Lewis and Clark’s Big Sky Country

Lewis and Clark’s Big Sky Country

Most every Sunday afternoon as I was growing up, my father would load us into the car and off we’d go on a family day-adventure to “discover new sights.” Perhaps these jaunts, and the fact that I have a pioneer-gypsy soul, make exploring the trails of the West one of...
Kansas’s Highways of History

Kansas’s Highways of History

America’s West, in the early 1800s, ended at the Missouri River. Men knew there was another West—farther west—but venturing there proved problematic. In 1821, when Mexico shook off Spanish rule, the gate to commercial trade was unlocked. In September 1821, Capt....
Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner

Back in 1989, when Life Magazine asked Hollywood legends like James Stewart, Bette Davis and Olivia DeHavilland to pick their favorite young stars of the day, Joel McCrea selected Kevin Costner.  He described the Field of Dreams star as “a little Clark Gable, a little...
The Legendary Maney Gault

The Legendary Maney Gault

White Rabbit On April 1, 1934, 6’2” Frank Hamer was sitting, cramped, in his tiny Ford V-8 automobile in a lonely riverside migrant camp near the West Dallas viaduct, eating from a can of sardines and celebrating Easter Sunday alone. Or maybe he had driven home to...
Outfoxing a Rustler

Outfoxing a Rustler

Next to fluctuating markets and drought the biggest concern facing cattlemen then and now was rustling. It was tough to get a conviction, you practically had to catch a rustler in the act of altering a brand. Even then the thief might convince a jury of his peers it...