Traveling drummers, salesmen or peddlers provided a variety of necessary goods and services for folks in frontier areas that didn’t have easy access...
Travelers of the West
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life in the old west
Underground Hazards
The life of a miner was tough. Those hard rock miners faced a number of hazards including gas pockets, cave-ins, silicosis of the lungs caused by...
How to Get a Wife
Western pioneers took extreme measures to change their marital status. The discovery of gold in the Western frontier led a mass migration of eager,...
Cactus Derbies
Car races across the deserts promoted road building. When the first horseless carriage sputtered and jerked into Arizona soon after the dawning of...
An Institution of Many Parts
The saloon was many things to many people. The saloon was the hub of a Western town, serving as a bar, restaurant, gambling house, town hall, hotel,...
Best of the West: Western Fare
Come and Get It! Historic Western-style restaurants, saloons and dinner shows keep the Old West alive. Across the West, from small towns to big...
The Cowboy
America’s icon still rides tall in the saddle. They call him cowboy, vaquero, buckaroo, waddy, paniolo, saddletramp, wrangler and drover. He...
The Birth of the Horseless Carriage
“YOU ONLY HAVE TO FEED ‘EM WHEN YOU USE ‘EM” Prior to 1800 never has there been a period that experienced such dramatic changes as the 19th century....
Belt Loops on Men’s Trousers
There seems to be some confusion as to when belt loops first came into use on men's trousers. The hot summer of 1893 drove men to give up their...
Pioneer Pets
Dogs and cats are as Western as six-guns and Stetsons—and a lot more lovable. In the Old West, dogs were common—and necessary. Cats, not at first,...
The Jackass Mail
In 1849 it took 166 days to travel coast to coast. By the 1860’s you could do it in 60 days. A decade later a train could make the trip in 11 days....
The Harvey Girls
“Will Rogers said: Fred Harvey kept the West supplied with food and wives.” Conditions of hash houses along railroad lines before dining cars and...