In the 2015 Quentin Tarantino Western The Hateful Eight, the character of Daisy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) plays an authentic, 1870s guitar borrowed...
The Hateful Eight Collateral Damage
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True West Blog
Tom Horn’s Fatal Mistake?
Tom Horn was hanged for the murder of teenage Willie Nickell. The theory: Horn mistook the boy for his father, Kels. Kels Nickell was a hot-headed...
Frontier Odometers
In a diary from an emigrant crossing to the California gold fields in 1849. "Life on the Plains and at the Diggins," by Alonzo Delano. He is very...
The Jackass Mail
In 1849 it took 166 days to travel coast to coast. By the 1860’s you could do it in 60 days. A decade later a train could make the trip in 11 days....
The Dodge City War
What became known as the “Dodge City War” began when Luke Short returned to Dodge in April, 1881 and went to work at the Long Branch Saloon. Two...
W.H.H. Llewellyn
W.H.H. Llewellyn was a major player in the West. In the late 1870s, he tracked down rustler Doc Middleton and his gang in Nebraska, Wyoming and the...
“Quick Shot” Scott Davis
They nicknamed Scott Davis “Quick Shot” because of his skill with weapons—especially over the 15 years he rode shotgun on stages in the Dakotas and...
The Final Years of the James-Younger Gang
The James-Younger gang's incredible streak of good luck ran out in Northfield, Minnesota, on September 7th, 1876 when the eight-member gang rode...
Celerity and Mud Wagons
Everyone’s familiar with Abbott-Donning Concord Stagecoach from the western movies but in reality the Celerity and Mud wagons were the stagecoach of...
Border Crossers
In the old days (early twentieth century) riders were often hard pressed to know exactly where the Mexican border was and often cowboys wandered...
Millard Fillmore Leech
Millard Fillmore Leech had his moment of fame in September 1877. A clerk at a mercantile in Ogallala, Nebraska, when he sold some red bandanas to a...
Rockwell Paints for Stagecoach
In 1966, legendary American artist Norman Rockwell was hired for a special job—painting a series of portraits for a remake of the classic Western...