The Western town of roughly 1860-90 exists in an ephemeral moment of American history ... these towns vanished entirely from the prairie by the end of the nineteenth century. Yet even today, everyone has visited these towns, since they survive in their abstract and distilled form through the plot-generating sets of Western movies ... a clichéd but consistent host of characteristics and characters ... 22 towns in the Wild West are the protagonists in this book, including famous places like El Paso, Rio Bravo, and Lahood - not as clichés, but as constructed reality. Detailed maps offer a previously non-existent overview of spatial contexts and form the basis for an intensive exploration of architecture and urban planning. The culture of the "city without a future" in the American West between 1860 and 1900 has been maintained in the films out of which it arises. This architectural analysis does not attempt to nostalgically reactivate the Western town, but uses it instead as a vehicle to critique contemporary phenomena in terms of infrastructure, the link between architecture and city, and the role of urban planning - after the Stranger persuaded the residents of Lago to paint the whole town red, he declared himself ready to protect it from the approaching gunmen. With maps of the towns from the following films (selected): 'A Fistful of Dollars' (1964), 'Buchanan Rides Alone' (1958), 'For a Few Dollars More' (1965), 'Fort Apache' (1948).

Hailed as "toweringly important" (Baltimore Sun), "a work of scrupulous and significant reportage" (E. L. Doctorow), and "an unforgettable historical drama" (Chicago Sun-Times), Big Trouble brings to life the astonishing case that ultimately engaged President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the politics and passions of an entire nation at century's turn. After Idaho's former governor is blown up by a bomb at his garden gate at Christmastime 1905, America's most celebrated detective, Pinkerton James McParland, takes over the investigation. His daringly executed plan to kidnap the radical union leader "Big Bill" Haywood from Colorado to stand trial in Idaho sets the stage for a memorable courtroom confrontation between the flamboyant prosecutor, progressive senator William Borah, and the young defender of the dispossessed, Clarence Darrow. Big Trouble captures the tumultuous first decade of the twentieth century, when capital and labor, particularly in the raw, acquisitive West, were pitted against each other in something close to class war. Lukas paints a vivid portrait of a time and place in which actress Ethel Barrymore, baseball phenom Walter Johnson, and editor William Allen White jostled with railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, socialist Eugene V. Debs, gunslinger Charlie Siringo, and Operative 21, the intrepid Pinkerton agent who infiltrated Darrow's defense team. This is a grand narrative of the United States as it charged, full of hope and trepidation, into the twentieth century.

Presents a humorous look at what life was like on the Great Plains just after the Civil War.

The 'Wild West' stories of Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone pale in comparison to the incredible story of Las Vegas, New Mexico, for decades considered the most violent community on America's western frontier. In Wildest of the Wild West, popular Western historian Howard Bryan provides a spirited account of the violent, melodramatic, and often bizarre events that centred in and around this small Hispanic farm and ranching community from 1835 to 1915.

Based on the popular Lost In Michigan website that was featured in the Detroit Free Press, It contains locations throughout Michigan, and tells their interesting story. There are over 50 stories and locations that you will find fascinating.