Ike and Fin Clanton, who had survived the Cochise County War against Wyatt Earp and his brothers five years earlier, had moved their operations to...
Ike Clanton finally meets his Waterloo
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True West Blog
A Broken Nose, A Broken Life
John Fletcher Fairchild’s lawman career ended because of a punch in the nose. Seriously. Family lore says Wyatt Earp broke Fairchild’s nose in a...
Johnny Ringo or Johann Rheingold
Recently, I received a letter from a gentleman in Germany asking if Johnny Ringo’s name was actually Johann Rheingold, the son of a German settler....
Burt’s Bad Boys
Arizona had its share of zany occurrences but none can top the Burt Alvord Gang from Willcox. Burt was a big, burly good ol’ boy whose major...
No Luck for Comstock
Henry Comstock gave his name to the biggest silver strike in US history, the Comstock Lode of Nevada. In one sense he was lucky. Two brothers...
Fact Vs. Fiction: The Truth about the Calamitous Martha Jane Canary
Recently I was scrolling through my photo files and ran across a photo of Miss Doris Day from her 1953 musical hit, Calamity Jane and thus inspired,...
The Doctor is in…and Out
Josiah “Doc” Scurlock was a major player in the Lincoln County War. And he was in the region even before, going to work for cattleman John Chisum...
A Silver Strike by an Other Name
The largest silver strike in US history could have been the Grosh Lode. In 1857, the Grosh brothers discovered silver in the Virginia Range of...
Gunfight at Cherry Creek
On September 2nd, 1887, Jim Roberts, along with several members of the Tewksbury family, were at the Lower Tewksbury Ranch on Cherry Creek (both the...
The Last Days of the Pleasant Valley War
By mid-September Pleasant Valley War was making national news and lawmen from the Yavapai County seat at Prescott were moving through the area...
End of the Line
California train robbers Chris Evans and John Sontag had evaded posses for four months, through six fights. But they were finally cornered at a...
The Knife Didn’t Cut
Robert Ford received threats after killing Jesse James in 1881. People didn’t like that he’d shot the outlaw in the back of the head—or tried to...