When the horse-drawn wagon slipped into a bad rut outside of Taos, New Mexico, in 1898, the two sketching buddies flipped a coin to see who would...
Gloomy Blumy’s Beautiful World
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Art, Guns and Culture
Top Artist on the Taos Society Totem
“Every now and then I see whirlwinds. Looking out now, I see one but as it approaches it is a band of Indians out on the ceremonial rabbit hunt....
Birth of a Breed
The day before the fall of the Alamo, in which Santa Anna and his soldiers crushed the rebellion in Texas, Samuel Colt formed the Patent Arms Mfg....
Preservation: Cash for the Nellie Cashman
Cash for the Nellie Cashman It ain’t easy to maintain a historic landmark. Just ask the Skinners of Tombstone, Arizona. They own the Nellie Cashman...
Surviving Geronimo’s Raiders
Long a sanctuary for people and animals seeking to escape scrutiny, the VO Slash Ranch near Nogales in southeastern Arizona is home to a...
Wyatt & Witches & Pixies, Oh My!
Wyatt Earp was a fairy. Don’t aim your pistols at me. I’m not outing anybody. Neither is Emma Bull. Okay, Wyatt’s not really a fairy. A fairy, in...
The Taming of the Artist
The rise of Charlie Russell, and the wife who made him a star. This triumphant moment had all begun with a marital spat, Nancy liked to say. Charlie...
Sioux on the Beach
William "Buffalo Bill" Cody had been planning his next feat as a showman when, in 1882, he was asked to stage an “Old Glory Blowout” in North...
House of the Butterfly
Several years ago, Kat Vinson contemplated purchasing five villas and operating them as a bed and breakfast in Camp Verde, Arizona. Before making...
Preservation: Petroglyphs in Peril
Petroglyphs in Peril First off, Nine Mile Canyon in eastern Utah is misnamed. It’s actually about 40 miles long. But it’s accurate to say that the...
The Frontiersman’s Mexican Loop Holster
"Before leaving the train, I had prudently strapped to my waist a new (how distressingly new) Colt’s six-shooter, that looked and felt a yard long...
Signature Spurs
Pascal M. Kelly, born in 1886, turned out his first pair of spurs as early as 1903, in the Texas Panhandle town Childress. In 2008, one of his pairs...