Young John Selman’s attempted elopement led to his father’s death. John Selman, Jr.’s attempted elopement probably led to his father’s death. The...
A Fatal Fling
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True West Blog
John Selman and His Terrible Scouts
They ravaged New Mexico in the late 1870s. John Selman is known for killing gunfighter John Wesley Hardin. But he had a sordid reputation well...
Death of an Outlaw
Lawman Bass Outlaw got into one fight too many. In 1894, Bass Outlaw was a deputy U.S. marshal—a former Texas Ranger, fired for habitual...
Belles of Boomtown
Female performers who played in the rough-hewn mining camp theaters had an edge on their male counterparts simply because they were women. That...
Demise of the Wild Bunch
By the early 1900s, the law was closing in and Butch Cassidy was beginning to feel the pressure. The cattle industry was big in Argentina and with...
Lost Pick Mine
Arizona’s rugged central mountains, with their brawny mountains and twisting, boulder-choked canyons were a perfect place to lose a mine. Coronado’s...
Steal from the Rich…
Charles Waggoner was a bank president in Telluride, Colorado in 1929 (photo). He’d worked there for more than 30 years. The bank was about to go...
The Betrayals of Tiburcio Vasquez
One might say that love brought down California bandit Tiburcio Vasquez. In 1873, while hiding out at his brother’s home, Vasquez seduced and...
Taking the Town
December 26, 1873--around 7pm. Tiburcio Vasquez and about 11 of his men raid the central California town of Kingston (photo). They tie up (and rough...
Kit Carson: History and the Myth
In October 1849, a trader named James White, his wife Ann and their infant daughter were traveling on the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico when they...
They Went Thataway
One of the Old West’s zaniest train robberies occurred near the Arizona town Willcox on the evening of September 9th, 1899 when constable Burt...
Running into the Law
Outlaw Tom Folliard had an accidental—and fatal—encounter with a posse. Billy the Kid pal Tom Folliard had some bad luck. He and another outlaw were...