuhne tackles one of the West’s great stories in River Master: John Wesley’s Powell’s Legendary Exploration of the Colorado River and Grand...
Mountain Men, Mules and Miners
No one could confuse life in this peaceful Southern Colorado town of 8,000 on the Purgatoire River with the razzmatazz of Hollywood. But they do...
Gem City of the Plains
No one knows what happened to Jacques La Ramée, except that he disappeared on what would become the Laramie River in about 1821. Some suspect...
The Bayou City
In August of 1836, brothers Augustus and John Allen created a new town they hoped would be the “great interior commercial emporium of Texas.” They...
Building Your Western Library With Leo W. Banks
As a youngster, Leo W. Banks watched too many TV and movie Westerns. The summer before entering Boston College High School, the Jesuits sent out a...
Cowboys and Conductors
The northern Arizona town of Williams got off to a fast start after its founding in 1881. With the arrival of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad...
Gambling, Gold and Women
Deadwood has always attracted big names. In 1874, even before the town’s creation, George Armstrong Custer and his command scouted the Black Hills...
“To Honor Men Who Dig For Gold”
Ghost Towns of the West (Voyager Press, $24.99) by Philip Varney and Jim Hinckley, is a must for lovers of history and solitude. The book features...
Gateway to the West
Located on a plateau above the west bank of the Missouri River and its confluence with the Platte River, Omaha has always been a good spot for...
Queen of the Kansas Cowtowns
Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed sitting on his porch listening to old men tell stories about a famous town marshal they knew named Wild Bill Hickok. As a...
Magic City of the Plains
Within five months of its founding as a railroad town on July 4, 1867, Cheyenne, Wyoming, boasted a population above 4,000. The stunning growth...