Sometimes when you're the biggest king on the hill, it's hard to see new kids climbing the slopes, and that's exactly what happened to Western Union...
A Bad Call on the Telephone
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Lady of the Law
I’m of the opinion that, even in today’s society, the women of the frontier are not given all of the credit that is their just due. Wilting violets,...
Spring is in the Air
What do Tombstone, the Pony Express, an “anti-dude” club and Jesse James have in common? All made history during the month of April. For Tombstone,...
Chicken as Tender as a Maiden’s Heart
If you asked miners what they ate as they dug for the silver and gold and copper of Arizona Territory, they'd shrug and say: “The usual 3-B's:...
Shavetail
Shavetail The 17th century term “Lingo” was rooted in lingua, Latin for “tongue.” One of its definitions—“the vocabulary of a special subject or...
Who Really “Tamed” The West?
History has lots of candidates, from trappers to explorers to miners, military men, ranchers, homesteaders, even gunslingers. But you seldom hear...
The Luckiest Woman in America
THE LUCKIEST WOMAN IN AMERICA: That title has to go to a woman born a slave in a Mississippi plantation on August 15, 1818, and freed “forever” by a...
Guns, Indians and the West
In his scholarly study, Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,...
Love The Hair, Sweetie
Just like clothes, hairstyles have their day. Just look at any old picture—even one of yourself—and laugh at how your hair has changed over your...
Sink or Swim
Nobody could overstate the impact of 1939’s Stagecoach on film in general and on the Western in particular. It rescued the genre from the...
Colorful Phrases of the West
Americans have lots of colorful phrases and sayings to specify a point—but often, although we know the point, we don't know beans about the origins...
An Exercise in Monotony
An Exercise in Monotony. That's how food in Arizona Territory military camps is described in the “Arizona Territorial Cookbook, 1864-1912” by Daphne...