“The best all-around study of the American cowboy ever written. Every page crackles with keen analysis and vivid prose about the Old West. A must-read!” —Douglas Brinkley, The New York Times–bestselling author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America The open-range cattle era lasted barely a quarter century, but it left America irrevocably changed. Cattle Kingdom reveals how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today. The tale takes us from dust-choked cattle drives to the unlikely splendors of boomtowns like Abilene, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We meet a diverse cast, from cowboy Teddy Blue to failed rancher and future president Teddy Roosevelt. This is a revolutionary new appraisal of the Old West and the America it made. “Cattle Kingdom is the smartly told account of rampant capitalism making its home—however destructive and decidedly unromantic—on the range. . . . [A] fresh and winning perspective.” —The Dallas Morning News “Knowlton writes well about all the fun stuff: trail drives, rambunctious cow towns, gunfights and range wars . . . [He] enlists all of these tropes in support of an intriguing thesis: that the romance of the Old West arose upon the swelling surface of a giant economic bubble . . . Cattle Kingdom is The Great Plains by way of The Big Short.” —Wall Street Journal “Knowlton deftly balances close-ups and bird’s-eye views. We learn countless details . . . More important, we learn why the story played out as it did.” —The New York Times Book Review “The best one-volume history of the legendary era of the cowboy and cattle empires in thirty years.” —True West “Vastly informative.” —Library Journal “Absorbing.” —Publishers Weekly

The book is a biography about Dan Thornton, a highly successful and well known purebred beef cattle producer (1937-1953) and an effective, flamboyant but controversial Colorado Governor (1951-1955). From humble beginnings as the son of sharecroppers in West Texas, to president of the Texas 4-H Clubs at age 16, to the sale of two Hereford bulls for a world record price ($50,000 each) at the 1945 National Western Stock Show in Denver, CO, to a record Hereford sale in 1947, to winning the Governorship of Colorado as a last minute replacement candidate at 39 years of age, to being largely responsible for the location of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, Dan Thornton's story is an interesting and exciting adventure. He was a friend with unknowns and celebrities alike, including Dwight Eisenhower, Bob Hope, Randolph Scott, Lauritz Melchior and Ben Hogan. He campaigned early for Eisenhower for U.S. President. He was Colorado's super salesman from cherries, beef, uranium, and coal to interstate highways and tourism. His grave marker in Gunnison, CO is inscribed with the tribute, "A Man Who Matched Our Mountains."

The year environmentalist Sam Bingham spent in Colorado's San Luis Valley showed him that environmental disasters of global consequence are happening in our own backyard. THE LAST RANCH tells of the desperate efforts of one community to stop the encroaching desert. "A rare and beautifully written account of hard lives in hard times, and must reading for those interested in the future of the American West".--KIRKUS REVIEWS.

When the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad laid narrow-gauge tracks into La Veta in southern Colorado in July 1876, it preceded Colorado statehood on August 1 by about one month. The southern Colorado frontier from Walsenburg west to Wolf Creek Pass had only a few scattered villages at this time, but silver mines in southwestern Colorado lured the railroad ever westward to haul out the riches. On the scene to photograph these developments was Iowan Ory Thomas (O.T.) Davis, who moved to Colorado in 1885 to work in the copper mines northwest of La Veta. Davis, backed by corporate sponsors from the mines and railroads, opened a commercial photography business in the Walsenburg-La Veta area in 1888 and, later, in Alamosa in 1906. The photographs of O.T. Davis collected in this book vividly capture a bygone era, documenting the frontier history of southern Colorado in the early years of statehood.