Wild West

The great racial divide in New Mexico Territory in the latter half of the 19th century was between Anglo newcomers and Hispanos (Southwesterners of Spanish descent). Anglos generally considered Hispanos inferior in mind, body, spirit, political think

Great article [“Dead Men for Breakfast,” by Ron Soodalter, August 2020] on wicked Wild West towns. One town that should be on any such list is Caldwell, Kan. (at right) In the five years of Caldwell’s cow town era (1879–84) 14 different men wore the

1 The Name: Sure, “Jesse James” rolls off the tongue pretty easily, but it doesn’t have the same level of panache or commercial appeal as “Billy the Kid.” 2 The Jailbreak: It wasn’t Jesse who made the most dramatic and memorable jailbreak in American

WildWestMag.com Yes, Virginia City, there is a Santa Claus. On Christmas Day 1863 in Virginia City, Nev., Mark Twain received “a ghastly, naked, porcelain doll baby.” In Virginia City, Montana Territory, “Christmas Day 1865 was a memorable day,” wrot

Ellen (née Elliott) Jack was born in England on Nov. 4, 1842, and arrived in the United States with her American husband, mariner Charles E. Jack, on the eve of the Civil War. Charles later joined the Navy, served as a ship’s master under Rear Adm. D

Kingston, New Mexico (population 32, according to the 2010 U.S. census), is a shadow of its former self. Once upon a time it was a busy place, an 1880s boomtown that went bust little more than a decade later. The town and its adjacent mines peaked ar

In 1898, long before President Woodrow Wilson designated the Grand Canyon a national park in 1919, John George Verkamp was already at the rim selling American Indian curios. Most early tourists were wealthy, willing to foot the bill for a train to Wi

The young man that Miguel Antonio Otero Jr. observed in the plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory, appeared a cheerful beardless youth, not a desperate outlaw. He wore a sombrero tilted back atop a mop of light brown hair above sharp blue eyes, an

Statehood petitions in 1849, 1856, 1862, 1872 and 1882 hadn’t led to the desired result in Utah Territory, mainly because of hostility in Washington, D.C., toward the Mormon Church and its practice of polygamy. Congress had created Utah Territory in

On Sunday evening July 14, 1878, attorney Alexander McSween and more than 50 armed partisans rode into the town of Lincoln, New Mexico Territory, and took up positions in preparation for a climactic confrontation. It was a showdown months in the maki

His name was J. Ferdinand Patterson (we have late author Glenn Shirley’s unsupported word the J stood for “Jason”), and he is perhaps the least known and most underrated gunfighter in Western history. Ferd Patterson was a contemporary of the infamous

My great-great-grandfather Joseph Cobell, an inductee in the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame, immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1848. He married Mary Owl Child, a daughter of the Pikuni Blackfeet Owl Child. In 1867 Joseph and Mary Cobell buil

Through his public murals Colorado artist Fred “Lightning Heart” Haberlein related stories unique to the locales in which he painted, including La Jara, Manassa, Alamosa, Antonito, Glenwood Springs and Carbondale. The greatest concentration of his 14

On the evening of October 24, 1871, Los Angeles County Sheriff J.F. Burns was a few miles south of the city when word reached him there was trouble in Chinatown. Reaching Calle de los Negros an hour later, Burns found in place all the makings of a ma

Shortly after noon on April 22, 1889, Edward W. Osburn stood atop a wagon along a ridge in Oklahoma Country to behold a surreal spectacle on the vast prairie below. The Kansas farmer saw “probably 2,000 wagons—trains 5 to 8 miles in length” and “hund

ART “I grew up with a fascination for livestock,” Teresa Elliott [teresaelliott.com] recalls from her studio in the Big Bend region of West Texas. “As a child, I remember sitting on this fence and watching this one bull for hours. It led me to the su

Death was often a close companion on the high plains of the 19th-century West. Christmastime could be an especially dangerous time for travelers, as storms unexpectedly blew down from the Rocky Mountains across the short grass prairies in deadly grou

The Little Snake Valley, one of Wyoming’s best-kept secrets, may be on the road to nowhere but is well worth a stop, in no small part because of the Little Snake River Museum, in Savery. American Indians, explorers, trappers, miners and cattlemen all

THE REAL BILLY THE KID: WITH NEW LIGHT ON THE LINCOLN COUNTY WAR (1998, by Miguel Antonio Otero Jr.): Originally published in 1936 and written by the other New Mexico governor in Billy’s life, it contains its share of historical errors but also offer

The Barker Mining District was the only such district in Montana to have been discovered in one county, come to fruition in another and left two ghost towns in a third. It dates from 1879, when partners Patrick H. Hughes and Elias A. “Buck” Barker ve

On December 5 and 6, 2020, crowds will descend on the Gruene Historic District of New Braunfels, Texas, to browse some 100 vendors’ booths during the annual Christmas Market Days and to pose for photos with Cowboy Kringle—though sitting on his lap wh