True Grit, the 1968 Charles Portis novel about a dissolute deputy U.S. marshal and a precocious teenage girl, was made into movies on two occasions....
True Grit On Screen
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True West Blog
Life In A Soddy
When the farmers got west of the 100th meridian they found themselves in short grass country where the grasses were gramma, needle and buffalo. The...
Jeff Kidder: Arizona Ranger
The Arizona Rangers were established as a territorial law enforcement agency in 1901 to curb the outlawry that was rampart in Arizona’s rural...
Hualapai Joe’s Lost Loot
Arizona is a wild, untamed land of jagged mountains and barren deserts making it an ideal place for lost mines and treasures. These lost treasure...
True West Treasure Hunters
If you look back at old True West issues—back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, when Joe “Hosstail” Small was ramrodding the outfit—you’ll see a lot of familiar...
“Big Boy” Guinn Williams
Actor Guinn Williams carried the nickname of “Big Boy” due to his 6’2” frame. The native Texan and experienced cowboy got his Hollywood start in...
Claw-fingered Kitty, a.k.a. Eva Dugan
A few months ago a friend up in Yukon Territory wrote asking for some information on a lady of the evening who resided in the red light district of...
Patrick Wayne
Patrick Wayne was only 11 when he got to visit his father on a movie set for the first time. The film was “Rio Grande,” directed by John Ford, set...
A Fateful Game of Cards
A strange card game decided the fate of six Apache warriors, captured by U.S. troops in southwest Arizona in 1861. Lt. Isaiah Moore and Asst....
Chief Mangas Coloradas
In early 1861, the great Apache Chief Mangas Coloradas went to a mining camp at Santa Rita in New Mexico. He was going to tell the miners of richer...
Bandit Queen Belle Starr
Myra Maybelle Shirley, was another Old West personality who might have been forgotten had she not been reinvented by a novelist. The so-called...
Charles Poston
Charles Poston was several years away from being “The Father of Arizona” when he met with Apache leader Mangas Coloradas in southeast New Mexico in...