For decades the Horrell brothers of Lampasas, Texas, have been portrayed as ruthless killers and outlaws, but author David Johnson paints a different picture of these controversial men. The Horrells were ranchers, and while folklore has encouraged the belief that they built their herds by rustling, contemporary records indicate a far different picture. The family patriarch, Sam Horrell, was slain at forty-eight during a fight with Apaches in New Mexico. One Horrell son died in Confederate service; of the remaining six brothers, five were shot to death. Only Sam, Jr., lived to old age and died of natural causes. Johnson covers the Horrells and their wars from cradle to grave. Their initial confrontation with the State Police at Lampasas in 1873 marked the most disastrous shootout in Reconstruction history and in the history of the State Police. The brothers and loyal friends then fled to New Mexico, where they became entangled in what would later evolve into the violent Lincoln County War. Their contribution, known to history as the Horrell War, has racial overtones in addition to the violence that took place in Lincoln County. The brothers returned to Texas where in time they became involved in the Horrell-Higgins War. The family was nearly wiped out following the feud when two of the brothers were killed by a mob in Bosque County. Johnson presents an up-to-date account of these wars and incidents while maintaining a neutral stance necessary for historical books dealing with feuds. He also includes previously unpublished photographs of the Horrell family and others.

The town of White Oaks, New Mexico Territory, was born in 1879 when prospectors discovered gold at nearby Baxter Mountain. In Gold-Mining Boomtown, Roberta Key Haldane offers an intimate portrait of the southeastern New Mexico community by profiling more than forty families and individuals who made their homes there during its heyday. Today, fewer than a hundred people live in White Oaks. Its frontier incarnation, located a scant twenty-eight miles from the notorious Lincoln, is remembered largely because of its association with famous westerners. Billy the Kid and his gang were familiar visitors to the town. When a popular deputy was gunned down in 1880, the citizens resolved to rid their community of outlaws. Pat Garrett, running for sheriff of Lincoln County, was soon campaigning in White Oaks. But there was more to the town than gold mining and frontier violence. In addition to outlaws, lawmen, and miners, Haldane introduces readers to ranchers, doctors, saloonkeepers, and stagecoach owners. José Aguayo, a lawyer from an old Spanish family, defended Billy the Kid, survived the Lincoln County War, and moved to the White Oaks vicinity in 1890, where his family became famous for the goat cheese they sold to the town’s elite. Readers also meet a New England sea captain and his wife (a Samoan princess, no less), a black entrepreneur, Chinese miners, the “Cattle Queen of New Mexico,” and an undertaker with an international criminal past. The White Oaks that Haldane uncovers—and depicts with lively prose and more than 250 photographs—is a microcosm of the Old West in its diversity and evolution from mining camp to thriving burg to the near–ghost town it is today. Anyone interested in the history of the Southwest will enjoy this richly detailed account.

Includes biographical information on 4,500 individuals associated with the frontier

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and the Lone Star State can certainly boast of immense ranches, vast oil fields, enormous cowboy hats, and larger-than-life heroes. Among the greatest of the latter are the iconic Texas Rangers, a service that has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum continues to honor these legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. While upholding a proud heritage of duty and sacrifice, even men who wear the cinco peso badge can have their own champions. Thirty-one individuals—whose lives span more than two centuries—have been enshrined in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. In The Ranger Ideal Volume 2: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1874-1930, Darren L. Ivey presents capsule biographies of the twelve inductees who served Texas in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Ivey begins with John B. Jones, who directed his Rangers through their development from state troops to professional lawmen; then covers Leander H. McNelly, John B. Armstrong, James B. Gillett, Jesse Lee Hall, George W. Baylor, Bryan Marsh, and Ira Aten—the men who were responsible for some of the Rangers’ most legendary feats. Ivey concludes with James A. Brooks, William J. McDonald, John R. Hughes, and John H. Rogers, the “Four Great Captains” who guided the Texas Rangers into the twentieth century.

Standoffs, saloons, and sunsets spring to mind when one envisions the rough and tumble early days of the American frontier.

On 14 May 1804, one Captain Meriwether Lewis and his companion William Clark led a thirty-three-man expedition to the new lands of Louisiana. 8,000 miles and two years later, after rafting up the Missouri and crossing the Rocky Mountains, they reached the far side of the world, the Pacific Ocean. Fredrick Nolan explores the first US settlers of the American West, including the remarkable stories of unsung heroes and heroines, the bloody battles between settlers and the native American inhabitants, the crimes committed by corrupt Sheriffs, and the occasions when citizens had to take the law into their own hands. This is the story of the men and women who answered the call of the West.