Spurred West

Ian Neligh

Description

“I can’t imagine a better guide to the Old West and the contemporary Wild West than Ian Neligh. This book is a hoot.” —C.J. Box, #1 New York Times Best Selling Author of LONG RANGE

A collection of true stories revealing the spellbinding world of the Old West’s greatest and most infamous characters past and present, including bullfighters, treasure seekers, bounty hunters, detectives, gunslingers, rustlers, even the legendary showman Buffalo Bill Cody, and many more.

Just how wild was the "Wild West"—and what’s left of it? A time of legend, adventure, and unspeakable tragedy, America’s Western frontier in the latter half of the nineteenth century helped forge the United States into the country it would become and left an enduring legacy for its people. By the author of Gold! Madness, Murder, and Mayhem in the Colorado Rockies, Spurred West reveals the unusual history behind Colorado’s birth and the cultural formation of the Wild West of the Rocky Mountains.

Written with historical accuracy and research in a compelling, gripping voice, this book examines Colorado’s state heritage while telling colorful stories of historic and modern-day figures, from the bondsmen and gunslingers of old to the buffalo wranglers today. Discover the incredible stories of America’s Wild West and the lasting spirit it has emboldened to carry in Colorado still to this day.

Includes stories based in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming and of interest to anyone who loves the West.

Introduction
Chapter One: Forging the Wild West
Chapter Two: The Bullfighter
Chapter Three: Shootists of the Old (and New) West
Chapter Four: The March Powwow
Chapter Five: Cattle, Blood, and Thunder
Chapter Six: The Man Hunter
Chapter Seven: The Tale of Two Bounty Hunters
Chapter Eight: Weather, the “Irresistible Violence”
Chapter Nine: The U.S. Marshals and Frontier Justice
Chapter Ten: The Greatest Lawman of the West
Chapter Eleven: The Last Gunfight
Chapter Twelve: Guns of the West
Chapter Thirteen: Call of the Wolves
Chapter Fourteen: Bare-Knuckle Boxing
Chapter Fifteen: Reenacting the West
Chapter Sixteen: The Treasure Hunters
Chapter Seventeen: Buffalo Bill’s Body
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Bibliography

Sujets

• Histoire
• Spanish gold
• Bill Cody
• Viejo oeste
• Anasazi
• Tiroteo en el O.K. Corral
• Wild Bill Hickock
• Gerónimo
• Etta Place
• Pearl Hart
• Westworld
• History of Colorado
• Harry Longabaugh
• Rockies
• State
• American Old West
• Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
• Rocky Mountains
• New Mexico
• Ancient Pueblo Peoples
• John Marston
• Red Dead Redemption
• Seth Bullock
• Sundance Kid
• Fusillade d'O.K. Corral
• United States
• Butch Cassidy
• West
• History
• Doc Holliday
• Wyatt Earp
• Local
• Wild Bill Hickok
• Deadwood
• Billy the Kid
• Davy Crockett
• Calamity Jane
• Anasazis
• Annie Oakley
• Jesse James
• Geronimo
• Mondwest
• Buffalo Bill
• Montagnes Rocheuses
• Nouveau-Mexique
• Wyoming
• Montana
• Kansas
• Arizona

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513262444
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Praise for Gold!

Gold isn t just a mineral or a way to get rich-for some Coloradans, it s an obsession. That s the premise of Ian Neligh s new book Gold! Madness, Murder and Mayhem in the Colorado Rockies , which tells the story of the gold rush and follows that vein all the way through today s prospectors. Written in a compelling journalistic style (Neligh edits the Clear Creek Courant in Idaho Springs), each chapter is devoted to a different fascinating gold hunter, alternating between the Wild West of the 1800s and the colorful characters who make up today s Colorado prospecting community. - Colorado Life magazine
Ian Neligh recounts the story of the Colorado gold rush, bringing it forward to contemporary times, melding the old and the new. He tells about the men who still moil for gold in the Colorado Rockies. - Denver Post
Journalist Ian Neligh traveled Colorado to learn more about the history and the present-day reality of gold mining. During his research, he uncovered a centuries-long story of obsession that often included murder, gun fights, deadly accidents, overnight fortunes and even cannibalism. Neligh is a practiced writer whose style mixes history and modern realities seamlessly. If you are a history buff or just enjoy a good true story, this book is for you. - Colorado Country Life
SPURRED WEST
ROGUES, TREASURE SEEKERS, BOUNTY HUNTERS COLORFUL CHARACTERS PAST AND PRESENT
IAN NELIGH
Text 2019 by Ian Paul Neligh
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.
Names: Neligh, Ian Paul, author.
Title: Spurred West : rogues, treasure seekers, bounty hunters, and colorful characters past and present / by Ian Neligh.
Description: [Berkeley] : West Margin Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: A collection of stories and interviews of the events and characters who contributed to the formation of the Wild West, with regional focus on the Colorado Rockies --Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019022662 (print) | LCCN 2019022663 (ebook) | ISBN 9781513262420 (paperback) | ISBN 9781513262437 (hardback) | ISBN 9781513262444 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Frontier and pioneer life--West (U.S.) | Brigands and robbers--West (U.S.) | Indians of North America--West (U.S.) | West (U.S.)--History. | Rocky Mountains--History.
Classification: LCC F591 .N415 2019 (print) | LCC F591 (ebook) | DDC 978--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022662
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022663
Printed in USA
Proudly distributed by Ingram Publisher Services
Published by West Margin Press

