Blue Duck is famous for two reasons—Larry McMurtry had a character by that name in Lonesome Dove, and the real man was photographed with Belle...
Tubac on the Spanish Colonial Frontier
The presidio at Tubac, founded in 1752, was the first European settlement in Arizona. The name came from a Pima Indian word meaning “Where something...
Horse Race at Castle Gate
In the spring of 1894, Butch Cassidy was running a small outfit at Horse Creek in the Upper Wind River country near today, Dubois, Wyoming with a...
A Blow to the Head
Buckskin Frank Leslie pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend Mollie Edwards in January 1890. It seemed to be an open and shut case; Leslie killed...
Colorado City, Arizona City, and Finally Yuma
Louis J.F. Jaeger arrived at the storied Yuma Crossing in July, 1850 where he started a ferry business to transport California gold seekers and...
More than a Barkeep
The movies portray Milt Joyce as your basic barkeep, a working owner of Tombstone’s Oriental Saloon. And that’s just one small slice of this...
Shooting the Silhouette
The story goes that Buckskin Frank Leslie used to stand his wife May against a wall and shoot bullets in an outline around her body—something that...
Frontier Women
“I felt a secret joy to have the power that set things straight.” Anonymous Women performed a labor more valuable than gold by pressing for schools,...
The Gang Lawyer
Jason Brevoort Brown was an opportunist, a lawyer and politician in Indiana during the last half of the 19th century. He represented the Jackson...
Rattlesnake Bites
It’s the time of year when rattlesnakes are more likely to hole up during the daytime and be active at night so I thought it best to share what to...
Land Grabbers
By 1865, the Wilkison Reno family owned more land than anyone else in Jackson County, IN. They got it the old fashioned way: crime. The acquired...
Bisbee Queen of the Copper Camps
In the spring of 1877 Sergeant Jack Dunn, a government scout from Fort Bowie, was winding his way down what later became known as Tombstone Canyon...