The Idol Smasher
By Dale L. Walker
William Cowper Brann was a firebrand of a journalist, an iconoclast whose last dispatch took the form of hot lead, ushering his assailant to kingdom Come.He frothed and shrieked in the pages of a little weekly journal he launched in Texas and did it with such sustained brilliance and provocation that an irate reader shot him dead on a busy street in Waco on the evening of April Fools’ Day, 1898. Brann was born in Coles County in Southern Illinois on January 4, 1855, the son of a Presbyterian minister and farmer who named his son after an 18th-century English religious poet....more

Up the Great Dividing Line
By Alan Wilkinson
Our intrepid correspondents traverse the Lone Star State, and Oklahoma's Chisolm Trail. According to Tom Miller, Director of Texas A& M’s Environmental Science Center at old Fort McIntosh, some of those reputations are rooted in the original settlers’ response to a new land a century or more ago. “Think about it,” he said. “You’ve emigrated from Scotland or Sweden or maybe from Appalachia and you’re writing to the folks back home.” He waved an arm towards the bluffs bordering the river. “Compared with those places, how would you describe a land like this with no mountains, no tall trees, and all that sky? You’d probably tell them it was flat, maybe desolate too.”... .more

Travel: Texas and Oklahoma
By Jesse Mullins, Jr. -
North Texas is an experience in cowboy history and culture just awaiting the adventuresome road tripper. And a the Great American West lives on in Oklahoma, as anyone will discover on a trip such as starts right here. Ride along as we let the adventure unfold. According to Tom Miller, Director of Texas A& M’s Environmental Science Center at old Fort McIntosh, some of those reputations are rooted in the original settlers’ response to a new land a century or more ago. “Think about it,” he said. “You’ve emigrated from Scotland or Sweden or maybe from Appalachia and you’re writing to the folks back home.” He waved an arm towards the bluffs bordering the river. “Compared with those places, how would you describe a land like this with no mountains, no tall trees, and all that sky? You’d probably tell them it was flat, maybe desolate too....more

May/June

Entertainment Issue

TNT Takes Us
INTO THE WEST!
Into The West
By Paige McKenzie
It is not often enough that we get a chance to turn back that historical clock and ride back into that fascinating window of our collective American story—the unfolding of the West. So when Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks and Turner Network Television’s epic series Into the West airs on June 10, those of us who sometimes feel as though we were born 150 years too late will be glued to our television screens for 12 glorious but too-short hours. But take note: This is not a Western, as producer David Rosemont hastens to point out. “I really love the form, and that’s part of Americana. But this one is about five notches above [the typical Western]. I was able to tell a story about the history of the American West over a 70-year period...more

The Cowboy Life as Art
By Cathy Orr
The Cowboy is indeed a piece of work, and that work can be a work of art. To capture on canvas the life of a cowboy is no small task. His life is, simply put, so big. He lives primarily outdoors, so the painted images of his life are as varied and vast as the landscape on which he rides. But let’s be clear. Without the cowboy on it, a landscape is a totally different painting. Gone are the romance, the mythology, and the drama of lives led by real cowboys, dimensions that do not lend themselves to paint and brush easily. If it’s difficult to portray the realities of cowboy life in paint, it’s doubly hard to do it in words, so that what we tend to do with both a painting and the written word is fill in the blanks, and perhaps that’s where the romance lives on in our minds. No matter how the cowboy life comes to us, its authenticity startles the audience. No one can pretend to ride a horse or rope a cow. That takes experience. We see that experience on display in Owen Rose’s Out to Gather, Chris Owen’s Doin’His Job...more

Watching Westerns in Manhattan
By Terry Teachout
The classic shoot-’em-up—so readily embraced in the heartland—confronts a different crowd when it comes riding into the big city. The good news is that the Western is no longer viewed with contempt in my adopted hometown, the way it was back in the days when John Wayne was alive, well, and happy to bait the liberal establishment whenever anyone stuck a microphone in his face. Most film buffs are now perfectly willing to acknowledge the significance of the Western as a cinematic genre. Film Forum, the temple at which New York-based worshippers of the Movie as High Art gather regularly, even went so far in March as to put on a month-long debauch, “Essential Westerns 1924-1962,”at which freshly struck prints of such critically approved classics as Colorado Territory, Garden of Evil, The Gunfighter, High Noon, My Darling Clementine, Ride Lonesome, Rio Bravo, Shane, Winchester ’73, and (of course) The Searchers were shown...more

