David A. Butterfield was the right man, with the right idea, for the right place. A passenger and freight stage run from Atchison, Kansas, to...
Denver or Die!
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History Features
The Deadwood Stage
“Rumbling noisily through the black canyon road to Deadwood, at an hour long past midnight, came the stage from Cheyenne, loaded down with...
Rocking Coach Adventures
A quintessential “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” innovator who had little formal education and was himself a mere stagecoach driver would go...
Whiskey Rows
At 47, merchant Philip Drachman teamed his freight overland from Yuma, Arizona, by mule train before the Southern Pacific reached his home base in...
The Last Cowboy President?
Lyndon B. Johnson compared going to Vietnam’s aid to coming to the aid of the defenders at the Alamo. Leonid Brezhnev derided Ronald Reagan as a...
Was He a Hero?
How did Buffalo Bill Cody survive the ravages of time? He has a prestigious historical center in Cody, Wyoming, named in his honor and is the theme...
True Texas Cowboys
As a teen in the 1880s, my great-grandfather Tolbert Alexander Burford worked as a wrangler and cowboy during the end of the great cattle drives. In...
The 20-Mule Team’s Miracle Mineral
The year was 1883, and muleskinners were earning more than college graduates ($120 per month). It was hard-earned money, fraught with danger both...
Was Pat Garrett Killed Over Illegal Aliens?
A two-year-old boy loses his father in 1908—his very famous father, Pat Garrett, responsible for killing the notorious Billy the Kid. When Jarvis...
Pigskin Warriors
Ben American Horse eyed his white opponents, ranged across the field of battle on a cool day in November 1894. They were better equipped, more...
Charles Lummis’s Coast to Coast Journey
The 26 year old’s decision to walk across the West seemed pure folly to some: “What a picnic those fellows out in the plains will have with the seat...
Will Carver Checks Out
He was supposed to be taking just a little trip to Sonora, Texas, on a cool April night in 1901. He planned to check out the bank, map the best...