The American West
Wyoming History: Wild Bunch Outlaw Tom O’Day Traded His Colt To Pay A Debt
The Fort Caspar Museum has a Colt single-action Army pistol said to have belonged to Wild Bunch outlaw Tom O’Day. He gave it to his attorney as payment for defending him in a 1904 trial.
Dale KillingbeckMarch 29, 2025
The American West: The Great Plains Inspired Mari Sandoz and Willa Cather
Two of the West’s best-known writers, Mari Sandoz and Willa Cather, found inspiration in the landscapes of Nebraska. In both cases the literature and the landscape endure. Cather called the harsh land "the happiness and the curse of my life."
Candy MoultonMarch 29, 2025
The American West: Rattlesnake Kate Started Killing Snakes To Protect Her Baby
The legendary homesteader "Rattlesnake Kate" was a mama first. She slaughtered 140 rattlesnakes that dared surround her 3-year-old son while the pair were out on horseback, looking for waterfowl on the Colorado plains in 1925.
Linda WommackMarch 28, 2025
The American West: Actually, The First Woman To Vote Was In Utah
Wyoming’s role in winning the vote for women is well chronicled and documented in history, and rightly so. But the first woman to actually cast a ballot in an election is less well known, and often a surprise. She was not from Wyoming.
R.B. MillerMarch 27, 2025
The American West: Carving A Homestead In The Black Hills
Ira and Hattie Tillotson homesteaded a quarter section of land south of Hot Springs, Dakota Territory, near Cascade Springs, in 1883. The place is the oldest farm continuously owned by the same family in Fall River County, South Dakota.
Peggy SandersMarch 25, 2025
The American West: Annie Tallent, The First White Woman In The Black Hills
Annie Tallent was the first white woman to enter the Black Hills, Dakota Territory. She was a member of the Collins-Russell Expedition, also called the Gordon Party, which illegally traveled into the Black Hills in December 1874.
Peggy SandersMarch 24, 2025
The American West: Wyoming’s First Woman Senator Brought Back The Saloons
When Thermopolis pioneer, businesswoman and advocate Dora McGrath decided to run for the Wyoming senate in 1930 it was to give soldiers all the freedoms for which they risked their lives -- including the freedom to drink alcohol.
Jackie DorothyMarch 23, 2025
The American West: John Wesley Powell Explores The Green River in 1869
John Wesley Powell and his 1869 expedition pushed into the Green River on May 24, 1869, the first American explorers to challenge the mighty river across Colorado, Utah, and into the Grand Canyon.
Candy MoultonMarch 22, 2025
Wyoming History: Uranium Miner Was So Radioactive Grass Wouldn’t Grow On His Grave
Judd McDonald participated in an out-of-control nuclear bomb explosion to being an underground miner at a Nevada test site to blasting uranium out of a mine in Jeffrey City, Wyoming. He says he's the only one still alive who can tell the story of many who died way too young.
Dale KillingbeckMarch 22, 2025
The American West: Did The Wild Bunch, Rob The Bank In Winnemucca?
Three, maybe four, robbers entered the bank in Winnemucca, Nevada, in 1900, stole about $32,000, then made a daring escape, dodging bullets as they went. The most popular story is that Butch Cassidy pulled off the heist, assisted by the Sundance Kid and George “Flat Nose” Curry.
R.B. MillerMarch 21, 2025
The American West: Lieutenant Charles Wilkes and the United States Exploring Expedition
The mission of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 was to encircle the globe and to document the scientific findings revealed on the journey. Its greatest contribution to the story of America’s westward expansion, however, was the map entitled “Mouth of the Columbia River, Oregon Territory, 1841.”
James A. CrutchfieldMarch 20, 2025
The American West: Larger Than Life Cowboy Bob Fudge
Bob Fudge followed herds north from Texas to Montana many times, and eventually stayed on the northern plains with the XIT Ranch, which moved tens of thousands of cattle to grazing grounds in Montana.
R.B. MillerMarch 20, 2025
The American West: Doc Holiday - The Colorado Years
Despite earning a degree in dentistry at the age of 20 from Pennsylvania College, John Henry "Doc" Holliday is best known in history as gambler and a killer. Surprisingly, while in Colorado, he never killed anyone.
Linda WommackMarch 18, 2025
The American West: Seminoe Dune Murder - An Early Cold Case in Wyoming
Mysteries linger in the wide-open landscapes of Wyoming — cases of missing persons that have remained unsolved for decades. Evidence suggests the body found in the Seminoe dune field in 1996 is that of the only witness who saw the lynching of James Averell and Cattle Kate more than 100 years earlier.
Mark E. MillerMarch 17, 2025
The American West: Peg Leg Smith, Horse Thief
In 1840, Pegleg Smith stole some 1,200 mules and horses at the Mission of San Luis Obispo and eluded a posse in the Mojave Desert. It was as wild and wooly as any criminal enterprise in the history of the American West.
R.B. MillerMarch 16, 2025
The American West: Badger Clark And “The Cowboy’s Prayer”
Although his travels took him afar, Badger Clark always returned to the Black Hills. He licked tuberculosis then became a cowboy poet and author who wrote one of the most recognized poems in the West.
Peggy SandersMarch 16, 2025
The American West: Susan Magoffin on the Santa Fe Trail
Samuel Magoffin was an experienced trader who used the Santa Fe trail when he set off in June of 1846 with fourteen big wagons, each one pulled by six yoke of oxen. His young wife, on the other hand, had no clue what was in store for her on the trail.
March 15, 2025
The American West: The Arikara Campaign Of 1823
As fur trader William Ashley and his two boatloads of men and supplies neared the Arikara villages in 1823 he had no way of determining whether the Indians would be friendly or not.
James A. CrutchfieldMarch 14, 2025
The American West: Pegleg Smith, Mountain Man
Pegleg Smith reportedly trapped and traded among the Sioux and Osage Indians for a few years, then worked as a free trapper in New Mexico, but he lost his leg in Colorado and became a horse thief in California.
R.B. MillerMarch 12, 2025
The American West: The Manassa Mauler Jack Dempsey
From meager beginnings in southwest Colorado, Jack Dempsey fought literally for everything he had, including the world championship boxing title in 1919. It was a time when America needed a hero and Jack Dempsey delivered.
Linda WommackMarch 11, 2025
The American West: U.S. Presidents And The Alamo
The Alamo garrison celebrated George Washington’s birthday in San Antonio on the night of February 22, 1836. It was their last party. There are many other Alamo connections to the presidents.
William GronemanMarch 10, 2025
American West: The Kidnapped Doctor And Wounded Outlaw
In 1904, two masked men kidnapped a Thermopolis doctor to save the life of an outlaw at their remote ranch. The horse thief had been shot in a shoot-out with lawmen and his true identity remains a mystery to this day.
Jackie DorothyMarch 09, 2025
The American West: The Pleasant Valley War Erupts in Arizona
One of the most famous gunfights in the history of the Old West took less than one minute. It was only one battle in what would become known as the Pleasant Valley War.
James A. CrutchfieldMarch 08, 2025
The American West: Jedediah Smith Mountain Man Trailblazer
One of Jedediah Smith’s goals was to "be the first to view a country on which the eyes of a white man had never gazed and to follow the course of rivers that run through a new land." He would break trails to California, Oregon, and Washington.
March 07, 2025