The Chicago & Northwestern railroad’s “Cowboy Line” was active for more than one hundred years—delivering gold from the Black Hills, transporting livestock from the ranches in the West, and carrying passengers through northern Nebraska. Now the 321-mile-long rail line is being remade into Nebraska’s first state recreational trail which, when completed, will become the nation’s longest rail-to-trail conversion. Nebraska’s Cowboy Trail: A User’s Guide is the essential companion for anyone planning to hike, bike, or ride horseback on the Cowboy Recreation and Nature Trail, which currently extends from Norfolk to Valentine and will eventually stretch all the way to Chadron. The trail runs through numerous communities, accommodates multiple uses, and provides an up-close look at the ecology of the Great Plains—a view too easily missed when speeding by in a car. Keith Terry’s guidebook enhances appreciation of the trail’s natural advantages with descriptions of the region’s flora and fauna and with pointers for food, lodging, and camping. He also provides brief narratives about historical events that occurred along the route. This guide illuminates a historical corridor of the Great Plains and will heighten the trail user’s experience.

e-artnow presents to you this unique western collection containing western classics, adventure novels, cowboy tales and gold rush stories._x000D_ Content:_x000D_ Hidden Water_x000D_ The Texican_x000D_ Bat Wing Bowles_x000D_ The Desert Trail_x000D_ Rimrock Jones_x000D_ Shadow Mountain_x000D_ Silver and Gold_x000D_ Wunpost_x000D_ The Man-Killers_x000D_ Dane Coolidge (1873-1940) was an American author, naturalist, and photographer. He is best known for his Western novels and his non-fiction books about the American West. Coolidge wrote short stories for magazines and made illustrations and his book Rimrock Jones was adapted into the film.

Collected over five years by Robert Dawson, who once worked as a cowboy on an Arkansas ranch, these pictures not only capture the beauty of the American West in prairie, mountain, and desert, but also honor the spirit of those who worked and explored these lands. The cowboy has long embodied the essence of adventure, courage, and independence--a romantic image that is handsomely preserved in the pages of this book. Robert Dawson is best known for his photos of horses and the American West; he lives in Oregon. Tammy LeRoy lives in Phoenix, Arizona. They also collaborated on The Spirit of the Horse and The Spirit of the Performance Horse.

How did cattle drives come about—and why did the cowboy become an iconic American hero? Cattle drives were the largest, longest, and ultimately the last of the great forced animal migrations in human history. Spilling out of Texas, they spread longhorns, cowboys, and the culture that roped the two together throughout the American West. In cities like Abilene, Dodge City, and Wichita, buyers paid off ranchers, ranchers paid off wranglers, and railroad lines took the cattle east to the packing plants of St. Louis and Chicago. The cattle drives of our imagination are filled with colorful cowboys prodding and coaxing a line of bellowing animals along a dusty path through the wilderness. These sturdy cowhands always triumph over stampedes, swollen rivers, and bloodthirsty Indians to deliver their mighty-horned companions to market—but Tim Lehman’s Up the Trail reveals that the gritty reality was vastly different. Far from being rugged individualists, the actual cow herders were itinerant laborers—a proletariat on horseback who connected cattle from the remote prairies of Texas with the nation’s industrial slaughterhouses. Lehman demystifies the cowboy life by describing the origins of the cattle drive and the extensive planning, complicated logistics, great skill, and good luck essential to getting the cows to market. He reveals how drives figured into the larger story of postwar economic development and traces the complex effects the cattle business had on the environment. He also explores how the premodern cowboy became a national hero who personified the manly virtues of rugged individualism and personal independence. Grounded in primary sources, this absorbing book takes advantage of recent scholarship on labor, race, gender, and the environment. The lively narrative will appeal to students of Texas and western history as well as anyone interested in cowboy culture.