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Author: Ramon Frederick Adams
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Published: 1998-02-25
Total Pages: 848
ISBN-13: 9780486400358
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthoritative guide to everything in print about lawmen and the lawless—from Billy the Kid to the painted ladies of frontier cow towns. Nearly 2,500 entries, taken from newspapers, court records, and more.
Author: Robert M. Coates
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 1986-01-01
Total Pages: 702
ISBN-13: 9780803263185
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Natchez Trace is remarkable in American history for the legends and tales surrounding it. During the first half of the nineteenth century, travelers--traders, settlers, andøthe occasional war party or fugitive from justice--followed its course from the Appalachians to the lower Mississippi, from Knoxville to Natchez. In this vibrant and energetic account, the author has mined both history and legend for startling tales of the near-mythical thieves, cutthroats, and confidence men once reported to have stalked their unsuspecting victims along this frontier trail--the terrible Harpe brothers, who came to a satisfactorily bad end; Samuel Mason, a thief done in by other thieves; and John Murrell, whose reputed schemes threw the South into a paroxysm of fear. Robert M. Coates retells the stories of these and other "land pirates" in chilling and ominous detail, preserving for us the tales once whispered on the edges of the dark southern woods nearly two centuries ago.
Author: Robert K. DeArment
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2012-11-27
Total Pages: 363
ISBN-13: 0806182652
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThink gunfighter, and Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid may come to mind, but what of Jim Moon? Joel Fowler? Zack Light? A host of other figures helped forge the gunfighter persona, but their stories have been lost to time. In a sequel to his Deadly Dozen, celebrated western historian Robert K. DeArment now offers more biographical portraits of lesser-known gunfighters—men who perhaps weren’t glorified in legend or song, but who were rightfully notorious in their day. DeArment has tracked down stories of gunmen from throughout the West—characters you won’t find in any of today’s western history encyclopedias but whose careers are colorfully described here. Photos of the men and telling quotations from primary sources make these characters come alive. In giving these men their due, DeArment takes readers back to the gunfighter culture spawned in part by the upheavals of the Civil War, to a time when deadly duels were part of the social fabric of frontier towns and the Code of the West was real. His vignettes offer telling insights into conditions on the frontier that created the gunfighters of legend. These overlooked shooters never won national headlines but made their own contributions to the blood and thunder of the Old West: people less than legends, but all the more fascinating because they were real. Readers who enjoyed DeArment’s Deadly Dozen will find this book equally captivating—as gripping as a showdown, twelve times over.
Author: Carlo Gaberscek
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 323
ISBN-13: 1312625023
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn Search of Western Movie Sites is a compilation of 64 articles written for the bi-monthly newsletter Western Clippings by Carlo Gaberscek and Kenny Stier. They are profoundly convinced of the fundamental importance of landscapes and natural exteriors in westerns. These articles are listed regionally, starting with the Southwestern states (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada), progressing to California, the Northwest, Midwest, and Southern states, followed by Canada, and finishing with Mexico. They focus on the making of both A and B-westerns in a single state or a specific area of a state, and contain selected filmographies and detailed information on the locations. They envision a vast atlas of western cinema, a map of both real and imagined places constructed by Hollywood. This book, which includes over 200 stills and photos taken on location, is a guide to thousands of western film locations.
Author: Bill O'Neal
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 1979
Total Pages: 404
ISBN-13: 9780806123356
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSifting factual information from among the lies, legends, and tall tales, the lives and battles of gunfighters on both sides of the law are presented in a who's who of the violent West
Author: Harry Sinclair Drago
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 1998-01-01
Total Pages: 364
ISBN-13: 9780803266124
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOutlaws on Horseback concentrates on the long, unbroken chain of crime that began in the late 1850s with the Missouri-Kansas border warfare and ended in Arkansas in 1921 with the killing of Henry Starr, the last of the authentic desperadoes. Harry Sinclair Drago shows links among the men and women who terrorized the Midwest while he squelches the most outlandish tales about them. The guerrilla warfare led by the evil William Quantrill was training for Frank and Jesse James and Cole and Jim Younger. Drago puts their bloody careers in perspective and tracks down the truth about Belle Starr the Bandit Queen, Cherokee Bill, Rose of the Cimarron, and the gangs, including the Daltons and Doolins, that infested the Oklahoma hills. The action moves from the sacking of Lawrence to the raid on Northfield to the shootout at Coffeyville.
