After his service in the American Civil War (published in Big Byte Book's "Echoes of the Civil War as I Hear Them"), Michael Hendrick Fitch became a pioneer rancher in Colorado. He remained a prolific writer and lecturer for the rest of his life.This account of early ranching in Colorado is for all who are interested in Westward Expansion, the wild west, and a well-told anecdote of any kind. Fitch writes on a wide variety of topics including Colorado pioneers, ranching, the Civil War and its leaders, the sixth sense, and astronomy.Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the movement that changed the country forever.
Excerpt from Ranch Life: And Other Sketches Cherry Creek to Franktown (named after Frank M. Gardner, the owner), over the divide about four miles east of Palmer Lake and thence into old Colorado City, thence down the Fountain river to Pueblo. The American's destination was the ranch on the little Fountain, known formerly as the Geiser ranch, three and one-half miles west of the present town of Fountain City. This latter place was then known as Terrellville, there being merely a house and a grout store building. Amos Terrell was the pioneer living in the house. In going from Terrellville to the Geiser ranch the road led over a bluff and high mesa then dropped down into the valley of the Little Fountain. Here a wide bottom very level and in the midst of it the ranch house, stables, corrals and a large meadow of natural blue stem grass greeted the eye. This meadow produced a great quantity of fine hay - perhaps a hundred tons - each season. Outside the meadow was merely dry prairie. Harvey Ring managed the ranch. He lived roy ally, drove a fine team of white trotters and en tertained like a true Colorado ranchman. The American came here as his guest until he could locate his family which was then in the East. Staying there two or three weeks he finally lo cated on a ranch on the Arkansas River three miles west of Pueblo. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Howard Seely's books about Texas ranch life read as well today as they did when first published in the 19th century. Though not a Texan, Seely spent a lot of time there and captures the language and culture of the place with remarkable fidelity. The New York Times wrote of him: “Mr. Seely is not native to Texas, at least not to a Texas ranch. He is college-bred [Yale] and through his writings runs constant evidence of his Eastern culture. But he has deep sympathy with ranch life, and this sympathy the reader feels to be something more than the sympathy that is natural to a studious observer of manners and customs. Beneath the outer aspects of men as trained to the saddle and armed with ‘shooting irons,’ he sees the human nature that dominates and inspires every incident of daily life.” Seely's fiction was popular in its day and is now available for a new audience in ebook format. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.
The History of the American West Collection is a unique project that provides opportunities for researchers and new readers to easily access and explore works which have previously only been available on library shelves. The Collection brings to life pr.
One of the most fascinating classics ever written about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Dr. Thomas Marquis spent many years getting to know and interviewing Native Americans who had fought against General Custer and the 7th Cavalry. This is the narrative of Chief Wooden Leg, given to Marquis late in Wooden Leg's life. Long dismissed by historians, Little Bighorn scholars today believe the Indian accounts to be essential to an understanding of what went wrong at the Little Bighorn (and what went right for the Sioux and Cheyenne). Archaeology at the battlefield has born out the veracity of the Indian accounts and the contribution to history by Wooden Leg and Marquis is invaluable. Included is a great deal of information about the life of the Cheyenne of Wooden Leg's time, his boyhood, his understanding of Indian medicine, a very detailed account of the June 25-26, 1876 battle with Custer, and more. This is a book you'll read more than once. Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the movement that changed the country forever. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.
A brilliant, boundary-leaping debut novel tracing twelve-year-old genius map maker T.S. Spivet's attempts to understand the ways of the world When twelve-year-old genius cartographer T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian announcing he has won the prestigious Baird Award, life as normal-if you consider mapping family dinner table conversation normal-is interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins, taking T.S. from his family ranch just north of Divide, Montana, to the museum's hallowed halls. T.S. sets out alone, leaving before dawn with a plan to hop a freight train and hobo east. Once aboard, his adventures step into high gear and he meticulously maps, charts, and illustrates his exploits, documenting mythical wormholes in the Midwest, the urban phenomenon of "rims," and the pleasures of McDonald's, among other things. We come to see the world through T.S.'s eyes and in his thorough investigation of the outside world he also reveals himself. As he travels away from the ranch and his family we learn how the journey also brings him closer to home. A secret family history found within his luggage tells the story of T.S.'s ancestors and their long-ago passage west, offering profound insight into the family he left behind and his role within it. As T.S. reads he discovers the sometimes shadowy boundary between fact and fiction and realizes that, for all his analytical rigor, the world around him is a mystery. All that he has learned is tested when he arrives at the capital to claim his prize and is welcomed into science's inner circle. For all its shine, fame seems more highly valued than ideas in this new world and friends are hard to find. T.S.'s trip begins at the Copper Top Ranch and the last known place he stands is Washington, D.C., but his journey's movement is far harder to track: How do you map the delicate lessons learned about family and self? How do you depict how it feels to first venture out on your own? Is there a definitive way to communicate the ebbs and tides of heartbreak, loss, loneliness, love? These are the questions that strike at the core of this very special debut. Now a major motion picture directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Kyle Catlett and Helena Bonham Carter.
