Over the decades, numerous pundits and pessimists have announced the end of the West, Western films, Western novels, Western music and Western...
Rough Drafts 5/15
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Stuart Rosebrook
Tap into History at Helldorado’s “El Gato de Cristal”
If Tombstone is the “Town to Tough to Die” than the Crystal Palace Saloon should also be also known as “El Gato De Cristal.” Like a cat with nine...
The End of the Civil War and Custer’s New Frontier
With the end of the Civil War sesquicentennial this April, publishers have kept bookstore shelves heavy with dozens of new volumes on the conflict,...
Big Day for the Duke
More than 1,600 miles from Hollywood, California, in Winterset, Iowa, is the humble home of Clyde and Mary Morrison, who welcomed their first son...
Tom Mix: Prescott’s First “Junior Bonner”
Was Steve McQueen channeling Tom Mix when he filmed Junior Bonner in Prescott in 1971? We’ll never know, but we do know this: Tom Mix was the real...
Fifty Shades of Rawhide
Romance is alive and well in Western fiction. From Bethany House’s Old West and Christian Westerns, to Harlequin’s and Kensington’s traditional...
Is the Great Emancipator also the Father of the West?
Is Abraham Lincoln, born in a log cabin on the Western frontier, the Father of the West? Our nation celebrated 150 years ago—on April 9,...
Rough Drafts 4/15
Fans of Western publishing enjoyed a banner year in books in 2014. In 2015, I am convinced that fans of the Old West will find their bookshelves...
Jefferson Davis: Across Five Aprils
With the sesquicentennial of the Civil War quietly coming to a conclusion in 2015, a reconsideration of the Confederate presidency of Jefferson...
17 Places to Hang Your Hat in the West
The grandeur and awe-inspiring beauty of the rugged, wide-open spaces of the American West have lured millions to travel to enjoy the history and...
Juan Bautista de Anza: Sonora’s Son of the Empire
Thirty years before the American Colonies’ Declaration of Independence, Juan Bautista de Anza II was born at the Spanish Empire’s presidio outpost,...
Rough Drafts 3/15
This year True West marks the conclusion of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War—the beginning of the post-war West, and the 125th memorial of the...