When America’s first Pony Express rider set off on April 3, 1860, from St. Joseph, Missouri, launching a coast-to-coast …
Features
From Blood Brother to Broken Arrow Searching for the real Tom Jeffords.
Tom Jeffords leans on the bar of a saloon in Mesilla, New Mexico Territory, whiskey in one hand and a woman on the other…
The Man Who Invented Billy the Kid Who was Ash Upson?
Long before Walter Noble Burns arrived on the scene with his Saga of Billy the Kid in the 1920s, the largely fictitious …
Big Iron On His Hip A personal account, by Arizona's official historian, of the singing drifter whose most famous album was inducted this year into the National Recording Registry.
I met Marty Robbins in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, at a National Cowboy Hall of Fame event in 1979. He was there to receive…
In Search of the Real Curly Bill
Amazingly, historians know so little about the most famous cow-boy in Cochise County history—“Curly Bill” Brocius. In a …
The Great Western “She packed two six-shooters, and they all said she shore could use ’em....” — Jeff Ake.
In late August 1890, a detachment from the U.S. Army Quartermasters Department began the arduous task of exhuming the bo…
The Rise of the Cow-Boys In search of the real Curly Bill.
The cowboys’ genesis lay in the savvy and the six-shooters of John Kinney, one of the most notorious outlaws of the Sout…
Not Easily Intimidated The steely nerve required to photograph the only known images of Indians still at war.
General George Crook thoughtfully allowed photographer C.S. Fly to come along to record the event at Cañon de los Embudo…
Invalids Need Not Apply! Cowboy Rangers of the early U.S. Forest Service.
Today, a forest ranger may call to mind a friendly guide who leads nature walks and gives campfire talks. But 100 years …
Buffalo Bill: Why He Still Matters Described by a U.S. President as an “American of Americans,” William F. Cody remains vital to our nation.
William F. Cody was a man seemingly trapped in the distant past, yet one who cared desperately about the onrushing futur…