The true story of how the trailblazer became the spearpoint of empire All Images Courtesy True West Archives Unless Otherwise Noted Kit Carson...
Kit Carson and the Conquest of California
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Paul Andrew Hutton
Noonan’s Last Stand
“We was flabbergasted.” The proud slayers of a huge grizzly are memorialized in one of the most famous photographs in all of Western history. ...
Robert M. Utley
Robert M. Utley October 31, 1929 - June 7, 2022 A former student’s personal tribute remembers a great historian, mentor and friend. Robert M....
Get Out of Dodge!
Since Dodge City was founded 150 years ago, the Kansas cowtown is still the reigning queen of the West. “Queen of the Cowtowns” was the...
The Gift of Cochise
True West's Historical Consultant Fondly Remembers his Most Treasured Birthday Gift It was the autumn of 1962, and we had just returned from a...
On the History Trail with the Old Bison: A Memoir
I first met Robert M. Utley in May 1977. He came to Bloomington to receive a Distinguished Alumni Service Award from Indiana University. I...
The Forgotten Founding Father
Daniel Boone and the Birth of the Frontier Movement
When the West was True
We live in a time of national discord. Americans find themselves adrift in a cultural malaise highlighted by overheated political rhetoric from all...
A Fool’s Errand
The Western, be it a novel or a film, always carries with it the burden of history. For much of our nation’s existence, the West was the story of...
Kit Carson and the Mountain Men
A large rodent determined the destiny of Kit Carson, the Mountain Men and much of the American West. The North American beaver, the second-largest...
The Great Western
In late August 1890, a detachment from the U.S. Army Quartermasters Department began the arduous task of exhuming the bodies of the soldiers in the...
Not Easily Intimidated
General George Crook thoughtfully allowed photographer C.S. Fly to come along to record the event at Cañon de los Embudos for posterity. One of...