Mountains Apart
By Cathy Orr
Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana—while they share a mountain range, each offers a unique view of the West. In Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana the mystique of the Westreigns supreme. With the magnificent Rocky Mountains as their shared treasure, they promise any visitor the delight of sensational, panoramic views of mountain peaks and valleys. All these Western states were once home to famous—or in some cases infamous—cowboys, mountain men, and pioneers, and all were carved out of what were vast territories. Different Native cultures once hunted their forests. Each state has been mined for different riches within its deep, secret places. But beyond geography and history, each state can boast something unique that draws visitors from around the globe. No place else on earth evokes such a sense of the past while still carving a niche in the present and future. No place else offers such restorative, inviting recreation, exploration, relaxation, and adventure—whatever satisfies your cravings for a getaway that begets peace of mind and good memories....more

July/August

Rodeo Issue

Rodeo Busts Out!
RODEO Busts Out!
By Kendra Santos
Rodeo’s day has arrived, and there’s more to come. From finding new legions of fans to binding families and generations together, rodeo has never been more influential and impactful than it is today. Rodeo—born on the frontier, refined by decades of trials in the arena—emerges in the early 20th century as a legitimate candidate for recognition as “America’s sport.”Not only is it in ascendancy as a spectator event—having overtaken both golf and tennis for total numbers of fans—it has surpassed every other major American sport for the way it has linked families, communities, and generations. With its wholesomeness, pageantry, decorousness, and thunderous action, rodeo is coming into its own as a hybrid of fierce competitiveness and grand spectacle. Part extreme sport and part everyday pastime, part human drama and part social event, rodeo stands poised to do what NASCAR Racing did in recent years—take another quantum leap forward. New Regime— Nowhere is this new spirit more evident than in the most influential of all rodeo organizations, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. A gust of fresh air is blowing through the hallways of the PRCA. The name of this human hurricane is Troy Ellerman, and he’s got his eyes on goals as high as the sky.... more

The Heart of Rodeo
By Cathy Orr
Rodeo art plays the passion of the cowboy sport. Nothing stands still in rodeo. It’s a sport of explosive activity, one that challenges the physical and mental resources of man and beast. Horses and bulls buck, cowboys ride, and clowns run and jump, but beneath all that action is a feeling, a bond between cowboys and clowns and livestock that gives meaning to the death-defying rides and runs they tackle. Can art capture that connection? The answer may lie in the eye of the beholder more than in an artist’s medium or technique, or maybe it’s a combination, but what comes through in rodeo art strikes chords of appreciation in both artist and collector. There’s no doubt a respect for the man who rides for his life for 8 seconds or the clown who leaps a barrel just in time. If rodeo has an edge, it’s the risk involved in participating in it....more

Hallmark of a Western Filmmaker
By Dan Gagliasso
Lincoln Lageson is that rare breed—a television producer with the heart of a cowboy. I first met Lincoln Lageson in 1996 when he was a coproducer on the John Milius-directed epic miniseries Rough Riders and I was Milius’s historical consultant. In L.A. in the film business if you see a fella wearing Wranglers with enough length that the bottoms stack up as they should on his boots, there’s a good chance he’s probably a cowboy, a stuntman, or both. Since I’d rodeoed some, and this Lageson character was an easy-going-but-get-it-done type, we circled each other a little while, but soon became fast friends. I was surprised to find out that Lageson was not only our set producer but also someone who could square his way around the business end of a horse just fine. Now a set producer just might be the hardest-working producer on a picture, and that would go double on Westerns, where livestock, running gear, horse wranglers, and some actors who think they can ride better then they really can are a big part of getting the picture made. It’s a job that has earned him the respect and friendship of everyday ranchers and cowboys, top rodeo hands like Garry Leffew, Bob Tallman, Mike Stevens, and Allan Jordon, as well as music stars like Randy Travis and Michael Martin Murphey.....more

Moving On
By Alan Wilkinson
With open arms, the Plains States spread a heartland welcome before the westward traveler. What’s endlessly fascinating about the West—and this applies more to the Great Plains than to the mountains—is the way its history, every bit as much as its soil, its rivers, its trees, is at the mercy of the elements. In some places, where the white man built forts or towns and left an occasional stone jail or blockhouse, that history is highly visible, almost monumental. In others, where they camped or squatted or drove their livestock and moved on, they left no mark—at least, nothing that survived a century and a half of wind, rain, fire, and snow. All we have left of those places is memory; and when those who remember have gone, we have their journals, letters, and books—if they produced any. So an informed journey over the Plains in search of that history can involve a little detective work, one or two literary pilgrimages, and a lot of traveling through landscape’s blank pages ...more

