The Great Coonskin Cap craze of 1955 resulted in the Great Raccoon Shortage of 1955. In the absence of fresh pelts, desperate furriers remodeled...
No Davy? No Dylan
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Features & Gunfights
Alamo’s New Defender
James Butler Bonham faced his moment of truth in the pre-dawn of March 6, 1836. He and a handful of Texians reportedly manned an elevated artillery...
Honor in Sacrifice
Death—that one great certainty of life—haunts us all. It terrifies us—like children fearful of the dark—all the while calling to us, fascinating us,...
Black Warriors of the West
In the wake of the Civil War the American West offered perceived opportunities for nearly every element of society. So it came to be that some...
“Old Timer” and “Friend Dixon”
"Yes, I knew Charlie Russell—though not too well. I have always regretted that I did not know him better,” Maynard Dixon told an aspiring biographer...
Custer & the War Between the States
Montana artist Edgar S. Paxson’s painting Custer’s Last Stand is a gripping depiction of the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn. Yet unknown to most...
Saving the Wrong Guys
Many classic Westerns feature the timeworn device of the last-minute cavalry rescue. The baddies are Indians, besieging a wagon train or surrounding...
Saving the Wrong Guys
Many classic Westerns feature the timeworn device of the last-minute cavalry rescue. The baddies are Indians, besieging a wagon train or surrounding...
The Lunacy of Billy the Kid
Two New Mexico lawmen receive death threats after digging up a body in Arizona. One of them later finds his daughter's horse so terribly...
The Lunacy of Billy the Kid
Two New Mexico lawmen receive death threats after digging up a body in Arizona. One of them later finds his daughter's horse so terribly...
What Would Billy Say?
With the convoluted and contested efforts during the past decade to dig up Billy the Kid, we wondered what a Billy the Kid expert might ask the...
Fighting for Geronimo’s Remains
“It is my land, my home, my fathers’ land, to which I now ask to be allowed to return. I want to spend my last days there, and be buried among those...