Strange things seem to happen in the Colorado mountains. Alferd Packer “et” some of his traveling buddies there in the early 1870s, and it’s where...
Lord of Lightning
read more
Mark Boardman
Sizing Up
There are a lot of tall tales about the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. This is not one of them. No, this is a short reminder of...
Sauerkraut Scout
Karl May was a man of many parts, to say the least. Part Zane Grey, part P.T. Barnum, part Soapy Smith, part Walter Mitty, part Nietzsche, part...
Unsinkable Margaret Brown
On April 15, 1912, the brand new passenger liner Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. More than 1,500 people died, and the legend of the...
Butch Cassidy Wannabe
Butch Cassidy is dead. William T. Phillips is dead. Yet the legend that the two men were one and the same still has not given up the ghost, despite...
Butch & Sundance—and Rolla
The old Bob Seger song claimed that Rock ‘n’ Roll never forgets. History does, all too often. Take the case of Clement Rolla Glass, who died too...
A Grave Matter
The Dalton Gang’s gravesite is not exactly front and center, which is strange when you consider it’s one of the big tourist attractions in...
Survivors of an Old West Shoot-Out
The Westerns often had it wrong. They made gunfights so neat and clean, even with all the blood and bullet holes. Most cinematic gunfights went like...
“Most Interesting Spot”
The sign above the building front is optimistic, to say the least: Most Interesting Spot. Where Real Indians Trade. Nobody trades at the Kewa Pueblo...
The Bronco Bill Gang
Bronco Bill Walters was a cowboy’s cowboy, but he took a wrong turn down the outlaw trail in the 1890s. And as Karen Holliday Tanner & John D....
The Last Train to Boothill
Just after midnight on March 13, 1912, on a lonely stretch of tracks in southwest Texas, a train sat silently in the darkness. Looking for...
Doc
Fiction requires a suspension of disbelief, and history buffs will have to do a lot of suspending with Mary Doria Russell’s Doc. What is this need...