After explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark found limestone springs in 1804 that later generations used to fill water barrels on their way...
Lewis & Clark-Inspired Whiskey
read more
Art, Guns and Culture
Western Events for February 2018
Western roundup of events where you can experience the Old West this February. Adventure Valentine Dinner Train Chattanooga, TN, February 2-14...
Blessed Booze
A Presbyterian pastor and a Mormon walked into a saloon. The first railed against the distribution of liquor and all the evils that came from...
Hot Air & Kind Words
The “Prince of Press Agents,” a spinmeister in a Stetson—he made “Buffalo Bill” Cody a household word around the world. But chances are the name...
Wild West Six-gun Goes to War
True or False? General George S. Patton was the only top-ranking American officer to pack an 1873 Colt Single Action Army (SAA) revolver as a...
Cheering Our Culinary Journey
I reflect on my years writing Frontier Fare, I’m reminded of the wonderful historical and literary food journeys I’ve taken. This column has...
An Angel and the Train Man
Along with True West’s 65th birthday, this column celebrates a landmark too—my 10th anniversary of exploring the people and groups who are saving...
Surviving a Meal in Dodge City
Once the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway reached the cowtown of Dodge City, Kansas, in 1872, restaurants and hotels sprang up, between 1872...
Red Ryder BB Gun
Years ago, at a friend’s 50th birthday party, I gave him a Red Ryder 50th Anniversary, special edition BB rifle. Despite his being showered with a...
An Unusual Scale
Edgar Alwin Payne’s language of the Southwestern landscape mainly spoke of brilliant cliffs and skies towering over a small group of figures on...
Lincoln County’s New History
"My Aunt Jenny had been taken by the Indians as she was four....” The family bought her back with 500 pounds of shelled corn a decade later, in the...
Black Bart’s Epicurean Escapades
Notorious for his 1880s stage-coach robberies, what did gentleman bandit and poet Black Bart eat and where? Everyone thought San Francisco resident...