Ohio State Senator William O. Collins, a proponent of war-funding after the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, took a stronger stand for the Union...
Reveille on the Overland Trail
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Renegade Roads
Canyons, Chasms and Cataracts
Not long after his graduation from West Point, Lt. George M. Wheeler became an assistant survey engineer in the San Francisco area. Promoted to...
Texas Captains of Cotton and Cattle
Alabama-born Levi Jordan left the border country between Louisiana and Arkansas in 1848 and resettled near the San Bernard River in Texas. He...
When the Hills Bled Blue in the Boom of ’92
Douglas Magnus, the iconic silversmith in Santa Fe, New Mexico, shows me around the historic turquoise mines he owns in the nearby Cerrillos Hills....
There’s Copper in Them Thar Hills
Author Mike Anderson prefers talking about the legends who played at Warren Ballpark in Bisbee, Arizona—Connie Mack, Honus Wagner, Jim Thorpe and...
Whistle Stop Tour
As Nebraska gets ready to celebrate 150 years of statehood, you likely know these facts: it is the only state with a unicameral legislature;...
Little Houses on the Prairie
She was born in a house her father built. A little house, naturally. Her father would build many more little houses as he carried his family from...
The Mormon Handcart Migration
When the Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, abandoned Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1846, they made a pledge to gather all...
An Audacious Adventure
Wilson Price Hunt set out from St. Louis in early summer 1811 with a company of 56 men, an Indian woman, Marie Dorion, and her two children. He...
On the Trail of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company
A hundred young men walked into the Rocky Mountains and became legends of the West when they responded to William Henry Ashley’s call for...
Building the Central Pacific Railroad
A century and a half ago, steel rails began stretching across the landscape to link this nation. In an 1832 article published by the New York...
Hanging Your Hat in Colorado’s Historic Hotels
Sure, you can find historic hotels across the West, but I don’t know if any state offers a better selection than Colorado. Don’t believe me? Well,...