In 1898, Arizona became the first in the nation to sign up for a “cowboy cavalry” for the Spanish-American War. Prescott, which had about 2,000...
Arizona Rough Riders
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true west blog
Pete Spence
Elliott Larkin Ferguson is best known to history as Pete Spence, one of the Cowboys of Tombstone. Probably his biggest claim to fame—his connection...
A Wannabe Badman
James Bliss was a loser. Time and time again, he tried and failed to be a noted Old West badman. A gunfighter, rustler, robber, and whatever else he...
Powhatan Clarke
The brash, young lieutenant won a Medal of Honor in 1886 when he rescued one of his wounded troopers during a fight in the Pinito Mountains of...
Marshal Harvey Whitehill
Silver City, New Mexico Marshal, Harvey Whitehill was working to solve a train robbery at Gage Station. The November 1883 heist had netted less than...
Del Potter’s Railroad
Del Potter ran a little railroad he proudly named the Clifton and Northern. The line ran from the little town of Clifton to a mine north of town but...
Marion Hedgepath, the Debonair Bandit
Someone asked me the other day why Marion Hedgepath isn’t a better-known outlaw. I have at least a dozen outlaw encyclopedias and he isn’t listed in...
The Jaybird-Woodpecker War
The Jaybird-Woodpecker War has the most colorful name in Texas feuds. It supposedly came from a black man who sang songs about those birds. The...
Ike Clanton’s Last Ride
Ike Clanton managed to survive the “Gunfight Near the OK Corral” by running away after the shooting started and Wyatt Earp’s vendetta ride after the...
When Good Horses Were Ridden Down
One of the longest posse chases in Arizona history came after the attempted robbery of the Benson Stage on March 15, 1881, when a large posse,...
Rock Springs Massacre
Tensions over Chinese immigrant labor came to a head in Rock Springs, Wyoming on September 2, 1885. White workers were upset that the Union Pacific...
O.K. Fight
“Three Men Hurled into Eternity in the Duration of a Moment” October 26, 1881 The Earp brothers and John Henry “Doc” Holliday confront the Cowboys...