Author: Ramon Frederick Adams
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 628
ISBN-13: 9780806121703
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"This immense book, by a noted bibliographer of the West, is beyond question the fairest, most complete and most learned evaluation of printed references to western outlaws to appear until now....It will stand for many years, solid as a rock amid the flooding maelstrom of western myth and legend, pointing up the truth about those men of the past who lived by their wits and their guns. It will be impossible for anyone studying that era and such men to do so without reference to this volume."—Los Angeles Times "Adams turns again to the books and histories of the western gunmen and outlaws and critically examines 425 titles, most of which rate as ’burs’ under his saddle. Ramon Adams’ plea is that the writers must stop compounding each other’s errors into legend. In this book, with great skill and without malice, he has pointed out past mistakes. His book should be in the essential baggage of every writer on western outlaws and on every library shelf."—American West "The value of this book to writers and historians of the badman tradition cannot be overestimated, for Adams has replaced rumors, myths, and falsehoods with documented historical facts. It is a book for all conscientious students of and writers on the American West; henceforth, any writer of ’authentic Western history’ who refuses to check with Adams should be, as the judge said to Billy the Kid in one legend, 'hanged by the neck until dead, dead, dead.'"—Southwest Review
Author: Roy Bird
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Published: 2011-07-15
Total Pages: 276
ISBN-13: 1596529962
DOWNLOAD EBOOKYears of painstaking research have uncovered more detail on Thomas Ward Custer, the younger brother of the legendary General George Custer. Historians are now coming to understand the full influence of Tom Custer on his brother and American life, from his heroic exploits during the Civil War to his legendary bravery during the Indian Wars, where he served under his brother as his aide-de-camp. Had Tom not been overshadowed by his more famous brother, he might well have become one of the more notable characters and military officers of the American West. Despite winning two Congressional Medals of Honor, his legendary feud with Rain-in-the-Face, the shooting scrape with “Wild Bill” Hickok, and many other fearsome exploits, Tom has taken a backseat to George in the American imagination. Only recently has his influence on the history of the United States become fully understood and appreciated by scholars. Author Roy Bird takes us inside the circle of Tom and Autie, whose close-knit relationship and intense rivalry in hunting, military skills, business, and even romance would span from their boyhood farm in Ohio to their heroic end at the Battle of Little Bighorn, where they were, as always, together. Bird’s The Better Brother is not only the story of two brothers whose incredible talents and healthy rivalry drove each other to greatness, but also a story at the center of American history.
Author: Rod Cook
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2003-10
Total Pages: 122
ISBN-13: 0595294073
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is the true story of George and Maggie Wood, a young couple who in 1880, in a fledgling cowtown that sprang up from the dust of the old Chisholm Trail, built the "largest dance house in Kansas". [read that -- cat house.] In a formidable two-month trek through the dusty plains of Texas and the "Indian Nations," brash young cowboys drove the longhorns to the railhead at the Kansas state line. There they emerged at Caldwell, Kansas; primed for celebration in that wide-open cowtown fondly known to them as "The Queen of the Border." Wild, wooly and dangerous, in its futile effort to hold a lid on the cowboys' rampant and often times violent revelry, the town ran through 15 marshals in the six year period of the cattle drives between 1879 and 1885. Continuously besieged by murder and depravation, the town was locked in a love-hate alliance with the many dens that catered to the roughshod instincts of the hell-raising cowboys. Festering at the heart of this perpetual bedlam was the number-one attraction of the Border Queen; George and Maggie's Red Light Saloon, the wellspring of murder and violence; and the epitome of debauchery and just plain nasty wickedness.
Author: Kevin G. W. Olson
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2015-11-06
Total Pages: 284
ISBN-13: 0700621407
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen Isaac Goodnow and five fellow New Englanders arrived at the junction of the Kansas and Big Blue rivers in March of 1855, they pitched a tent and launched a town. Harassment and homesickness almost drove them back east, but they held their ground to establish an anti-slavery and educational stronghold: the town of Manhattan, Kansas. Kevin Olson's lively history of Manhattan's founding illuminates the divisive forces that had to be overcome amidst the turbulence of the Civil War era and the sheer drama of building a town from scratch on the Great Plains frontier. With an eye for vivid detail and reflecting a native's deep knowledge of the city, Olson chronicles the first four decades of Manhattan as it grew from tent to town. Although spared much of the Bleeding Kansas violence, Manhattan saw its share of shootouts and lynchings in its Wild West days. Olson evocatively recaptures those rough-and-tumble times and effectively describes the town's key social and economic transformations. He also highlights the emergence of a college town and "New England village" by 1866, followed by Manhattan's growth and modernization in the 1890s. Drawing on town records as well as the personal papers of boosters, Olson mirrors the history of Kansas through the lens of this one community by interweaving ecology, relations with Native Americans, agriculture, literature, architecture, social mores, politics, economic issues, and university origins to recreate a vibrant cross-section of town life. His account of Kansa Indian settlement Blue Earth Village shines a light on a prehistory that until now has been little covered; his retelling of the emigration of the New England settlers recalls one of the most compelling stories of the antebellum era; and his coverage of the 1860s surpasses that of most previous histories. Written for general readers while boasting an impressive depth of scholarship, Frontier Manhattan takes us on a journey into the past to shop at Higginbotham and Purcell's or enjoy a stay at the Manhattan House hotel with jovial mayor Andrew Mead. With its strong sense of place and personality, Olson's book is as engaging as it is informative in celebrating the origins and early life of this quintessential Kansas city.
