It was December, and I had just walked into the shelving room of the Madison, Wisconsin, Public Library. My job. The room was full of blue rubber tubs on wheels, […]
The Reinvention of Mickey Cochrane
At night, when he was a kid, Mike Cochrane would practice running down Mt. Prospect Street in his hometown of Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He wanted to be in the Olympics, so […]
Advertising the Frontier Myth: Poster Art of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
In 1835, P.T. Barnum bought a human being. Barnum saw an ad in the Pennsylvania Inquirer. Joice Heth, an elderly African-American, was being promoted as George Washington’s nanny, but the […]
The Harry Yount Enigma: Yellowstone’s First Park Ranger
Buried among the sublime passes of the Sierra Nevada are old men, who, when children, strayed away from our crowded settlements, and, gradually moving farther and farther from civilization, have […]
“There wasn’t any make-believe or made-up stuff:” the Western Work of James Bama
Don Schmalz was riding up Trout Creek. The year was 1973. The wind was coming straight out of the north and it was snowing. He was leading two hunters into […]
Charlie Russell’s Tough Year
1917 was a tough year for Charlie Russell. His good buddy, bullwhacker Johnny Matheson, was dying. Johnny ran the last horse-drawn freight line between Great Falls and Fort Benton. Charlie […]
