Remembering Crazy Horse
The history of the American West is, in many respects, a history of conquest, as American settlers in the 1800’s migrated west into the lands of various Native-American tribes. Following the...
Remembering William Clark
Last month we posted a story about Meriwether Lewis, the famed explorer who co-led the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-06. The other leader of that expedition was William Clark, who died on this...
The California Gold Rush: The 175th Anniversary Of The “49’ers,” And California’s First Constitutional Convention, September 1849
The story of the American West is a story of emigration—hundreds of thousands of pioneers heading West, originally to areas west of the Mississippi River, and later to areas west of the Rockies,...
Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Meriwether Lewis
Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Lewis In the history of the American West (by which I mean west of the Mississippi), two events arguably were the starting point for the western...
Remembering Annie Oakley
On this day in 1860, folk heroine Annie Oakley was born in a log cabin in Illinois. By age 8 she was demonstrating her extraordinary sharp-shooting skills, and at age 15 she began a long career as...
Remembering Wild Bill
Yesterday we commemorated the death of Calamity Jane, the colorful “partner” of Wild Bill Hickok, who died on August 1, 1903. Today, we commemorate the death of Wild Bill himself, who died...
Remembering Calamity Jane
On this day in 1903, one of the most famous female characters in the history of the American West died in South Dakota at the young age of 51. “Calamity Jane” was born Martha Jane Canary in 1852....
Remembering Samuel Colt: Inventor, Industrialist, and Architect of the Revolver Era
Samuel Colt, born on this day, July 19, 1814, in Hartford, Connecticut, was a visionary inventor and industrialist whose name became synonymous with the revolver—a repeating firearm that forever...
Remembering Billy the Kid
The legend of few characters of the old west has endured more than Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, and better known as Billy the Kid. He was an...
Remembering The Battle of Little Bighorn and Custer’s Last Stand
149 years ago today was a day of disaster: it was the day that General George Armstrong Custer and his troops were annihilated by Native-American armed forces led by Chief Sitting Bull, Crazy...