Sometimes you have to travel a “road to nowhere” to get somewhere you should be. Like the road to the Little Snake River Museum in a Wyoming...
Butch Cassidy Would Do a Double Take
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Departments
What Exactly is Locoweed?
I’ve seen cowboy movies from the 1950s where the actor said he had to shoot his horse because it ate locoweed. What exactly is locoweed? Were they...
How did Settlers and Cowboys Calculate Miles?
How did settlers and cowboys calculate miles? Jason Bledsoe Felton, Delaware Trail riding cowboys had no way to calculate the miles—but the “cookie”...
Lincoln, Nebraska
Lincoln’s origin story doesn’t involve an Indian uprising or a whisky-soaked shootout. The town was founded as Lancaster in 1856, and the reason was...
Cowan’s Auction
Regular viewers of PBS readily recognize Wes Cowan from Antiques Road Show and History Detectives. Back in the late 1970s, Wes toiled away on his...
How Accurate was the Language in the 2010 Version of True Grit?
How accurate was the language in the 2010 version of True Grit? Scott Bachtold Hudson, Illinois You’re probably referring to the fact that many of...
Shaken, Stirred and Strong
Mixologists, or bartenders, of the time were often skilled and jokingly referred to as pharmacists or chemists with a “medicine” chest. Prior to...
What History Has Taught Me: Howard Terpning
As a kid I enjoyed building model airplanes. The best art training I ever got was being Haddon Sundbloom’s apprentice for a year and a half. The...
Did Ballistics Forensics Ever Come into Play in Solving Crimes in the Old West?
Did ballistics forensics ever come into play in solving crimes in the Old West? David Aufiere Columbia, Louisiana Ballistics science has been around...
Was Doc Holliday Really a Deadly Dentist?
More than one writer has called Doc a "deadly dentist" who killed several men during his turbulent life. Most likely Doc encouraged these stories...
The Diné Return to the Four Corners
Fort Sumner, New Mexico, has never been an easy place to live. Winters can be brutal. Summers are often blistering. The scenery’s spartan. Few...
Seminole Scouts
These black scouts were descendants of runaways fleeing enslavement by whites. They sought refuge in Florida in the late 18th and early 19th...