This man’s assassination on November 2, 1963, had a major impact on American foreign policy.
Posted inStories
Soapy Smith Was the Most Famous Con Man On the Frontier, But Was He Significant?
His legend is secure, though historians debate the slippery facts.
Posted inStories
William Haskell – Art of the West
Landscape artist William Haskell renders moody dry-brush watercolors in which he only hints at human figures.
Posted inUncategorized
Soapy Smith’s Showdown With the Vigilantes
The con man and scoundrel proved in Skagway, Alaska, he was not all bad before showing his usual nerve in a final fight with enemies—a fight whose details are only now coming to light
Posted inReview
Book Review: “That Fiend in Hell,” by Catherine Holder
Catherine Holder Spude unravels myth from man in her biography of turn-of-the-century Skagway, Alaska, crime boss Soapy Smith.
Posted inReview
Book Review: When Law Was in the Holster / The Frontier Life of Bob Paul
In this well-researched, lively biography John Boessenecker gives oft-overlooked Western lawman Bob Paul his due.
Posted inReview
Book Review: The Great American Railroad War / How Ambrose Bierce and Frank Norris Took on the Notorious Central Pacific Railroad
Dennis Drabelle’s Great American Railroad War looks at the war of words waged by 19th-century columnists against the capitalists behind construction of the transcontinental railroad.
Posted inReview
Book Review: The McLaurys in Tombstone / An O.K. Corral Obituary
Paul Lee Johnson delves into the background of the McLaury brothers, best known for dying at the hands of the Earps and Doc Holliday during that infamous 1881 Tombstone gunfight.
Posted inReview
Book Review: Lincoln County, New Mexico, Tells Its Stories, edited by Marilyn Burchett
Published by the Lincoln County Historical Society, this volume paints a fuller portrait of the denizens of a district primarily known for Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett and an infamous range war.
Posted inReview
DVD Review: Heaven’s Gate, by Criterion Collection
Michael Cimino’s plodding, sermonizing plot tests viewers’ patience at times, though his cinematography offers some redemption for this new cut of Heaven’s Gate.