The Pleasant Valley War had its beginnings around 1880 when a man named Jim Stinson moved a large herd of cattle into Pleasant Valley. The remote...
Opening Shots in Arizona’s Pleasant Valley War
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The Stage Holdup that Led to a Gunfight
September 1881. Two masked gunmen held up the Sandy Bob stage headed from Tombstone to Bisbee. Cow-boys Pete Spence (in photo) and Frank Stilwell...
Jim Leavy
Jim Leavy was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1842. His name was often misspelled Levy and this has led some to believe he was Jewish however there is no...
The Strike and the Spinoff
Clint Walker, who died recently, is best known for portraying the title character of “Cheyenne” for seven TV seasons between 1955 and 1963. It was a...
The Calamitous Martha Jane
Thanks to Hollywood, Martha Jane Canary's story has come down to us in a somewhat romantic version. Army scout, Indian fighter and barroom brawler....
Recycling a Western
“Sugarfoot,” the late ‘50s TV Western produced by Warner Brothers, wasn’t a new idea. It was based on a 1954 film The Boy from Oklahoma, starring...
Andy Devine
Andy Devine was born in Flagstaff, Arizona on October 7th, 1905 but when he was a year old the family moved to Kingman where he grew up. Thanks to a...
A Hero on the Run
Hardware merchant Ray Simpson was the sharpshooter who fought the McCarty Gang when they robbed a bank in Delta, CO in September 1893. He was...
The Hazards of Underground Mining
Those hard rock miners in mining camps like Jerome, Arizona faced a number of hazards including gas pockets, cave in’s, silicosis of the lungs...
A Sad End For Matt Warner
Matt Warner rode with Butch Cassidy and was one of the outlaw’s closest friend. Warner—real name, Willard Christianson—pulled off a number of jobs...
Russian Bill
One of the West's most unusual gunfighter wannabe’s was Bill Tettenborn, better-known as Russian Bill. There are a number of tales about his...
Bad Horsemanship
Hank Vaughan was a gunfighter in the Northwest. One shootout claimed the life of a lawman; Vaughan did hard time in the Oregon Territorial Prison...