The essence of a great Western, to me, is John Wayne. I think his characters and the stories told, for the most part, convey the myth of the...
Jeff Hildebrandt
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True Westerners
Sacred Ground
Ernest Marquez can remember back eight decades of joyfully playing in his family’s cemetery. “I remember looking at the old wooden statue of San...
The “New” Old Ancestors
For almost 80 years, archaeologists were pretty sure how and when the first humans came to the New World. A 1932 excavation of a prehistoric village...
Lynda A. Sanchez
The Lincoln County War comes alive at Fort Stanton through the ghosts that roam the nearby hills and the buildings on the parade ground. The...
Caleb Fox
"Redskin on one side of the mountain, redskin on the other" is what my aunts told me when I was a teen. My Cherokee family came to Arkansas on what...
Defender of the Black Hills
If Charmaine White Face has her way - and the international recognition she’s already gotten says she’s on that road - the Black Hills of South...
Gary Ernest Smith
I grew up on a ranch in northeastern Oregon. Each season brought with it its designated work responsibilities. The work seemed endless. As a boy, it...
The Apache Cupid
It sounds so romantic: An Apache violin is meant to lure a young woman to the young man playing it. This courtship tool, most effective in the...
R.W. Hampton
I will always be a cowboy at heart. I worked hard to “earn my spurs”; I feel proud knowing that I rode with that special tribe, and they called me...
Collecting American Outlaws
Growing up in Missouri in the 1930s, Wilbur Zink loved listening to family legends as he sat at the kitchen table. The one that most impressed him...
Ken Spurgeon
William Quantrill makes me angry and curious. A part of me roots against him and wishes for his demise. Another part of me is incredibly curious as...
“Green” Ranching
Today, Sid Goodloe has a lush vista from his two-story ranch house. He can see for miles, looking at low hills and pine trees and thick grassland...