There's no way to look at the murder and mutilation of Apache Chief Mangas Coloradas without horror. He is considered by historians as one one of...
Mangas Coloradas’ Undue Fate
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Jana Bommersbach
Saved by YouTube
"Grandma, you can find anything on YouTube,” Erin Ghedi’s 17-year-old granddaughter, Gabby, told her four years ago. What Erin and her husband, Jim,...
Buffalo Bill Busted
William “Buffalo Bill” Cody was a lucky man. From a hardscrabble youth that began in a log cabin in Iowa Territory, he grew up to survive the Civil...
Keeping Movies Alive
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was among the first. Dr. Rennard Strickland found the movie poster for the 1962 John Ford classic, “Together for...
Bust Cream, Anyone?
We think of the late 1800s as a time of Victorian refinement, with sensitivities so severe, one was to use the term “limb,” rather than the vulgar...
Paranoia Takes Jim Murhpy
DON'T LET THE PARANOIA GET YA: That's what should have been etched on the tombstone of Jim Murphy. Jim was a 200-pounder with a red mustache and...
The Cheapskate of All Time
OK, there are probably hundreds of examples of men (and women) being cheapskates—not paying what they owed, or haggling over the bill. But here's...
The Horseless Carriage Was Seriously Underestimated
“The horseless carriage...will never come into as common use as the bicycle,” the Literary Digest declared in 1899—two years after Henry Ford and...
Shopping from Home in 1897 with Sears Roebuck
Here's a sampling of what one could shop for in 1897 in the Sears Roebuck Catalogue, known officially as the “Consumer's Guide” but popularly as the...
She Was the Best Man of the Party
The name Juliet Brier doesn't leap to mind when thinking about the courageous women who endured the wagon train trip to California. But it should....
This Month in History: May
May is a great month for birthdays to celebrate icons of the west—both human and major events--so let's bake a cake. This year, we'd have put 180...
The Bisbee Deportation of 1917
What happens when a corporation, the sheriff and citizens are all in collusion to do something “wholly illegal?” The giant Bisbee Deportation of...