Tunstall Ambushed

Tunstall Ambushed

February 18, 1878 Late afternoon light tips the tops of the foothills leading down into New Mexico Territory’s Ruidoso Valley. The Tunstall party crests a divide and starts down a narrow gorge leading down to the Ruidoso River—unaware that they are being pursued. The...
Remington’s Kodak Moments

Remington’s Kodak Moments

Frederic Remington was a shutterbug. It’s a simple fact. One of the greatest painters and sculptors of the American West was addicted to photography. That jaunty figure, sporting a white pith helmet as protection against the blazing Arizona sun in his painting...
Liberty, Not Death

Liberty, Not Death

Children soothed their thirst by scraping their fingernails on barrack windows to capture frost and warded off hunger by chewing on leather. After four days of starvation, their elders declared they would rather die seeking freedom than perish like this. Thus, on...
The Alleged Bascom Affair

The Alleged Bascom Affair

The legend of the Bascom Affair casts Lt. George Bascom in the worst possible, unfair light, blaming him for starting 11 years of bloody warfare. Although historians now have a better understanding of the true story, the legend persists because it has the power of...
American Indian Trails of the West

American Indian Trails of the West

There was a time when America knew nothing of freeways cutting through her prairies nor of smokestacks piercing her clear blue skies. Even bustling gold mining settlements, fringed buggies and Colt Walker pistols did not exist. These were only a faint shadow of the...