John Colter was a member of the Corps of Discovery that crossed the wide Missouri with Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806. He was considered to be one of...
John Colter The First Mountain Man
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Marshall Trimble
Bad Bill Longley
Bill Longley born into a strong Christian family, he turned bad during the post-Civil War Reconstruction period has been called one of the West’s...
Singing At The Big Corral
Romaine “Romy” Lowdermilk, the “Father of Dude Ranching in Arizona,” blossomed into one of the West’s greatest early balladeers. Born in Kansas in...
Were Cowboys Superstitious?
Were cowboys superstitious? Bill Dunn High River, Alberta, Canada Rodeo cowboys believed in dozens of superstitions. Some of them include: Never eat...
Charlie Russell, “Waiting for a Chinook”
Charlie Russell came to Montana in 1880 at the age of sixteen where he hired out on a sheep ranch. He later went to work for a former trapper Jake...
Cowboy Lingo, Tall Tales and Bald-faced Lies
A few years ago I went with “Warrior Tours” sponsored by Wrangler Jeans to the Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan with a group of champion rodeo cowboys...
Them Ain’t Cowboys; Them’s Ostrichboys
One of the most unusual yet lucrative types of ranching came into fashion around 1900 in Arizona’s Salt River Valley. With a head- ‘em-up, move...
How Fast Could a Stagecoach Travel?
How fast could a stagecoach travel? Mitchell McClure Rayville, Louisiana The speed of stagecoach travel during the Old West era depended on whether...
What Led to the O.K. Corral Gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona Territory?
What led to the O.K. Corral gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona Territory? Axel Doling Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany The lead-up is pretty...
The Hashknife
The arrival of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in 1881 opened up the virgin grasslands of northern Arizona to large scale cattle ranching. The...
Why Do Westerns Feature Guns That Didn’t Exist at the Time Period?
Why do Westerns feature guns that didn’t exist at the time period? Richard Klingenberger Rochester, New York Movies sometimes “hot rod” firearms or...
Route 66
Of all America’s great highways none epitomized Americana during the twentieth century more than storied Route 66. Stretching across the heart of...