Old West Books and Guides

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Old West Books and Guides

Out of Print & Rare | Route 66 | Travel | Vintage Magazines

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Cowboys on the Western Trail : The Cattle Drive Adventures of Joshua McNabb and Davy Bartlett, by Eric Oatman

In a highly readable blend of history and fiction, this illustrated paperback in the I Am America series tells the elemental cowboy story from the viewpoint of two fictional teenage boys--Josh, 14, an African American wrangler, and Davy, 13, a white wagon driver--who helped 13 men drive 3,000 cattle from southern Texas to Nebraska in 1887. Although it's hard to accept that such kids would write journals and letters on that exhausting three-month journey, their voices ring true as they record the excitement, the adventure, the grueling work, and the danger. The book weaves lots of historical notes into the personal experiences, including the roles played by vaqueros and the anger of Indians displaced from their homeland. The focus, though, is really on the exciting action and the wild fun. The design resembles a magazine, with dramatic archival photos and paintings on every double-page spread. There's also a clear map.

The Real Wild West, by Michael Wallis

Although not as renowned as Buffalo Bill Cody, Joseph Miller and his brothers were in many ways as impressive as impresarios. Their Wild West shows, which competed with Cody's show and the Ringling Brothers' circuses, featured talent like Will Rogers and Tom Mix and significantly influenced American mass entertainment. In The Real Wild West, Michael Wallis makes a case that the Millers didn't just invent the romantic West but lived it as well.

Like Cody before them, the Millers took their cues from the frontier, largely because they played a significant part in its conquest. The family's rambunctious Kentuckian patriarch, George Washington Miller, abandoned the bluegrass of his home state to raise cattle on the greener pastures of the plains. His sons followed suit, but in 1905, a rodeo at the 101, their 100,000-acre-plus Oklahoma ranch, for the National Editorial Association led to a new career in popular entertainment. Within a decade, film producer Thomas Ince had set up shop nearby, utilizing talent from the 101 for his westerns. (It was Ince's mysterious death, combined with revelations of financial chicanery, that ultimately destroyed the enterprise in the 1920s.)

Anything For Billy by Larry McMurtry

The first time I saw Billy he came walking out of a cloud....Welcome to the wild, hot-blooded adventures of Billy the Kid, the American West's most legendary outlaw. Larry McMurtry takes us on a hell-for-leather journey with Billy and his friends as they ride, drink, love, fight, shoot, and escape their way into the shining memories of Western myth. Surrounded by a splendid cast of characters that only Larry McMurtry could create, Billy charges headlong toward his fate, to become in death the unforgettable desperado he aspires to be in life. Not since Lonesome Dove has there been such a rich, exciting novel about the cowboys, Indians, and gunmen who live at the blazing heart of the American dream.

Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade - 1844-1877 , by James Josiah Webb

James Josiah Webb left Independence, Missouri, in the summer of 1844 and headed down the Santa Fe Trail with goods bought in Saint Louis. Although his first venture as a trader was a failure, he eventually made a fortune as a merchant in Santa Fe. Webb recorded his youthful experiences in 1888, and Ralph P. Bieber, a respected scholar and researcher on western expansion, edited and annotated his journal for publication more than forty years later. Long out of print, Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade is an entertaining and important source of first-hand information about the Santa Fe Trail and trade; trappers, Mexicans, and Indian tribes of the Old Southwest; and the impact of the Mexican War on southwestern trade. Originally published in 1931 and again in 1995.

The Westerners, by John Myers

Two dozen pioneering men and women talk about life out West on the downward slope of the nineteenth century and start of the twentieth. It was still rough and raw. Paul Gray rode the cattle trails of the Stake Plain, where "nobody asked anybody's name" because "it wasn't courtesy." Jake Goss recalls the fuss when chickens raised on Salt Creek in western Colorado were found to have gold in their craws. J. Selby Batt's father owned a general store in Wells, Nevada, where a lady could buy yards of ribbon and a gallon of whiskey.

Other old-timers reminisce about characters like Bat Masterson and the Tabors, range wars, unpopular government representatives, wild longhorns and marauding wolves, boom towns turned ghostly, and unsolved mysteries. Here, too, are the voices of miners, schoolteachers, dentists, businessmen, traveling salesmen, journalists, and writers from frontier Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, and beyond. In an arena like this, "You could do anything you was big enough to do."

Central City and Gilpin County, by Robert L. Brown

Gold brought people to Colorado in the mid-1800s and Central City and its environs became known as "The Richest Square Mile on Earth." Gilpin County soon evolved, with a population that sometimes approached 40,000, and Central City became the second largest community in Colorado. This book, with scores of "then and now" photographs, tells the story of this remarkable area, its towns, its mines, and its people.

Preserving the Great Plains & Rocky Mountains by Elaine Freed

We are all too familiar with the look of modern America: the suburbs, the strip malls, the glass office towers, and - especially in the West -- the prevalence of urban sprawl. The area covered by this book includes New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming, a vast and varied section of the country with remarkably diverse geography. Elaine Freed has cover3ed huge amounts of territory to present this lively and well-illustrated study of the architecture and the preservation history of the great Plains and Rocky Mountain West. Large paperback, over 400 pages.

The Outaw Trail, by Charles Kelly

This is an entirely authentic and very exciting account of the famous cowboy outlaw butch Cassidy and his "Wild Bunch," whose imagination and daring made history for more than a decade when they virtually ruled a large segment of the Western cattle range.

The fascinating true story of the outlaws of the late Old West , (roughly 1887-1909). This book was originally written in the 1930s, based on interviews with witnesses still living. The author skillfully weaves Butch Cassidy throughout the narrative, but the story is not the outlaw leader's alone but of Gunplay Maxwell, Big Nose Jake, Sheriff John T. Pope, Queen Ann Bassett and a host of others, of Hole-in-the-Wall and Robber's Roost, of a time when "everyone" stole cattle, of bank robberies gone awry, local juries that never convict, and posses so fearful of the men they are pursuing that a fresh sign on the trail meant it was a good time to stop and brew coffee. New, hardback.

Rocky Mountain Adventures Rocky Mountain Adventures -- by Fraser Bridges

Travelers know they can trust the Road Trip Adventures guides when they get off the beaten track. These are great for anyone traveling by car or motorhome who's ready to explore beautiful North America. These guides contain maps, directions, walks no one should miss, swimming, fishing, picnic spots, and recommended lodging, restaurants, and pubs.

Six Racy Madams of Colorado Six Racy Madams of Colorado, by Caroline Bancroft

This booklet tells the story of six of the most famous madams in Colorado during the late 1800's -- from Denver, to Buena Vista, to Cripple Creek.

Used/Collectible - Fair Condition (some cover wear)

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From the Rocky Mountain General Store

Vintage Photographs of the Old West - From our personal Photo Print Shop, you can now order prints that provide dramatic glimpses into the rich heritage of the American West. From notorious outlaws, to Indian Chiefs, buffalo roaming the range, and pioneers on the trail, this varied collection grows daily.