WestMarginPress.com
WEST MARGIN PRESS
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Marketing Manager: Angela Zbornik
Editor: Olivia Ngai
Design Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Design Intern: Michelle Montano
Contents
Introduction
CHAPTER 1: Forging the Wild West
CHAPTER 2: The Bullfighter
CHAPTER 3: Shootists of the Old (and New) West
CHAPTER 4: The March Powwow
CHAPTER 5: Cattle, Blood, and Thunder
CHAPTER 6: The Man Hunter
CHAPTER 7: The Tale of Two Bounty Hunters
CHAPTER 8: Weather, the Irresistible Violence
CHAPTER 9: U.S. Marshals and Frontier Justice
CHAPTER 10: The Greatest Lawman of the West
CHAPTER 11: The Last Gunfight
CHAPTER 12: Guns of the West
CHAPTER 13: Call of the Wolves
CHAPTER 14: Bare-Knuckle Boxing
CHAPTER 15: Reenacting the West
CHAPTER 16: The Treasure Hunters
CHAPTER 17: Buffalo Bill s Body
Epilogue
Bibliography
For Dave, Many thanks
Introduction
I t was an old gas station somewhere between Cody and Casper, Wyoming, filled with things that had sharp teeth. Through the distorted lens of childhood memory I recall it being dimly lit inside, packed full of taxidermied rattlesnakes, coyotes, and other predators pried from the dark corners of the West. Shelf after shelf contained some new and wondrous curiosity: snakeskin boots with fanged rattlesnake heads still attached, scorpions on cowboy hat bands, snarling dead animals-the store felt wild.
Driving through Wyoming from Colorado to Yellowstone National Park was a regular pilgrimage for my family, and the strange little store in the middle of nowhere was a guaranteed stop along the way. From the walls hung stuffed heads of the incomprehensibly strange Jackalope, that enduring Western myth (and joke) about a jackrabbit with horns. The store also had giant containers of water, beef stew, coffee, crackers, and a massive barrel full of pickled eggs-everything necessary for a day of rugged adventure in the wilderness. I don t know if I ever saw the store s owner, but if I did he must have been a bear of a man, with a thick beard, a booming laugh, and maybe a hint of something menacing in his eyes; the kind of man who would cheerfully resort to cannibalism rather than go on a vegan diet.
One year, for no discernible reason, we stopped visiting the strange little store in the middle of the Wyoming shortgrass prairie. But that didn t keep my imagination from traveling down those dim aisles packed with their monstrous cargo. The massive knives with bone handles behind the counter, jackets constructed of fur and bear claws; all these things only grew in my imagination with each passing year until I didn t know if it had been real or not. To me, it was a piece of the Wild West.
It wasn t until I was an adult returning on a trip home one year that I remembered to ask about the store, realizing with a start that it had once existed outside of my childhood fantasy. It was then my parents told me it had mysteriously burned to the ground many years ago and no longer existed. But it did remain firmly in my memories, and it became wilder with each passing year.
As a journalist working in the Rockies, I d often seen the relics of the Old West, that time between the end of the Civil War and the late nineteenth century. Ghost towns, abandoned gold mines, and derelict forts still haunt the lonely places between the valleys and mountain passes. I ve known people who discovered old six-shooters while out panning for gold, or a stash of vintage weapons hidden in a cave behind their house.
The Old West had a specific time and geographic location, and its remnants litter the landscape today like memorials to a time gone but not forgotten. The Wild West , on the other hand, was part real and part imaginary. It was where steely-eyed gunslingers traveled from town to town, bandits robbed stagecoaches, and cowboys rescued damsels in distress. It was a world created by those who hungered for tales of adventure, and by authors who were happy to provide them to their audiences. Some of it was real, but much was exaggerated. The real West was filled with farmers, ranchers, and miners, people whose lives were grown from the soil, scraped from the rock and pulled down from the mountains. Those stories were smaller and more difficult, and Americans didn t want those stories. They wanted heroes and villains.
Dime novels made legends of real-life characters like Wild Bill Hickok and Billy the Kid. Some even straddled the shifting line between the two Wests, like William Buffalo Bill Cody, who did his best to educate the world on his version of the real West while further perpetuating the myth of the other. As the gun smoke and dust eventually settled over the era, the Wild West lived on in books, movies, and the limitless borderlands of our thoughts. Time replaced the Old West with the new, but I wanted to know how much was real and what was still left, if there were still traces of the original hiding in the corners of the vanished frontier beyond just imagination. I spent a year searching for the answer, interviewing gunslingers, bounty hunters, bare-knuckle boxers, treasure hunters, brand inspectors, and more to compare them to their historic counterparts. I found the spirit of the Wild West lives on much as it did over a hundred years ago, but sometimes it evolved into something new. It is still wild, dangerous, and unpredictable. And sometimes, every once in a while, it has sharp teeth.
CHAPTER 1
FORGING THE WILD WEST
I t was pandemonium. Thousands of people began to pour into the City of Rochester, New York, on the morning of August 12, 1895. The staggering influx of passengers took the railway companies by surprise; it was the most business they d seen in years. Families entered the city by the wagonload, and before nine in the morning the streets were filled to brimming.
Town leaders tried to anticipate the crowds and prepare Rochester s own trolley car system, but it utterly failed. It was soon discovered the passenger cars couldn t meet the staggering demand. By all accounts, the city s new arrivals were all heading in the same direction. Their destination was one of the city s parks where a stadium was constructed the day before.
Forty thousand people passed through the canvas entrance; and at both performances it was necessary to close the gates and deny admission to several thousand people for the good and sufficient reason that there was absolutely no place to put them without inconveniencing the many thousands who had obtained seats, said one reporter witnessing the spectacle.
The anticipation from those lucky enough to secure a seat in the stadium must have been unbelievable. What they were about to see was famous on both sides of the Atlantic and had amazed audiences since 1883. A massive spotlight shone in the arena, and night becam