Isaiah Dorman’s claim to fame? He was the only black man killed at the Little Big Horn battle. While not much is known about his early life, Dorman...
The Black Man at Little Big Horn
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Inside History
Proving Up
Elinore Pruitt Stewart’s Letters of a Woman Homesteader captures the rambunctious spirit of this woman pioneer who set out to prove that she could...
A Treaty Goes Up in Smoke
For two long years, starting in 1866, the U.S. Army tried to build and maintain forts in the Powder River Country in present-day Wyoming. The plan:...
Fake News Guru
In the 1920s, Oatman, Arizona, was a boomtown, and while the discovery of gold and the prosperity of the mines were always tabloid fodder, a bizarre...
The Suspect Savannah Strike
In March 2, 1867, a group of six riders came into the quiet town of Savannah, Missouri, about 15 miles north of St. Joseph. They tied up their...
Texas’s Loyal Unionist
John Dix was born to fight battles, taking his first breath on February 2, 1796. His minuteman father had fought in the first battle, at the North...
Gunfight in the Galiuros
At of Old West gunfights were quick, bloody affairs that left more questions than answers as each side had its own version of events. The Powers...
Mining the Optics
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...
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...