by Leo W. Banks | May 6, 2021 | Departments, True Western Towns
The once wild and woolly cowtown still celebrates its Old West heritage. The arrival of the railroad in 1872 transformed this trading post settlement on the Arkansas River into a cowtown, a destination for cattle driven north on the Chisholm Trail. The Texas drovers...
by | May 6, 2021 | Ask the Marshall, Departments
I’ve read more than one article (including items from your books) about James Addison Reavis, the so-called “Baron of Arizona.” Which side did he fight on during the Civil War? Mark Manning Mesa, Arizona Reavis first joined the Confederate Army in Missouri. He was...
by Johnny D. Boggs | May 6, 2021 | Features & Gunfights
The life and times of the legendary Western writer and the legacy of Lonesome Dove. “Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in town.” Those were the first words I ever read written by Larry McMurtry, who died March 25 at age 84. They certainly...
by Jana Bommersbach | May 6, 2021 | Departments, Old West Saviors
The Pella Historical Society starts at home. Certainly, Wyatt Earp didn’t play cowboys and Indians growing up in Pella, Iowa. We know because it would be decades before cowboys were glorified enough for little boys to imitate, and Indians were still too real and seen...
by Johnny D. Boggs | Apr 7, 2021 | Departments, Renegade Roads
Have fun trailing the Lone Star outlaw from Texas to Kansas. Charles E. Rankin, retired editor of the University of Oklahoma Press and astute historian of key figures of the Old West, posed a question a while back when we were having lunch and discussing James Butler...