September/October

President Bush Signs it Into History

The Cowboy Gets His Day!
A Day for the Ages
By Jesse Mullins, Jr.
The National Day of the American Cowboy, signed into effect by President George W. Bush, is now a reality.  What began as a question in this magazine is now forever a memorial to the American cowboy. What began as feedback and urgings from you, our readers, is now a tribute to the greatest national symbol this land has ever produced. In July, just days before the designated “fourth Saturday in July”that was proposed as the annual observance of this occasion, President George W. Bush signed Senate Resolution 138, proclaiming for all time the “National Day of the American Cowboy.”What might have been a considerably larger play of national media attention was checked by the suddenness of the news of the signing—coming unexpectedly a mere four days before the first National Day. But that suddenness notwithstanding, several national media outlets broke the news on July 23, the designated “fourth Saturday in July.”It was on that day that U.S. Senator Craig Thomas, (R.-Wyo.), sponsor and leading Senate proponent of the resolution, took the microphone in the arena at Cheyenne Frontier Days and announced to all in attendance that this was indeed the first-ever National Day of the American Cowboy...more

Artful Tranquility
By Cathy Orr
An alluring, fragile serenity interweaves the fabric of wildlife art. We are drawn to wildlife art for many of the same reasons we are drawn to a mountain sunset or dawn on the desert. In the eyes of wildlife, we view serenity. We cannot know all the ineffable facets of nature in wild animals. Our communication is limited, and animals give us only a fleeting glimpse of their world and leave us longing for more. More of what, we cannot say, but it’s something that soothes the soul, something real and rare, something of great value that instills in us a quiet moment of reflection. We cannot change wild beasts; they change us. That’s why we collect the art. For many of us, the art is the closest we come to the living animal, brought closer by the wildlife artists’intimacy with and love for their subjects. No wonder wildlife art increasingly attracts new fans and keeps old ones entranced. Wildlife art takes us to places we’ll never go to see creatures we seldom, if ever, hear, see, or feel, yet about which we care deeply. We seldom buy that for which we care little. To own an image of wildlife is to share with millions of others an attempt to preserve at least the image, if not the actual animal and the peace it imparts....more

The Fall Guys
By Dan Gagliasso
The classic Western movies were given that extra dimension of greatness by the efforts of the great cowboy stuntmen. Cowboy and stuntman—the words just seem to go together as naturally as a good bit and a soft pair of reins. Since the earliest days of the film industry—an era when horse falls and wagon wrecks were a staple of the genre—the cowboy has been an important part of the sometimes-dangerous nuts and bolts of moviemaking. The last time I looked, the word Cowboy was still prominently displayed in the masthead of this magazine and I am, as my kindly editor likes to remind, “Our man in Hollywood.”So I think we’re long overdue for this look at some of the best genuine hands to ever kick up the celluloid dust as stuntmen. Few of the real cowboy stuntmen did the flashy, easily recognizable “gags”—as stuntmen of all kinds call their dangerous individual stunts—though several indeed performed work now recognized as some of the most spectacular film stunts in history. But it was horse falls, barroom “brawls,”and speeding horseback chases that were the staples that put the chow on the family table. In the end it was their experience, athleticism, and good old cowboy try that helped them achieve their success. Despite the scarcity of new Western films, modern cowboy stuntmen such as Walter Scott, R.L. Tolbert, Jack Lilley, Mike Watson, Walter Wyatt, Dave Cass, Bobby McLaughlin, Cliff Happy, and many others have taken the trail that legends like Yakima Canutt, Ben Johnson, and Richard Farnsworth blazed before them...more

Freedom’s Ring
By Cathy Orr
We took the long road to the Far West and found the best escapes from the everyday humdrum. For the thousands who traveled the Oregon Trail in the 1840s, the West meant different things. For some it was a home and land of their own. For others, it was a chance to strike it rich by mining, and still for others, it was to make a new start in a land that promised security in some shape or form. Ultimately, all came for the same reason: freedom—freedom from want. The West, by all accounts—not all from credible sources—had a lot to give to anyone who dared to make the long journey. Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada—they gave farmland, gold, silver, and other riches, if you had the gumption give up a home in the East and head into the unknown. While the lands are settled here now, they still have a lot to give...more

