In 1880, Capt. David L. Payne and the boomers began entering Indian Territory with the hope of establishing permanent homes. Payne was a veteran of...
The Oklahoma Invader
read more
Feature
Smile!
Most people who study photos from the 1800s, whether these are family photos or historical images of the American West, have wondered why the people...
The Western Dreams of a Nobel Outlaw
Mama, take this badge off of me I can’t use it anymore It’s getting’ dark, too dark for me to see I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door. —Bob...
Top 10 True Western Towns of 2017
The West has always been a place for Americans who dream. About a second chance, about riches, about a free and productive life on fertile land with...
True West’s Best of the West 2017: Heritage Travel
Millions of miles of interstates, highways, roads and dirt tracks crisscross the mountains, valleys, deserts and plains of the Western United...
A Man of Many Firsts
To describe Joseph Rutherford Walker as a typical frontiersman would be to label Abraham Lincoln a typical president. Walker was a man of many...
Best of the West 2017: Western Movies, DVDs and TV Shows
For all of the pathfinders’ importance in the settling of the West, the films about those great pioneers comprise a short list indeed. The best...
A Colonel’s Secret Weapon
As the small train of wagons drew within sight of Fort Phil Kearny, the weary travelers rejoiced. “I could have clapped my hands for joy,” one wrote...
Daniel Boone: Passing the Torch
Neither Meriwether Lewis nor William Clark ever mentioned meeting Daniel Boone on May 24, 1804, when they stopped at the village nicknamed Boone’s...
The Doomed Prince of the Pistoleers
James Butler Hickok, born on a farm in northern Illinois in 1837, leaves home at age 18, gravitating to Kansas Territory, with his brother Lorenzo,...
Burning Through Texas
To burn through Texas to the Gulf of Mexico was a vision that came to Chief Buffalo Hump that captured the imagination of his people. During the...
Fantastic Firearms in Cody
Loved and respected by royalty as well as the common man, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody embodied the spirit of the American frontier and was our...