Lincoln, NM deserved its reputation as a deadly town. Example: February 21, 1878. Private Edward Brooks is carrying messages from Ft. Stanton to...

The boom towns of the Old West had a shortage of eligible women and that void for the lusty young men was filled by what were euphemistically...

Cowboys then and now considered roping as the feature that separated real cowhands from gunsels. Even today a cowboy won’t stay with an outfit long...

The Alabama “artful dodger” was an All-American halfback at Alabama who scored two of Bama’s three touchdowns in the 1926 Rose Bowl. He was named...

Josiah Gordon “Doc” Scurlock is best known as a compatriot of Billy the Kid during the troubles in New Mexico. But Doc was no stranger to violence...

Harry Orchard is best known as an assassin for the Western Federation of Miners; his bombs killed more than two dozen people in the early 1900s,...

John Reno’s love for luxury put him in a prison cell. Reno and associates burglarized the Daviess County, MO treasury in November 1867—and came away...

A True West reader asks if Old West gunmen and cavalrymen using the cross draw were as fast as using a normal draw. I went to two fast-draw experts,...

Twenty-year-old Eva Dugan took the alias Claw-Finger Kitty while she was working as a prostitute during the Alaska Gold Rush and some thirty years...

A question came in recently from a True West reader about the premise of Alan Le May’s great novel, The Searchers, the story of a middle-aged Civil...

Charlie Ford is the lesser known of the brothers who killed Jesse James—sibling Robert actually pulled the trigger. Charlie was the one with...

Robert Ford hoped that killing Jesse James would bring fame and fortune. But Ford and brother Charlie were convicted of murder; Missouri Governor...