Tombstone’s Competitor

Tombstone’s Competitor

Contention City played a major role in the growth of southern Arizona at a time when the territory needed it most. An accidental stumble started it all. In 1879, prospectors Ed Williams and Jack Friday were searching for their missing mules. The chains their mules had...
Following Red Cloud

Following Red Cloud

Scout’s Rest Ranch, known today as Buffalo Bill State Historical Park in North Platte, Nebraska, might seem like an odd place to start a road trip about Lakota leader Red Cloud. But think back… One of the iconic photographs of Buffalo Bill Cody has him posing with Red...
River Captain’s Hotel

River Captain’s Hotel

The Port of Jefferson’s first steamboat captain opened Texas’s second oldest, continuously operating hotel, the Excelsior. William Perry, a Massachusetts native, settled in Jefferson, Texas, in 1842. After he guided the first steamboat, the Llama, into the city...
A Brilliant But Doomed Mission

A Brilliant But Doomed Mission

Imagine Oklahoma Territory’s Fort Sill in 1895, almost 10 years after the surrender of Geronimo. Imagine Mexico’s Sierra Madre, where hit-and-run attacks by Apaches on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border continued to create chaos. Imagine what we would call today a...
Sure Cure for Flinchlock Fever

Sure Cure for Flinchlock Fever

When Western traveler George Rutledge Gibson wrote how he and his companions prepared for a possible Indian attack in May 1848, he recalled that “flints were screwed in, pans primed and all things made ready for a fight.” Frontiersmen took such knowledge for...