“You sons of bitches, you have been looking for the coroner’s report, and you can have it!” Okay, that’s not exactly Cochise County Sheriff John...
Rediscovering the O.K. Corral
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Mark Boardman
The Lunacy of Billy the Kid
Two New Mexico lawmen receive death threats after digging up a body in Arizona. One of them later finds his daughter's horse so terribly...
The Lunacy of Billy the Kid
Two New Mexico lawmen receive death threats after digging up a body in Arizona. One of them later finds his daughter's horse so terribly...
The Digital Frontier
On vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a stiff President Calvin Coolidge cut a comical figure, wearing cowboy boots and a 10-gallon hat, as...
Bent’s Fort’s 50th Anniversary
In 1833, the Bent brothers—Charles and William—along with partner Ceran St. Vrain were building a trading empire in the Southwest. The plan: to...
The Legendary Life & Tragic Death of Sonny Jim
About 1,000 people came to praise the old Indian cowboy, not bury him. They came from far and wide, from California to Oklahoma to Oregon and more,...
Tracking a Vendetta Rider
Most folks know that the violence in Tombstone, Arizona, didn’t end with the Gunfight behind the O.K. Corral in 1881. A number of shootings—several...
A Tall Order?
I must confess that investigating history (the process, not the column) can be a big undertaking—but sometimes it’s a simple matter of asking a...
Fort Laramie: Military Bastion of the High Plains
Douglas McChristian spent more than two decades as a National Park Service historian and administrator, and he has shared his knowledge in a number...
The American Military Frontiers: The United States Army in the West, 1783-1900
Noted researcher/writer Robert Wooster reaches some of those same conclusions in The American Military Frontiers: The United States Army in the...
Class and Race in the Frontier Army: Military Life in the West, 1870-1890
Kent State historian Kevin Adams’s Class and Race in the Frontier Army: Military Life in the West, 1870-1890 is somewhat mistitled. Almost all of...
A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn—the Last Great Battle of the American West
Speaking of standards, James Donovan’s 2008 effort on the most famous Indian fight in U.S. history is one. If you missed his A Terrible Glory:...