The year was 1878. Future legends of the Old West–lawmen Charlie Bassett, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and Bill Tilghman–patrolled the unruly streets of Dodge City, Kansas, then known as “the wickedest little city in America.” When a cattle baron fled town after allegedly shooting the popular dancehall girl Dora Hand, these four men–all sharpshooters who read more…

By the time Stagecoach made John Wayne a silver-screen star in 1939, the thirty-one-year-old was already a veteran of more than sixty films, having twirled six-guns, tossed rope, busted broncos, and foiled cattle rustlers in B westerns for five different studios over the course of a dozen years. By the 1950s he was Hollywood’s most read more…

Tired of her controlling stepparents, headstrong heiress Annie Howard goes west and encounters a series of adventures–including a blazing prairie fire, a sinking riverboat, the kidnapping of her beloved servant, and, of course, romance. When The Prairie Bride, a classic dime novel, was first published in 1869 by the extremely popular publishing house of Beadle read more…

“What we want to do is give our women even more liberty than they have. Let them do any kind of work that they see fit, and if they do it as well as men, give them the same pay.” —William F. Cody, 1899 With rough-riding cowboys, sure shots, and fantastic reenactments of battles and read more…

“NO WOMEN NEED APPLY.” These four discouraging words of admonition often greeted female physicians looking for jobs in the frontier-era West. Despite the dire need for medical help, it seemed most trappers, miners, and emigrants would rather suffer and die than be treated by a female doctor. Nevertheless dozens of highly trained women headed West, read more…

In 1944 Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lit up the silver screen in The Cowboy and the Senorita, making their names – and lives – inseparable. It was the start of a fifty-six-year partnership that included thirty motion pictures, a long-running hit television series, and a family of nine children. The Cowboy and the Senorita read more…

Tales Behind the Tombstones tells the stories behind the deaths (or supposed deaths) and burials of the Old West’s most nefarious outlaws, notorious women, and celebrated lawmen. Readers will learn the story behind Calamity Jane’s wish to be buried next to Wild Bill Hickok, discover how and where the Earp brothers came to be buried, read more…

For Joseph Seng and the other death row inmates in the line-up for the Wyoming State Penitentiary All Stars, baseball was literally a game of life or death. Based on primary source documents, some unearthed at the old prison itself, Playing for Time recreates the compelling story of this team of hardened criminals who excelled read more…

The picture of the early American West would not be complete without a fashionably dressed madam standing at the top of the saloon stairs surveying the activity below. More than just casual observers, these tough-talking and whip-smart women often had a pistol hidden in the folds of their skirts, ready to take on cowboys, ranchers, read more…

From the world-famous to the relatively obscure, Outlaw Tales of California features true tales of fifteen bandits, outlaws, and no-good scoundrels. From Sacramento to Los Angeles, San Francisco to Nevada City, the frontier towns of California were populated by some of the toughest and most dangerous characters in the West. Tom Bell, the flat-nosed, felon read more…