American History

While reading the news today, I discovered that the current governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, is considering pardoning Billy the Kid for killing a sheriff. Richardson only has until Friday to decide because that is when his term will end.

The first part of the new series about mining towns in the Rocky Mountains will begin with Bannack, Montana. Nothing, but a ghost town now, Bannack was the site of a major gold discovery in 1862. The town was founded the same year as a result of the discovery and is named after the local … more »

I read something really interesting in the news today that I thought I would share here. According to the British newspaper, Telegraph, the First World War is finally coming to an end today. This past weekend, Germany made it’s final payment for the war and thereby finally cleared the debt given to Germany by the … more »

This is a very interesting video about a mining town called Dawson City. The film itself is historic as it was created in the 1950s it appears. I found the video through a post on Soapy Smith’s Soap Box.

One of my biggest fascinations with the Old West is with what life in a Rocky Mountain mining town in nineteenth century would have been like. It would have been a life full of filth, rough characters and hard work combined with drinking, fighting and gambling as pastimes. Of course these are stereotypes of any … more »

I have a new featured book for you this week. This one is an American classic called Roughing It by Mark Twain. It is one of Mark Twain’s travel books which made him famous as an author. In this book he writes about his travels throughout the Old American West, his adventures with mining, newspaper … more »

The Johnson County War has gone down in history as one of many Wild West legends about range wars. Some accounts claim various famous gun slingers like Jesse James were involved, however, this was certainly not the case. The real range war occurred in April 1892 and was the result of tensions, brewing between small … more »

The semester is finally over for me. I had my last final and had to turn in my last paper yesterday. The paper was an interesting paper, however, because it involved the history of the Wyoming Territorial Prison Museum. It wasn’t about this history of the prison itself, but rather of the site as a … more »

Last Friday I gave a talk about the Battle of the Washita to a group of undergraduate students and because of that I thought I would create a post here about this particularly interesting battle. The Battle of the Washita was a battle that took place in the morning of November 27, 1868. The Seventh … more »

Another blog I regularly follow pointed me in the direction of a very interesting article written by General William T. Sherman about his ‘Grand Strategy’ of the Civil War. It’s interesting to read Sherman’s take on it about two decades after it actually took place. I know this post is a bit short, but unfortunately … more »