The Santa Fe Trail's role as the major western trade route in the early to mid-nineteenth century made it a critical part of America's Westward expansion and the stories of its heyday include some of the greatest adventures in the history of the Old West. Drawn from first-hand accounts of early entrepreneurs and emigrants who braved the Santa Fe Trail between 1820 and 1880, this history reveals the lure of the West and puts its importance to American history in context. On the Santa Fe Trail paints a portrait of the land before the wagon tracks were carved in its surface and recounts the hardships, dangers, and adventures faced by the hardy souls who went West to make their fortunes.
In John Wayne's Way, author Doug Brode explores the film legacy of the Duke and provides commentary on the lessons learned from the archetypes of the West and American manhood Wayne displayed on the silver screen. Complete with quotes and photographs from the movies, these pithy lessons will be appealing to John Wayne fans and Western film buffs.
While settlers were drawn out West by the often empty promises of the Gold Rush, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities of the nineteenth-century Rocky Mountain region. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false advertising, or seeking to subsidize their income, thousands of women chose or were forced to enter an industry where they faced segregation and persecution, fines and jailing, and battled the other hazards of their profession. Some dreamed of escape through marriage or retirement, and some became infamous and even successful, but more often found relief only in death. An integral part of western history, the stories of these women continue to fascinate readers and captivate the minds of historians today.Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho all had their share of working girls and madams like Dell Burke and Annie "Peg Leg" McIntyre who remain notorious celebrities in the annals of history, but Collins also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose roles in this illicit trade help shape our understanding of the American West.
The Centennial State had its share of working girls and madams like Mattie Silks and Jennie Rogers who remain notorious celebrities in the annals of history, but Collins also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose roles in this illicit trade help shape our understanding of the American West.
Outlaws Tales of the Old West features fifty stories of rustlers and robbers, crimes of passion, and some of the wannabe outlaws who couldn't quite pull it off, some of the most fascinating--and least known--badmen to roam the lawless West. Massacres, mayhem, and mischief fill the pages of Outlaw Tales of the Old West, with compelling legends of some of the most despicable desperadoes in history. Ride with horse thieves and cattle rustlers, duck the bullets of murderers, plot strategies with con artists, and hiss at lawmen turned outlaws.
This is a biography of William Williams, a merchant, a delegate for Connecticut to the Continental Congress, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. As the son of a minister, Williams studied theology and law at Harvard, and throughout his life religion was a great influence on his political presence.
Young Martha Jane Cannary began life as a camp follower and street urchin. Parentless by the age of twelve, she morphed into the mother of two who just as often took employment as a waitress, laundress, or dance hall girl as she did an Indian scout or bullwhacker. Just as likely to wear a dress as she was buckskins, she was impossible to ignore no matter what she wore, particularly after sheΓÇÖd had a few drinks! And she shamelessly parlayed into a legend the aura of fame that Edward L. WheelerΓÇÖs dime novels crafted around her.Perhaps most amazing of all, in an era where women had few options in life, Calamity Jane had the audacity to carve them out for herself. The gun-toting, tough-talking, hard-drinking woman was all Western America come to life. Flowing across the untamed small towns and empty spaces of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana like the wild running rivers of the American West, she helped create the legend of Calamity Jane from scratch. Part carnie barker, part actor, part sexually alluring siren, part drunken lout--she was all of these and much more.
Bat Masterson or Wyatt Earp? Which lawman did the most to tame the frontier? And which lawman left behind the biggest legacy? Author Bill Markley takes on those questions and more in this thoughtful and entertaining examination of these legendary lives.
In 1861, war between the U.S. and the hostile Chiricahua Apaches seemed inevitable. When a young boy was kidnapped, Lieutenant George Bascom confronted Apache leader Cochise-an act some blamed for setting the smoldering conflict ablaze. This book analyzes that legend, versus what really happened, within the historical context of the Indian Wars.
While there are assorted storytelling guidebooks related to various categories of Wild West-related historic sites (the Oregon Trail, Custer, the Indian wars in general, ghost towns, etc.) there is no one-stop-shopping spot for ALL categories of Wild West-related historic sites.
Author Patrick Dearen brings the reckless and risky adventures of real cowboys to life with colorful stories from interviews with 76 men who cowboyed in the West before 1932 as well as 150 archival interviews and written accounts from as early as the 1870s and well into the mid-twentieth century.
Principles of Posse Management tells the stories of the lawmen and leaders of the Old West who organized citizens in the pursuit of law and order. This collection of tales reveals what Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and other legends of the old west knew about leadership with a clever twist on the classic shoot-em-up, black-hats-vs-white-hats tale.
In 1900, the young and beautiful Leonel Ross Campbell became the first female reporter to work for the Denver Post. As the journalist known as Polly Pry, she ruffled feathers when she worked to free a convicted cannibal and when she battled the powerful Telluride miners’ union. She was nearly murdered more than once. And a younger female colleague once said, “Polly Pry did not just report the news, she made it!” If only that young reporter had known how true her words were. Polly Pry got her start not just writing the news but inventing it. In spite of herself, however, Campbell would become a respected journalist and activist later in her career. She would establish herself as a champion for rights of the under served in the early twentieth century, taking up the causes of women, children, laborers, victims and soldiers of war, and prisoners. And she wrote some of the most sensational stories that westerners had ever read, all while keeping the truth behind her success a secret from her colleagues and closest friends and family.  
