Before she became famous as the “Unsinkable Molly Brown,” after surviving the 1912 sinking of Titanic, Margaret Tobin-Brown arrived in Denver,...
Denver’s Unsinkable Hostess
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Sherry Monahan
Hand Over the Ice Cream
In 1850, a new ice cream saloon in San Francisco, California, greeted patrons with the aromas of vanilla and lemon. The Alta California described...
Bread Across the West
"Vile stuff” that suggested the “properties of poison” turned the bread a “green-yellow tinge” at the Pony Express station near Wyoming Territory’s...
Klondike Dining with the Earps
The Klondike and Yukon Rivers, bordering Alaska and Canada, were the final frontier for 19th-century miners out West. In the late 1890s, thousands...
Eating Out
A basic necessity in frontier camps, restaurants often started out in tents. An evolution took place as wagons rolled west and pioneers arrived to...
The Myth of Whiskey
Not all American West pioneers walked up to bars, like Hollywood Westerns often portray, and ordered shots of whiskey. In fact, most would have...
Buffalo Soldier Grub
Buffalo soldiers, officially organized in 1866, were an important part of settling the West. They served in various all-black regiments. Benjamin...
Sinful Chocolate
Water and crackers are all that sustained Ignace Wagner for a week when he arrived in San Francisco, California, in 1852. He borrowed some money and...
Dining on the Iron Horse
Hopeful pioneers boarded trains bound for the frontier, but found little pleasure other than a basic seat. If a passenger lowered a window for some...
Nevada’s Bonanza of History
Nevada is a state with an old and rich history. Searching for gold, silver and other precious minerals has lured hopeful seekers to Nevada since the...
Beating Up the Grocer
One 1895 headline reads like the opening to a bad joke: “A Grocer, a Woman [and] an Officer of the Law....” In March 1895, in Kansas City, Missouri,...
A Deadly Kitchen
Zerelda James, mother of Frank and Jesse James, would agree that her kitchen was deadly. When she moved into her home in 1845, she would have no...