I first read about Tap Duncan when I was eight years old. My parents gave me a book about Old West outlaws, lawmen and gunfighters (which I loved...
The Elusive Outlaw
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Mark Boardman
Men Behaving Badly
A lot of folks out there are investigating history—and that’s a good thing, or else this column would not exist and yours truly might be out of a...
Burns’s Biographer
I knew better than to play cards with historian Mark Dworkin. He had the ultimate poker face. During a trip to Georgia, several years ago, we had a...
Gold Rush Genealogy
More people are getting into investigating history. Their family history, that is. Not necessarily this column. Drat. That includes Academy...
The Skeleton Dance
We are rough men and used to rough ways,” said Bob Younger, after he was captured for his role in the foiled bank raid in Northfield, Minnesota....
The Great Artist Duel
One of the best Wild West shoot-outs involved two Eastern artists. Instead of facing each other in the street, Charles Schreyvogel and Frederic...
Hardin Goes to Blazes
In the late summer of 1895, El Paso, Texas, was John Wesley Hardin’s town. A few months earlier, the attorney had been brought in to help his...
A Bonanza Paradise
“Fortune smiled the day we filed the Ponderosa claim” was one of the coolest introductions to a TV show ever. Backed by the galloping theme song, a...
Buffalo Bill Gets on Track
In the year 1869, dime novel king Ned Buntline aspired to write one of his corkers about Frank North, the famed scout and Indian fighter who was...
Lord of Lightning
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...
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...