Executive director of the John Wayne Birthplace Museum in Winterset, Iowa, since 2008, Brian Downes oversees the only museum in the world dedicated...
What History Has Taught Me: Brian Downes
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Departments
Does Consumption Exist Today?
Does consumption exist today? Roy G Rutter Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania Consumption, an early term for tuberculosis, was a dreaded disease of the...
Cattle, Cowboys and Culture
If you’re a vegetarian, stop reading. Unless you like opera. We don’t think of cattle towns as cultural meccas, but many of them were. And still...
Western Events for March 2018
Western roundup of events where you can experience the Old West this March. Adventure Arizona Renaissance Festival & Artisan Marketplace Gold...
Back to Basque
Basque immigrants hailed from a region that stretches across the Pyrenees Mountains into France and northern Spain. They first arrived in America...
Sarah “Great Western” Bowman Reportedly Died of a Tarantula Bite. Is Tarantula Venom that Poisonous?
Sarah “Great Western” Bowman reportedly died of a tarantula bite. Is tarantula venom that poisonous? David Duggan Shelton, Connecticut “Contemporary...
Fake News Guru
In the 1920s, Oatman, Arizona, was a boomtown, and while the discovery of gold and the prosperity of the mines were always tabloid fodder, a bizarre...
The Oatman Massacre
Roys Oatman and his family have just finished hauling their belongings up a rocky grade to a bluff on the south side of the Gila River. At the end...
What Happened to the Scalp that “Buffalo Bill” Cody Took from Cheyenne Warrior Yellow Hair at Warbonnet Creek in 1876?
What happened to the scalp that “Buffalo Bill” Cody took from Cheyenne warrior Yellow Hair at Warbonnet Creek in 1876? Richard Hill Santa Rosa,...
America’s First Cavalry Blade
In 1833, the U.S. Army formed its first official mounted regiments, the First and Second Dragoons. These soldiers rode to battle, then dismounted to...
Gem City of the Plains
No one knows what happened to Jacques La Ramée, except that he disappeared on what would become the Laramie River in about 1821. Some suspect...
Big Year for Custer Guns
The year 2017 turned out to be an excellent year to collect firearms tied to a storied icon, George Custer, and his most famous (and fateful)...