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 […]
Ned Buntline and the Discovery of Buffalo Bill; or, how a Miscreant Created the First World Celebrity
One thing I’ve learned since coming to work at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is that every prominent American frontiersman is that way for a reason, and that […]
The Banditti of the Plains, or, the Triumph of the Nesters
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. […]
