True West Blog Archives

A Wannabe Badman

by Mark Boardman | Aug 24, 2016

James Bliss was a loser. Time and time again, he tried and failed to be a noted Old West badman. A gunfighter, rustler, robber, and whatever else he...

Powhatan Clarke

by Bob Boze Bell | Aug 24, 2016

The brash, young lieutenant won a Medal of Honor in 1886 when he rescued one of his wounded troopers during a fight in the Pinito Mountains of...

Marshal Harvey Whitehill

by Mark Boardman | Aug 23, 2016

Silver City, New Mexico Marshal, Harvey Whitehill was working to solve a train robbery at Gage Station. The November 1883 heist had netted less than...

Del Potter’s Railroad

by | Aug 23, 2016

Del Potter ran a little railroad he proudly named the Clifton and Northern. The line ran from the little town of Clifton to a mine north of town but...

Marion Hedgepath, the Debonair Bandit

by | Aug 22, 2016

Someone asked me the other day why Marion Hedgepath isn’t a better-known outlaw. I have at least a dozen outlaw encyclopedias and he isn’t listed in...

The Jaybird-Woodpecker War

by Mark Boardman | Aug 18, 2016

The Jaybird-Woodpecker War has the most colorful name in Texas feuds. It supposedly came from a black man who sang songs about those birds. The...

Ike Clanton’s Last Ride

by | Aug 17, 2016

Ike Clanton managed to survive the “Gunfight Near the OK Corral” by running away after the shooting started and Wyatt Earp’s vendetta ride after the...

When Good Horses Were Ridden Down

by Bob Boze Bell | Aug 17, 2016

One of the longest posse chases in Arizona history came after the attempted robbery of the Benson Stage on March 15, 1881, when a large posse,...

Rock Springs Massacre

by Mark Boardman | Aug 17, 2016

Tensions over Chinese immigrant labor came to a head in Rock Springs, Wyoming on September 2, 1885. White workers were upset that the Union Pacific...