Born into every generation are a few restless souls who long for adventure. In the early 1800s this wild breed became mountain men who headed up the Missouri, crossed the Rock-ies and continued west, hunting, trapping and exploring as they went.One mountainman,reflecting the general attitude of the day, wrote, 'We found the richest place for beaver we had yet come across, and it took us forty days to clean that section.' Valley by valley, stream by stream, the mountain men eliminat...

Through bravery, courage and strength of character these men and women stood head and shoulders above their contemporaries.They are our true Western American Heroes.

On the last day of summer in 1994, while cowboy Phil Brooks was riding in the hills of Eastern Oregon, he was struck through the heart by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle. Although an intensive police investigation was launched, nobody has ever stood trial for that murder. Some locals speculate a woman was involved, or the young cowboy happened upon a drug drop, while others are convinced Phil's death had something to do with the trophy bull elk that inhabit the sprawling Fopiano R...

The men who ride the open range of the far West are known under a variety of names: vaquero, range rider, mustanger and buckaroo, but the name most commonly known is cowboy. The nature of a cowboy's work demands independence and toughness. He is a man of action; yet the long, lonely hours spent in the saddle provide ample time to develop a unique outlook on life. Simply put, a cowboy's tenet is, 'What cannot be cured is endured.' And endured with cheerfulness and good humor. It is far bett...

Mountain men and fur traders were the first to travel the route that would one day become the Oregon Trail. In their wake came missionaries who wrote letters and reports describing the far side of the continent and praising the mild climate, healthful conditions and the deep, fertile soil.Historians recognize 1843 as the official beginning of the Oregon Trail.That spring a group of a thousand land-hungry pioneers with 120 wagons and 5,000 head of cattle departed from Elm Grove, Mis...

The names of the gunfighters are legendary: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Doc Holliday, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Henry Plummer, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok.... These men, and others like them, epitomize the image of the Wild West.The gunfighting era was born in the late 1830s when Samuel Colt patented his single-barreled pistol with a revolving bullet chamber.But the gunfighter was not common on the frontier until after the Civil War wh...

Logging in North America began with the arrival of European colonists in the 1600s. In a few short decades there were water-powered sawmills scattered up and down the eastern seaboard with the main concentration in northern New England. The lumber was used to build ships, furniture, kegs and barrels, buggies and wagons. As the loggers cleared areas in the forest, others arrived to farm the ground.It took 200 years for the timber to be logged from the eastern seaboard. The loggers a...

One of the great things about the West is that our history lies so close to the surface. It was our grand parents and parents who were the pioneers.The first wagon train west arrived late in the fall of 1843. It is estimated one-half million emigrants traveled this great wagon trail, until the advent of the automobile ended the era in the early 1900s. Today stretches of the Oregon Trail are still visible as ruts -ruts carved into the earth, worn by time and masked by wildflowers, s...

The first white children to come west were sons and daughters of the pioneers. They trudged barefooted beside the wagons, across the dusty plains, through the heat and the prickly pear cactus and over the mountains of sharp volcarlic rocks. Some never made it and piles of stones and improvised crosses marked their graves.Those who survived found a wonderful playground out west. A playground of bright-colored rocks, slow-moving streams, wide-open spaces and deep, dark forests. Mothe...

Early-day women of the West are depicted in fading photographs: a gaunt, bonneted figure in a long dress walking beside a wagon, baby cradled in her arms, children scattered behind, a woman, looking older than her years, stirring lye soap over an open fire, a dancehall girl on stage, miners watching her every move....Letters and diaries tell the details of these women's existence, the sorrow of being uprooted from family and friends, the yearning for companionship of other women, b...

The inspirational first person story of a young dog sled racer who had to overcome incredible odds to compete: she is legally blindFor more than eleven years, twenty-one-year-old Rachael Scdoris has been guiding teams of sled dogs across jagged mountain ranges, frozen rivers, dense forests, and desolate tundra at speeds exceeding twenty mph. Not only is Rachael the youngest athlete to ever complete a 500-mile sled dog race mile, but she is also legally blind and has...

This book is the first telling of what was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the 'longest canoe trip in history'-an eighteen-month, 7,865-mile saga of two young men and a canoe named Muriel. The year was 1936. The place was New York City, where two young office workers, weary of the depression, embarked on one of history's most remarkable expeditions. They left New York City at the foot of 42nd street and paddled their canoe across the uncharted wilds of Canada to Nome, Alask...