Henry Comstock gave his name to the biggest silver strike in US history, the Comstock Lode of Nevada. In one sense he was lucky. Two brothers...
No Luck for Comstock
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mark boardman
A Silver Strike by an Other Name
The largest silver strike in US history could have been the Grosh Lode. In 1857, the Grosh brothers discovered silver in the Virginia Range of...
End of the Line
California train robbers Chris Evans and John Sontag had evaded posses for four months, through six fights. But they were finally cornered at a...
The Knife Didn’t Cut
Robert Ford received threats after killing Jesse James in 1881. People didn’t like that he’d shot the outlaw in the back of the head—or tried to...
Death for a Killer
Ed O’Kelley is best known for killing Jesse James’ assassin Robert Ford in 1892. After O’Kelley did 10 years in the Colorado pen for the murder, he...
Manhunters
Robert DeArment’s near 40-year writing career is amazing, and he’s still cranking out new books at the age of 92—and books of quality and substance,...
A Good Time to get Sick
To many, Granville Stuart is the Father of Montana, a giant of a man who shaped the territory and state over half a century. But he almost didn’t...
The Stage Holdup that Led to a Gunfight
September 1881. Two masked gunmen held up the Sandy Bob stage headed from Tombstone to Bisbee. Cow-boys Pete Spence (in photo) and Frank Stilwell...
The Road to and from China
Anson Burlingame is a name mostly forgotten today. But over a 22-year period, from the early 1860s through mid-1880s, he was well known in two...
The Strike and the Spinoff
Clint Walker, who died recently, is best known for portraying the title character of “Cheyenne” for seven TV seasons between 1955 and 1963. It was a...
Recycling a Western
“Sugarfoot,” the late ‘50s TV Western produced by Warner Brothers, wasn’t a new idea. It was based on a 1954 film The Boy from Oklahoma, starring...
A Hero on the Run
Hardware merchant Ray Simpson was the sharpshooter who fought the McCarty Gang when they robbed a bank in Delta, CO in September 1893. He was...