The Western Frontier Library Series
About the Series
The Western Frontier Library is designed to introduce today’s readers to the exciting events in our frontier past and to some of the memorable writings about them. These original narratives and eye-witness accounts include such classic documents as Life in the Far West, by George Frederick Ruxton, The Vigilantes of Montana by Thomas J. Dimsdale, and The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid by Pat F. Garrett. Each volume carries an introduction by a modern authority.
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The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado
Among the famous ranch brands of Texas are the T Anchor, JA, Diamond Tail, 777, Bar C, and XIT. And the greatest of these was XIT—The XIT Ranch of Texas. It was not the...
Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta
Celebrated California Bandit
In 1854, a Cherokee Indian called Yellow Bird (better known as John Rollin Ridge) launched in this book the myth of Joaquin Murieta, based on the California criminal career of a 19th century Mexican...
A Lady’s Ranch Life in Montana
"A faithful and unvarnished Record of a Settler’s Life" is how Isabel Randall described her letters when they were first published in 1887. Many foreign travelers published accounts of their visits...
Our Centennial Indian War and the Life of General Custer
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer was widely known as a Civil War figure, author, and successful cavalry leader before his spectacular defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Indians. A ready audience of readers was hungry for information about the engagement and about their fallen hero when Frances Fuller Victor's book appeared in spring 1877. Featuring an introduction by historian Jerome A. Greene, this edition of Our Centennial Indian War provides a remarkable window into contemporary thinking about an iconic event.
Pat F. Garrett’s The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid
An Annotated Edition
More than twelve decades after Billy the Kid’s death in 1881, books, movies, and essays about this western outlaw are still popular. And they all go back to one source: The Authentic Life...
Tenting on the Plains
Or, General Custer in Kansas and Texas
This account, the second in Elizabeth’s trilogy of her life with the General, focuses on the period immediately following the Civil War, when the Custers were stationed in Louisiana, Texas, and Kansas. She portrays the aftermath of the Civil War in Texas and life in Kansas while her husband took part in General Winfield Hancock’s 1867 expedition against the Indians between the Arkansas and Platte rivers. Throughout, she provides detailed descriptions of an army officer’s home life on the frontier during this major period of Indian unrest.
Campaigning with Crook
The story of the campaign is vividly told by Charles King, adjutant of General Merritt’s Fifth Cavalry. A fine companion volume to newsman John F. Finerty’s War-Path and Bivouac (Norman, 1961), King’s account presents the soldier’s point of view. It also covers the activities of the fifth Cavalry before joining Crook’s force, including the fight on the War Bonnet, which succeeded in turning a large group of Cheyennes back to the Red Cloud Agency and prevented their joining Sitting Bull. It was on the War Bonnet that King witnessed Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous fight with Yellow Hand, which he recounts in detail.
The Banditti of the Plains
Or The Cattlemen's Invasion of Wyoming in 1892
In 1894, when A. S. Mercer published this angry eyewitness account of the cattlemen’s invasion of Wyoming, the book was so thoroughly and ruthlessly suppressed that few copies of that edition...
Henry A. Wallace’s Irrigation Frontier
On the Trail of the Corn Belt Farmer, 1909
When Franklin D. Roosevelt’s agriculture secretary and vice-president, Henry A. Wallace, had completed his junior year at Iowa State College in 1909, his family sent him on a western tour “in search...
Three Years on the Plains
Observations of Indians, 1867–1870
History has its heroes and its villains, but most of all it has its witnesses. As post chaplain at Fort D. A. Russell in Wyoming Territory from 1867 to 1870, the Reverend Edmund B. Tuttle was...
The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado
Among the famous ranch brands of Texas are the T Anchor, JA, Diamond Tail, 777, Bar C, and XIT. And the greatest of these was XIT—The XIT Ranch of Texas. It was not the...
Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta
Celebrated California Bandit
In 1854, a Cherokee Indian called Yellow Bird (better known as John Rollin Ridge) launched in this book the myth of Joaquin Murieta, based on the California criminal career of a 19th century Mexican...
A Lady’s Ranch Life in Montana
"A faithful and unvarnished Record of a Settler’s Life" is how Isabel Randall described her letters when they were first published in 1887. Many foreign travelers published accounts of their visits...
Our Centennial Indian War and the Life of General Custer
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer was widely known as a Civil War figure, author, and successful cavalry leader before his spectacular defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Indians. A ready audience of readers was hungry for information about the engagement and about their fallen hero when Frances Fuller Victor's book appeared in spring 1877. Featuring an introduction by historian Jerome A. Greene, this edition of Our Centennial Indian War provides a remarkable window into contemporary thinking about an iconic event.
Pat F. Garrett’s The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid
An Annotated Edition
More than twelve decades after Billy the Kid’s death in 1881, books, movies, and essays about this western outlaw are still popular. And they all go back to one source: The Authentic Life...
Tenting on the Plains
Or, General Custer in Kansas and Texas
This account, the second in Elizabeth’s trilogy of her life with the General, focuses on the period immediately following the Civil War, when the Custers were stationed in Louisiana, Texas, and Kansas. She portrays the aftermath of the Civil War in Texas and life in Kansas while her husband took part in General Winfield Hancock’s 1867 expedition against the Indians between the Arkansas and Platte rivers. Throughout, she provides detailed descriptions of an army officer’s home life on the frontier during this major period of Indian unrest.
Campaigning with Crook
The story of the campaign is vividly told by Charles King, adjutant of General Merritt’s Fifth Cavalry. A fine companion volume to newsman John F. Finerty’s War-Path and Bivouac (Norman, 1961), King’s account presents the soldier’s point of view. It also covers the activities of the fifth Cavalry before joining Crook’s force, including the fight on the War Bonnet, which succeeded in turning a large group of Cheyennes back to the Red Cloud Agency and prevented their joining Sitting Bull. It was on the War Bonnet that King witnessed Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous fight with Yellow Hand, which he recounts in detail.
The Banditti of the Plains
Or The Cattlemen's Invasion of Wyoming in 1892
In 1894, when A. S. Mercer published this angry eyewitness account of the cattlemen’s invasion of Wyoming, the book was so thoroughly and ruthlessly suppressed that few copies of that edition...
Henry A. Wallace’s Irrigation Frontier
On the Trail of the Corn Belt Farmer, 1909
When Franklin D. Roosevelt’s agriculture secretary and vice-president, Henry A. Wallace, had completed his junior year at Iowa State College in 1909, his family sent him on a western tour “in search...
Three Years on the Plains
Observations of Indians, 1867–1870
History has its heroes and its villains, but most of all it has its witnesses. As post chaplain at Fort D. A. Russell in Wyoming Territory from 1867 to 1870, the Reverend Edmund B. Tuttle was...