Old West Memoir

In the romantic narrative of the Old West, two larger-than-life characters emerged as the perfect foils for each other - the rampant outlaw and the heroic peace officer. Without the villain, sheriffs would not have needed to uphold the law; and without the sheriff, villains would have had no law to break. Together, both personalities fought, lost, and triumphed amid shootouts, train robberies, and bank holdups against the backdrop of the lawless American frontier.

The word cowboy conjures up vivid images of rugged men on saddled horses - men lassoing cattle, riding bulls, or brandishing guns in a shoot-out. White men, as Hollywood remembers them. What is woefully missing from these scenes is their counterparts: the Black cowboys who made up one-fourth of the wranglers and rodeo riders. This book tells their story.

From out of these mountains come many things. . . Here is a big game hunting story from the greatest hunting grounds in the world. From a time when they were wholly unknown. Yukon Territory in the 1940's was very much a frontier state with much of what the Jim Bond explored uncharted and unpenetrated except by the occasional prospector and trappers. The first sport hunter in the area, the author provided valuable documentation of how wildlife fares in a wilderness without any human interference as well as relating his exceptional hunting experiences. From Whitehorse, the largest "city" of ...

Discover the remarkable life of Josephine Earp... She was supposed to marry for security, settle down, and disappear into domesticity. Instead, Josephine Earp ran away to the Wild West, fell in love with a famous gunfighter, and spent almost haft a century chasing adventure across the American frontier. From the dusty streets of Tombstone to the frozen rivers of Alaska, Josephine Earp lived a life that defied every expectation of 19th-century womanhood.

Discover the remarkable life of Brigham Young... When Joseph Smith was assassinated in 1844, his fledgling religious movement—the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormon Church—faced a serious threat to its very survival. It was Brigham Young who stepped into the void and ensured that the religion became a successful one. With tens of millions of Mormons all over the world still practicing the faith today, it seems that Brigham Young's efforts have certainly paid off.

Annie Oakley was a remarkable sharpshooter whose legendary accuracy with firearms captivated audiences across the world. She could place bullets precisely where she intended from distances that left spectators breathless with amazement. But as impressive as this was, there was more to Annie Oakley's life than her ability with a gun.

At the young age of 16, Andy Adams left his San Antonio home to follow his dream of becoming a cowboy. Going on long drives with some of the 19th century's hardiest cowboys, he learned his trade through many adventurous years of trial and error. This account of his true experiences includes dusty cattle drives, brandings, stampedes, dangerous river crossings, and remarkable encounters with the Blackfoot, Oglala, and Platte Indian tribes.

The Incredible True Account of Leonhard Seppala and Togo's Life of Adventure in Alaska and the Far North. Leonhard Seppala a legend throughout Alaska, got his introduction to the dogsled as a musher for the Pioneer Mining Company during his first winter there. Where he was presented with his first team—a batch of puppies brought back from Siberia for use on an expedition to the North Pole by the arctic explorer Roald Amundsen and presented to Seppala when Amundsen canceled the expedition. It was with this pack of Siberian huskies led by Suggen, that Seppala made history in the All-Alaska ...

This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West's most egregiously badly behaved female outlaws, gamblers, soiled doves, and other wicked women offers a glimpse into the Western women's experience that's less sunbonnets and more six-shooters. During the late 1800s, while men were settling the new frontier and rushing off to the latest boomtowns, women of easy virtue found wicked lives west of the Mississippi when they followed fortune hunters seeking gold and land in an unsettled territory.

Having grown disillusioned with the miserable existence that is expected of young college students, the newlyweds Bill and Ruth Albee dream of heading to Alaska, on foot, by way of a vast blank space on the map that is modern day Western British Columbia. Like most most dreams, it dug into their body, mind, and soul until nothing could satisfy it until they had given it a try. So, in 1930, they started off, ignoring all warnings and leaving from Vancouver on foot up through western B.C.

New York Times bestselling author and award-winning historian John Boessenecker separates fact from fiction in the first new biography in decades of Black Bart, the Wild West’s most mysterious gentleman bandit. Black Bart is widely regarded today as not only the most notorious stage robber...

When Chick Ferguson made plans to go to the Yukon, he wasn’t planning on taking his newlywed Mary. He definitely was not planning on spending much of the next 18 years in the wilderness. For he was just a photographer with a little studio in a little town in Montana. His business was failing and having heard of the riches of the fur trade he was hoping to spend a year or two trapping, making a stake and returning to his routine life. But he didn’t figure on love....

Wyatt Earp was one of the most famous lawmen that the Wild West ever produced. He was also one of the longest-lived. Considering the fact that he lived all the way up until his 80s while many of his contemporaries never made it out of their 30s, this in itself was quite a feat. Wyatt Earp’s good friend and sidekick Doc Holliday, for example, perished at 36. But even though Earp lived a long life, he was no stranger to danger. He was shot at more times than he could count, and there were plenty of people out there who wanted him dead.

Thomas Horn Jr. was an infamous figure in the 19th-century American Old West. Cowboy, soldier, government scout, translator, and gunman, Horn’s storied life has become an important part of western folklore. In 1902, he was convicted for murdering a 14-year-old boy after a run-in during a feud with a cattle rancher. The Life of Tom Horn is his life story in his own words, written from prison before he met his fate at the gallows the following year.

Captain Frank Jones, a famed nineteenth-century Texas Ranger, said of his company's top sergeant, Baz Outlaw (1854-1894), "A man of unusual courage and coolness and in a close place is worth two or three ordinary men." Another old-time Texas Ranger declared that Baz Outlaw "was one of the worst and most dangerous" because "he never knew what fear was."

Anyone who has experienced the thrill of the wilderness cannot get enough. He can only count the days until he is back among the wilds, and his mind eased as only the wilderness can. Jim Bond, who brought us the exceptional story of his wilderness trip in From Out of the Yukon, is back with another series of delightful stories of the north. This time its in Alaska; from the wilds of Kodiak Island, trout fishing along the remote Kulik river, unto the rugged Alaska Range mountain sheep hunting, and down the Alaska peninsula for some "September Crazy" moose rut. Taking place in the 1950's when...

"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, where they endured hardship and prejudice as they set broken limbs, performed operations, delivered generations of babies - and solidified a place for women in the medical field.

Jesse James grew up in Clay County, Missouri, a place where north and south conflicted over the issue of slavery. Tensions grew in the lead-up to the Civil War, and James’ Southern loyalties meant he had to make a decision. When war broke out, Jesse and his brother Frank joined the Confederate guerrillas known as “bushwhackers” alongside other notorious characters like “Bloody Bill”. By the age of 17, Jesse had escaped death twice and gained a reputation as a ruthless killer.

Billy the Kid once said that he killed 22 men - one for each year that he lived. While it’s more likely that he only killed eight or nine, this young outlaw was clearly deadly. But his brief and brutal life reveals how his tragic existence led him into a life of crime. After growing up in poverty as an Irish immigrant in New York City and losing his father at a young age, Billy the Kid had to endure losing his mother when he was only 15.

WHEN M. JOHN FAYHEE first arrived in New Mexico's rugged Gila Country, he was a naïve 20-year-old who didn't know a javelina from an enchilada. Much has changed in the intervening half century. In this meandering memoir, Fayhee, with his loyal dog Casey at his side, takes us through the heart of the Gila - once the stomping ground of Geronimo and Billy the Kid and home to the world's first legally designated Wilderness Area - as he endeavors to hike every day for a solid year through some of the country's most remote and challenging terrain.