The long American road trip across the West evokes emotions of freedom and adventure and mental images of windswept plains, awe-inspiring mountain...
Road Trip!
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Features & Gunfights
Shine Smith
Hugh Dickson “Shine” Smith was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1912 and assigned to a church in Coleman, Texas where he became a “cowboy...
Suckers on the Strip
Louis Mueller always said both Sooners and Suckers participated in the 1893 Cherokee Strip Land Run, and my impression was that he put himself in...
Shoot the Chief
Harry Love is best known for tracking down California outlaw Joaquin Murrieta. But he had other adventures. After a stint in the army, in the late...
Hell’s Comin’ With Me!
March 20, 1882 With the recent killing of Morgan Earp by assassins, Wyatt Earp spends his 34th birthday attending to the details of shipping his...
The Grand Canyon State
The Grand Canyon State has been my adopted home for most of my life. When anyone asks me about touring the beautiful southwestern state, I always...
Owen Wister’s Wyoming
Owen Wister’s The Virginian, A Horseman of the Plains, published in 1902, considered to be the first Western novel, is about a black-haired Wyoming...
10 Earp Vendetta Ride Myths
1) Thanks to Hollywood, most people think that the so-called “Vendetta Posse” was assembled after the death of Morgan Earp in March 1882. Wyatt,...
Cattle Call
Since moving to Texas over 15 years ago, I have traveled many miles on the trail of the state’s history and the rich heritage of its cattle culture....
Sins of the Father
In 1864, an irascible 51-year-old Nicholas Earp proclaimed himself a wagonmaster and offered to lead a group of Iowa emigrants to California. Sarah...
Nebraska’s Outlaw Trail
Early law and order came not from lawmen, but citizens, in what is now Nebraska. When the wagon trains left Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri,...
The Spark that Launched the Vendetta Ride
March 18, 1882 A one-night showing of the play Stolen Kisses is being staged at the Turnverein Hall, north of Schieffelin Hall. It has been...