Old West History

The cowboy is an iconic figure in American culture. With his hat, boots, and trusty horse, the cowboy rides in at a moment of crisis to intervene against the forces of evil. In the 20th century, the cowboy of the Wild West took center stage in the realm of popular literature.

This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West's most egregiously badly behaved female outlaws, gamblers, soiled doves, and other wicked women offers a glimpse into the Western women's experience that's less sunbonnets and more six-shooters. During the late 1800s, while men were settling the new frontier and rushing off to the latest boomtowns, women of easy virtue found wicked lives west of the Mississippi when they followed fortune hunters seeking gold and land in an unsettled territory.

Western writer Alton Pryor has brought forth a collection of important moments in history. These vignettes present a virtual digest of historical happenings that are fun and educational as well. Listeners will learn about the poignant story of the Seven Little Indians. When a tribe stole a band of horses, Indian fighters killed the Indians that stole them. In doing so, they found seven little Indian babies on their hands.

The task for those in charge of professionalizing the military in the first half of the nineteenth century and transforming it from a militia-led army to a highly disciplined standing army was a difficult job. Americans had long supported a tradition of militia and distrusted professional soldiers.

Belle Gunness and the Bender’s were a different breed of criminal, more deadly, and harder to detect. While bank and train robbers rarely harmed their victims, Belle Gunness and the Bender’s took a gruesome pleasure in killing their victims before they robbed them. The Banditti of the Prairie was a loose-knit band of thieves that came together during the 1830s and 1840s. Their field of operations covered a multi-state area, including Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, and Arkansas.

Discover the remarkable life of Buffalo Bill... Buffalo Bill was one part renegade, one part folk hero, and all parts showman. He was a phenomenon back in his heyday, and his legend looms large even now. From his days making deliveries for the Pony Express to his time serving in the American Civil War and on into his run as a scout on the Western frontier, Buffalo Bill was a force to be reckoned with. Yet it was his shows that captivated audiences with thrilling tales of the Wild West that made him one of the first true American celebrities and cemented his status as a legend.

The Old West has had a powerful impact on the concept of gentlemanly masculinity among Americans. For those traditionalists among you, this audiobook is filled with authentic designs, facts, weapons, and tales from the mid-1800s to the turn of the century and slightly beyond. Here are some of the roots of the most popular holsters, fashions, weapons, cartridges, and myths preferred by collectors, reenactors, and cowboy action enthusiasts.

For over 150 years the image of western bad men has thrilled readers and filled movie screens. Who hasn't heard of Jesse James, the Dalton Brothers, Black Bart, or Belle Starr? They are as much a part of American folklore as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. There's something about the west that has brought out the best, and the worst, in mankind. The funny thing is, a cult following has developed around many of these bandits, making them out to be something they weren't.

Bass Reeves was a man who forged his own destiny and wrote his own life story as he went along. Born into slavery, Reeves rose above all challenges to become one of the most legendary lawmen of the American West. As a deputy US marshal, he held himself to a personal code of conduct that went beyond the badge he wore. For Bass, the line between right and wrong was clear, and he never hesitated to enforce the law—even when it meant pursuing his own friends or family. Justice wasn’t just his duty; it was his calling.

Among the legendary heroes and outlaws of the Wild West, few names echo louder than that of Wild Bill Hickok. Wild Bill wasn’t just a name whispered in saloons or shouted on the stage of Buffalo Bill’s world-famous Wild West shows. Long before he stepped onto any stage, Wild Bill had carved his path in blood, sweat, and gunpowder. He was a Civil War scout who could read the vast plains like a map, a fearless marshal who faced down lawlessness, and a frontier sheriff whose very name sent ripples through the towns he protected.

The American cowboy came into the west to begin after a bloody civil war had ended. He worked long hours in lonely cow camps and his pay was meager, but he had grit and determination. He faced constant danger; he fought Indians and rustlers and braved swollen rivers and stampedes. And, finally, when the days of the open range were over, he rode off into the sunset. But his legacy lives on.

Billy the Kid once said that he killed 22 men - one for each year that he lived. While it’s more likely that he only killed eight or nine, this young outlaw was clearly deadly. But his brief and brutal life reveals how his tragic existence led him into a life of crime. After growing up in poverty as an Irish immigrant in New York City and losing his father at a young age, Billy the Kid had to endure losing his mother when he was only 15.

"The entire cowboy-outlaw era, which reached its climax in 1897 and ended around 1905, comes vividly alive in this kaleidoscopic work ... countless other instances of robbing, stealing and retribution, are woven splendidly into this rousing saga of the closing years of the outlaw epoch of the...

From Hispanic author Hailey Alcaraz, this historical tale of arson, sleuthing, and finding friendship in unlikely places is based on the real Hotel Adams fire of 1910. It's up to two Latina girls to turn their knack for being overlooked and underestimated into their greatest strength as they...

"No women need apply." These four discouraging words of admonition often greeted female physicians looking for jobs in the frontier-era West. Despite the dire need for medical help, it seemed most trappers, miners, and emigrants would rather suffer and die than be treated by a female doctor. Nevertheless dozens of highly trained women headed West, where they endured hardship and prejudice as they set broken limbs, performed operations, delivered generations of babies - and solidified a place for women in the medical field.

A dramatic new look at Custer's Last Stand in time for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, by the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Heart of Everything That Is. On June 25–27, 1876, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand...

In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led a US Army expedition into the Black Hills of South Dakota, which was at that time under the control of the Lakota people. To the expedition members, this was unknown territory on the leading edge of the American frontier. The purpose of the expedition was not only to find a possible location for a fort and a route through the Black Hills to the Southwest but also to investigate rumors of gold deposits. Custer’s cavalry and infantry were accompanied by specialist miners and geologists whose role was to search for that gold.

Thomas Horn Jr. was an infamous figure in the 19th-century American Old West. Cowboy, soldier, government scout, translator, and gunman, Horn’s storied life has become an important part of western folklore. In 1902, he was convicted for murdering a 14-year-old boy after a run-in during a feud with a cattle rancher. The Life of Tom Horn is his life story in his own words, written from prison before he met his fate at the gallows the following year.

Within this audiobook, the listener will meet a 19-year-old Texas Ranger figuratively dying to shoot his gun. He does get to shoot at people, but soon realizes what he thought was a bargain, exacted a steep price. Another tale is of an old-school cowman who shut down illicit traffic in stolen livestock that had existed for years on the Llano Estacado. He was tough, salty, and had no quarter for cow thieves, or sympathy for any mealy-mouthed politicians. He cleaned house, maybe not too nicely, but he was unarguably successful.

Popular culture has taught us to picture the Old West as a land of men, whether it's the lone hero on horseback or crowds of card players in a rough-and-tumble saloon. But the taming of the frontier involved plenty of women, too - and this book tells their stories. At first, female pioneers were indeed rare - when the town of Denver was founded in 1859, there were only five women among a population of almost a thousand. But the adventurers arrived, slowly but surely.