Four-year-old Albert Michelson reached the California Gold Rush town of Murphy’s Camp in 1856, after a voyage that took him from his native Prussia...
Mining the Optics
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Inside History
The Size of an Assignment
In this 65th anniversary year for True West, on assignment to report my favorite Investigating History columns, I wrack my brain and only two come...
Jerked to Jesus
Hollywood couldn’t write an Old West character better than Milton J. Yarberry, the first town marshal for Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory....
A Tol Tale of Texas
Lyne Taliaferro “Tol” Barret had a big idea—big even by Texas standards. Too bad he was ahead of his time. Barret was born in Virginia in 1832. His...
Californios’ Legal Hero
Benjamin Hayes was neither an Argonaut nor an adventurer. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, of Irish ancestry, the lean, bookish 35 year old moved to...
The Lawful Breed
Few are aware of notorious gunfighter John Wesley Hardin’s first cousins, the Clements brothers. Of those four, the best known was Emanuel (Mannen),...
The Last Man Standing
At the end of the day—or at least when the shooting stopped—Ed Tewksbury was the man who survived Arizona Territory’s infamous Pleasant Valley War. ...
Mollie’s Miracle
The rough and tumble days of Tombstone, life in nearby silver mines and that defiant stare of Geronimo’s all live on in black-and-white images...
And the War Begins
Perhaps war between the U.S. and the Apaches was inevitable. They were once united by a hatred of Mexico, but the alliance began to change in the...
The Toughest News in the West
The Old West was filled with colorful names—none more so than The Tombstone Epitaph, the oldest continuous newspaper in Arizona. Former Apache agent...
Almost Famous
On June 10, 1883, eight men walked into a large tent, the temporary photography studio of 26-year-old Charles A. Conkling in Dodge City, Kansas. The...
North To Alaska!
As early as 1852, New York Sen. William Seward saw the possibilities of the frozen land far to the northwest of the United States. Well, maybe not...