November/December

Travel Issue

Travel: Go West!
Borderlands; Go West!
Ride with us as we travel the Outlaw Trail through southern New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Our intrepid reporters in this November/December Travel issue take you deep into the southwest's most legendary, and historic places. Follow the trail of Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp through Arizona and New Mexico. Visit Ghost towns and celebrity music halls in 'the country capitol of the west', California.So sit back, and point your compass at the links below, and hang on for a wonderful, and educational ride through the 'Borderlands'!...more
Travel Arizona
By Johnny D. Boggs
Tombstone was the "Town Too Tough to Die." The name Earp conjures images of lawmen, but sources agree that Warren Earp, Wyatt’s baby brother, was a ne’er-do-well. Although the Earps became legend in Arizona (and two died here), only one is buried in the state...more 
Travel California
By Matt Kettmann
Bakersfield and Back Again: It’s a road trip into the California that time forgot as we venture in search of California’s country soul. Bakersfield gets a bad rap from many a coastal Californian. Sitting at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, right before the hot and arid flatlands jump over the grapevine of Interstate 5 into Los Angeles, Bakersfield is the capital of the Golden State’s Dust Bowl...more
Travel New Mexico
By Johnny D. Boggs
“I wouldn’t want a friend like Billy.”B. Rex Buchman, De Baca County extension agent, is telling me this not far from where Henry McCarty Antrim, better known as William H. Bonney and/or Billy the Kid, is buried, which happens to be (unless you’re a conspiracy theorist) in Fort Sumner, N.M. Local girls loved his dancing, and most folks agree that the Kid was certainly affable most of the time, but he sure could be hard on his male “pals,”as evidenced by the graves of Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre lying alongside Billy in the old post cemetery—not to mention John Tunstall and Alexander McSween down in Lincoln...more

Born Cowboy
By J.P.S. Brow
Dave Ericsson inherited the Cowboy's Penchant for being "Proud of his plight." With this article we begin a three-part series, the first-ever three-parter on an individual cowboy in the 11-year history of your magazine. EDITOR’S NOTE : With this article we begin a three-part series, the first-ever three-parter on an individual cowboy in the 11-year history of your magazine. Mexican vaqueros say, “El vaquero se hace con baba, no con barba. A cowboy is made as a slobbering babe, not after he grows a beard.” American cowboys say, “Cowboys are born and not made.”...—more

Laughing at Life
By Cathy Orr
To find the “funny” in art is to see the glass half full. Just as humorist Baxter Black says there will always be a need for someone to “think up stuff,” so there will always be a need for someone to draw funny stuff, as in cartoons, and, in this context, cowboy-oriented cartoons. Why? Because humans need to laugh every so often, even if it’s just so we won’t cry. Because we need to laugh, a group of select Western folks have made it their purpose to meet that need through their art. They’ve been able to put cowboys and their animal companions on canvas in situations that dare us not to laugh.Besides being funny in their own right, cowboy cartoons remind us of situations we—orsomebody we know—experienced, so we appreciate predicaments that come with being cowboy, such as Jim Tschetter’s If Mama Ain’t Happy, Thomas Lorimer’s Rainy Days and Mondays, Eldon Walls’ Out Slickered, and Nate Owens’ Lookin’ Up... more

When the Legend Becomes Legend
By Dan Gagliasso
Nothing on the screen has better dialogue than a classic Western, and the best lines in Westerns will stand up to anything Hollywood has written. We all remember them. John Wayne must have delivered at least 20 memorable ones over his 50-year career as America’s most popular film star. But other actors—stars like Alan Ladd, Robert Duvall, and Steve McQueen, and lesser-known supporting actors—had them as well. Sometimes there is more than one really good one—as is the case in great Western films like The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, Hondo, and Lonesome Dove. They’re the great Western film lines, sometimes taken from equally well-written novels, but often conjured up by talented screenwriters like James Warner Bellah, Frank Nugent, Borden Chase, and James Edward Grant, all of them with a real ear for the West. I’ve said it before on these pages but it bears repeating that I am nothing if not a traditionalist. So if your taste runs to those silly Italian Westerns of the 1960s (I know, I’m an Italian-descended Westerner, but I still don’t like those movies!), or the cynical foolishness of many of the Westerns of the 1980s and 1990s, you won’t find any such foolishness here....more

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