One of the most unusual yet lucrative types of ranching came into fashion around 1900 in Arizona’s Salt River Valley. With a head- ‘em-up, move...
Them Ain’t Cowboys; Them’s Ostrichboys
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Boone Helm
Boone Helm was a bad man through and through. Born in Kentucky in 1828, he moved West for opportunity and mayhem. He reportedly murdered several men...
In Search of Cowboy Ground Zero
In the spring of 2013, I traveled to Spain to see if I could locate Cowboy Ground Zero. My theory was, if I could find the source of the Spanish...
The Hashknife
The arrival of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in 1881 opened up the virgin grasslands of northern Arizona to large scale cattle ranching. The...
Tecumseh and The Battle of Tippecanoe
If Tecumseh had his way, American expansion would have ended at the Ohio River. The Shawnee leader believed that the lands belonged to all the...
Route 66
Of all America’s great highways none epitomized Americana during the twentieth century more than storied Route 66. Stretching across the heart of...
Doc Moeur
Arizona’s “Depression Governor,” was a crusty, country doctor from Tempe named Benjamin Moeur. Doc Moeur was born in Tennessee and raised on a ranch...
Dog Soldiers
The Dog Soldiers were an elite force of the Cheyenne, waging war and policing the tribe for many years. But it was a drunken brawl that propelled...
Fred Lambert
Fred Lambert was a New Mexico deputy sheriff at age 16, later a sheriff, a member of the state’s mounted police, rancher, poet, and artist. He...
Deadwood Dick: The Man Who Never Was
Kit Carson, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody were real-life people who were made larger-than-life to dozens of dime novelists...
The Million Dollar Hangover
Arizonans have inherited a litany of picturesquely whimsical place names and many of these were bestowed upon the wild, untamed territory by the...
Hardin’s Disputed Death
This we know: John Selman killed John Wesley Hardin at El Paso’s Acme Saloon on August 19, 1895. Tradition says Selman shot him in the back of the...