On Friday, April 8, 1892, Ben Jones and Bill Walker rode down out of the Bighorn Mountains. They had been trapping for weeks. Ben Jones was a cook in cowboy […]
The Man Who Was Scalped
I was lucky enough to meet Gordon Barrows. He danced into my office one day. I’m not sure what the occasion was. It may have been to give the library […]
Tim McCoy and The Covered Wagon: the Birth of a Movie Star
When Tim McCoy was eight years old, his father took him to a showing of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Tim dated his desire to be a Westerner from that point. […]
The Pitchfork Ranch Antelope Caper
When Monte Skinner was seven years old, he was given the chore of catching baby antelope. Since I’ve been in Wyoming I’ve become used to hearing stories of children being […]
Who is Liver-Eating Johnson, and Why Are They Saying Those Terrible Things About Him?
Tri Robinson was in his second year as a schoolteacher. He had overcome a learning disability to get through college and now he was faced with a classroom full of […]
Hal Evarts’s Skunk Ranch
In 1903, when Hal Evarts was fifteen years old, he and a friend made camp on the Arkansas River. “Fur sign was plentiful,” he wrote, “and one afternoon we put […]