Lonesome Dove is a 1985 Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series and the third installment in the series chronologically. It was a bestseller and won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1989, it was adapted as a TV miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, which won both critical and popular acclaim. McMurtry went on to write a sequel, Streets of Laredo (1993), and two prequels, Dead Man's Walk (1995) and Comanche Moon (1997), all of which were also adapted as TV series.
King Ranch is the largest ranch in the United States. At some 825,000 acres it is larger than the land area of Rhode Island and the European country Luxembourg. It is mainly a cattle ranch, but also produced the Triple Crown winning racehorse Assault.
All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. It was a bestseller, winning both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy".
The High Chaparral television series, which was broadcast on NBC from 1967 to 1971, is an American Western action adventure drama set in the 1870s. It stars Leif Erickson and Cameron Mitchell. The series was made by Xanadu Productions in association with NBC Productions, and was created by David Dortort, who had previously created Bonanza for the network. The theme song was written and conducted by Bonanza scorer David Rose, who also scored the two-hour pilot.
Tall in the Saddle is a 1944 American Western film directed by Edwin L. Marin and starring John Wayne and Ella Raines. Written by Paul Fix and Michael Hogan, based on the serialized novel of the same name by Gordon Ray Young, the film is about a tough quiet cowboy who arrives at an Arizona town and discovers that the rancher who hired him has been murdered and that the kindhearted young woman who just inherited the ranch is being manipulated by her overbearing aunt and a scheming Judge who are planning to steal her inheritance. As the cowboy investigates the rancher's murder, he meets the fiery horsewoman who owns a neighboring ranch and who challenges him at first, but eventually falls in love with him. With powerful forces opposed to his presence in the town, the cowboy survives attempts on his life as he gets closer to solving the murder with the help of two beautiful women.
Along the Great Divide is a 1951 American Western film noir directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Kirk Douglas, Virginia Mayo, John Agar and Walter Brennan. It was Douglas's first Western, a genre that served him well during his long career.
Last Stand at Saber River is a 1997 American Western television film directed by Dick Lowry and starring Tom Selleck, Suzy Amis, Haley Joel Osment, Keith Carradine, David Carradine, Tracey Needham, David Dukes and Harry Carey Jr. Based on the 1959 novel of the same title by Elmore Leonard, the film is about a Civil War Confederate veteran who tries to put the pieces of his life back together but finds himself fighting a new battle on the frontier. Seeking to reclaim his Arizona homestead from rebel pioneers who sympathize with the Union war effort, he joins forces with his Union adversary to make a last stand for the one thing worth fighting for, his family. In 1997, Osment won a YoungStar Award for Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Made For TV Movie. In 1998, the film received the Western Heritage Awards Bronze Wrangler for Television Feature Film.
Branded is a 1950 American Technicolor Western film starring Alan Ladd, Mona Freeman, Charles Bickford, and Robert Keith. It was adapted from the novel Montana Rides by Max Brand under pen name Evan Evans. A gunfighter on the run from the law is talked into posing as the long-lost son of a wealthy rancher.
William Harrison Clanton was an outlaw Cowboy in Cochise County, Arizona Territory. He, along with his father Newman Clanton and brother Ike Clanton, worked a ranch near the boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona Territory and stole livestock from Mexico and later U.S. ranchers.
The Bottom of the Bottle is a 1956 American CinemaScope drama film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Joseph Cotten, Van Johnson and Ruth Roman. It is based on the novel of the same title written by Georges Simenon during his stay in Nogales, Arizona. The novel was adapted for film by Sydney Boehm and was produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Cochise County in southeastern Arizona was the scene of a number of violent conflicts in the 19th-century and early 20th-century American Old West, including between white settlers and Apache Indians, between opposing political and economic factions, and between outlaw gangs and local law enforcement. Cochise County was carved off in 1881 from the easternmost portion of Pima County during a formative period in the American Southwest. The era was characterized by rapidly growing boomtowns, the emergence of large-scale farming and ranching interests, lucrative mining operations, and the development of new technologies in railroading and telecommunications. Complicating the situation was staunch resistance to white settlement from local Native American groups, most notably during the Apache Wars, as well as Cochise County's location on the border with Mexico, which not only threatened international conflict but also presented opportunities for criminal smugglers and cattle rustlers.
The Smith Gang was a band of American cattle rustlers who operated in the Southwest during the late 1890s to 1901. The gang was founded by Bill Smith and included six others, mainly Bill's family members. After an encounter with the law in Arizona Territory, known as the Battleground Gunfight, the Smith Gang was forced to escape to Mexico in October 1901.
The raid on Bear Valley was an armed conflict that occurred in 1886 during Geronimo's War. In late April, a band of Chiricahua Apaches attacked settlements in Santa Cruz County, Arizona over the course of two days. The Apaches raided four cattle ranches in or around Bear Valley, leaving four settlers dead, including a woman and her baby. They also captured a young girl, who was found dead several days after the event, and stole or destroyed a large amount of private property. When the United States Army learned of the attack, an expedition was launched to pursue the hostiles. In May, two small skirmishes were fought just across the international border in Sonora, Mexico but both times the Apaches were able to escape capture.
The Skeleton Canyon shootout was a gunfight on August 12, 1896, between members of the High Five Gang and a posse of American lawmen. Following a failed robbery on August 1 of the bank in Nogales, Arizona, the High Fives headed east and split up. The gang's leader, Black Jack Christian, and George Musgrave got away.
Burton C. Mossman was an American lawman and cattleman in the final years of the Old West. He is most remembered for his capture of the notorious border bandit Augustine Chacon in 1902, though he was also a successful businessman who owned the large Diamond A Ranch in New Mexico.
Lochiel is a populated place and former border crossing in southern Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States, approximately 25 miles east of Nogales. Basically a ghost town, the townsite is located in the southwestern part of the San Rafael Valley on Washington Gulch, about 1.5 miles west of the Santa Cruz River. It was first settled in the late-1870s and mostly abandoned by 1986. The town served the ranches of the San Rafael Valley and the Washington Camp and Duquesne mining towns of the Patagonia Mountains, approximately five miles to the northwest up Washington Gulch.
The San Rafael Ranch, formerly known as the Greene Ranch, is a historic cattle ranch located in the San Rafael Valley about a mile and a half north of Lochiel, Arizona, near the international border with Sonora, Mexico.
The Man on the Bench in the Barn is a novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon. The original French version La Main appeared in 1968. The novel is among his romans durs, a term roughly translated as hard, or harrowing, novels; it was used by Simenon for what he regarded as his serious literary works.
The Pecos War, also known as the War of the Pecos and the Chisum War, was a range war fought by cattle baron John Chisum against neighboring small ranchers, farmers, and Native Americans from 1876-1877 along the Pecos River in New Mexico. The conflict was caused primarily by competition: Chisum believed that his livestock and other resources were being depleted upon by people he alleged to be rustlers. At the same time, Chisum was also fighting Mescalero Apaches from the nearby reservations who were said to prey on his herds.