Each episode included in this book explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in Yellowstone National Park's history. From ghosts in Old Faithful Inn to Bigfoot sightings, Myths and Legends of Yellowstone makes history fun and pulls back the curtain on some of this national treasure's most fascinating and compelling stories.
Connecticut's War Governor is a biography of Jonathan Trumbull, who was governor from 1769 to 1784. Trumbull is one of the only Americans who served as governor of both a pre-Revolutionary colony and a post-Revolutionary state. Because of this he is credited as being one of the truly influential men in the formation of Connecticut.
In the years leading up to the American Revolution, tensions were high, but not everyone felt the same effects of British oppression. Connecticut newspapers took up the mantle to not just report the injustices, but actively convince and insight their readers to stand up and rebel. Charles Cutter lays bare the influence of the press to start the war that gave birth to our nation as we know it.
These are the stories of what happened in the West as the trickle then flood of Easterners and immigrants first began to flow into the plains, deserts, and mountains between the Pacific Ocean and the Mississippi River and, finally, far north into The Last Frontier. While some events would have happened regardless who was there-earthquakes, storms, droughts, and other natural disasters-it was because of this influx of humanity that those events were recorded and have become part of America's history.
Drawing on fact and folklore, dueling authors Bill Markley and Kellen Cutsforth present opposing viewpoints pertaining to controversies surrounding some of the most well-known characters and events in the history of the Old West.
In this series, private investigators pick up where the historians left off, taking on a series of major cold cases in history, starting with the mishandling of evidence relating to the life and times of Billy the Kid. Cold Case: Billy the Kid tackles the myths and legends about the notorious outlaw one by one, considering the evidence from contemporary sources and looking at the physical evidence still extant today to consider the veracity of historical claims and considering the evidence through the lens of a legal investigation. In this first book, the writers tackle the evolution of an outlaw in myth and lore, claiming that Billy the Kid as a notorious outlaw is a manufactured concept. They offer evidence that the Kid was little more than one of several small time cattle and horse thieves whose rustling netted him only a small amount of intermittent income. He killed no fewer, and probably no more, than four or five men. For the most part he worked on ranches, notably those of John Chisum and John Henry Tunstall. The Kid, as a cattle thief, was known to many in southern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, along with a number of other troublesome rustlers.
How much of what we know about the history of the Old West is true? In this new book, author Michael Rutter looks at the legend and lore behind such notorious figures as Billy the Kid and Calamity Jane and the stories of famous gun fights and battles, telling what really happened. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but these 12 legends stand up to scrutiny, and this book will be a must-read for all western history buffs.
Filled with more than 150 recipes, anecdotes, and stories from some of AmericaΓÇÖs most popular writers and personalities, this collaborative effort has a writerly sensibility and a Western point of view. Including recipes for drinks, appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, desserts, and fun extrasΓÇöas well as stories from and profiles of the contributors, this is both a Western book and a cookbook that moves beyond the genre.
A fascinating collection of thirty compelling stories about events that shaped the Mount Rushmore State, It Happened in South Dakota describes everything from Lewis and Clark raising an American flag on the Missouri to the continuing creation of a monument to Crazy Horse.
True stories of the triumphs and tribulations of eight women who crossed the American frontier by wagon. First hand accounts from their letters and diaries, most written on the trail.
From the Anasazi cliff dwellings to tales of Buffalo Bill's bravado, and from an unsolved bank robbery in Denver to the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey, Colorado Myths and Legends examines a fascinating array of puzzling events, unsolved mysteries, and tragic crimes in the often troubled (but always compelling!) history of the Centennial State.
The legend of the Lost Adams Diggings is one of the most mythologized tales of lost treasure on the continent. This true story starts with the discovery of the rich deposit of gold in a remote mountain range, and ends with the author's own story of search and discovery in the twentieth century.
By 1900, the tale of the 300 Texians who died in the 1836 battle of the Alamo had already become legend. But to corporate interests in the growing City of San Antonio, the land where that blood was shed was merely a desirable plot of land across the street from new restaurants and hotels, with only a few remaining crumbling buildings to tell the tale. When two women, Adina Emilia De Zavala, the granddaughter of the first vice-president of the Texas Republic, and Clara Driscoll, the daughter of one of Texas¿s most prominent ranch families and first bankers, learned of the plans, they hatched a plan to preserve the site¿and in so doing, they reinvigorated both the legend and lore of the Alamo and cemented the site¿s status as hallowed ground. But the story of the battle the two women started with each other reverberates to this day. These two strong-willed, pioneering women were very different, but the story of how they banded together and how the Alamo became what it is today despite those differences, is compelling reading for those interested in Texas history and Texas¿s larger-than-life personality.
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