April 18, 1886 The beautiful Bessie Colvin is fed up. After a year of arguing over “extracurricular activities” and bad accounting, the star...
Clash of the Mad Madams
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Features & Gunfights
A Belle of Old Fort Sumner
Walter Noble Burns was onto something. A 56-year-old Chicago journalist, Burns had become intrigued by a long-dead and largely forgotten outlaw...
The Cup Spinning Sequence
When then-Director Kevin Jarre first spoke to Val Kilmer about the gun-twirling, cup-spinning scene in 1993’s Tombstone, the actor who played John...
Road Trip!
The long American road trip across the West evokes emotions of freedom and adventure and mental images of windswept plains, awe-inspiring mountain...
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....