"In Cooperation with the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum"

A cowboy's life is more than steers, saddles, and spurs. There is also food, and lots of it, cooked out in the open after a rugged day on the range. The tradition lives on in the West and at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Here genuine chuck wagon cooks gather each spring to share recipes, stories, and real cowboy fare. This cookbook features their recipes along with a colorful history of ranch and range cooking.

Modern cowboy cooking blends simple, down-to-earth flavors with current tastes for a style that retains a distinct Western flavor. All the recipes included here have been adapted for home kitchens, but just in case, there are plenty of tips for preparing meals over an open fire. Ranging from classic cowboy favorites to the avant-garde in Western cuisine, these recipes demonstrate ranch-style cooking at its best.

The enduring fascination of the American West marks this collection of essays by distinguished historians, investigative reporters, a novelist, and a celebrated screenwriter. All of these articles have won Wrangler Awards--the western equivalent of the Oscars--presented annually by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Exciting storytelling, a hallmark of western writing, shapes every selection. C. L. Sonnichsen's 1986 revisionist account of Geronimo's life foreshadows the work of younger historians who continue to deepen our understanding of American Indian history. Jeffrey Pearson's story of the death of Crazy Horse and Greg Michno's novelistic rendering of the Lakota view of the Battle of the Little Bighorn represent history as practiced by scholars who are also powerful writers.

Journalist-screenwriter William Broyles's narrative of the King family and ranch is a Texas saga as captivating as anything by Larry McMurtry. The renowned novelist Oakley Hall writes with a historian's precision about Wyoming, setting for "The Virginian" and site of the Teapot Dome scandal and the Johnson County range war. Focusing on Charles M. Russell, Raphael Cristy establishes the western artist's importance as a writer who overturned stereotypes about American Indians.

Environmental studies are showcased in Dan Flores's essays on the demise of the great buffalo herds and the history of the horse trade. And no overview of the West would be complete without military and law enforcement history, amply represented by Robert M. Utley's work on the Texas Rangers, Paul Hutton's panoramic recounting of the Alamo, and Sally Denton's new look at the controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre, incorporating the latest forensic evidence. In what serves as a fitting coda to the violent yet inspiring history of the American West, Hutton offers a stirring account of Teddy Roosevelt's leadership at the Battle of San Juan Hill.

This is a collection as pleasurable to read as it is rich with great and significant stories about one of the most enduring national epochs--the history of the great American West.

In this earliest known day-by-day journal of a cattle drive from Texas to Kansas, Jack Bailey, a North Texas farmer, describes what it was like to live and work as a cowboy in the southern plains just after the Civil War. We follow Bailey as the drive moves northward into Kansas and then as his party returns to Texas through eastern Kansas, southwestern Missouri, northwestern Arkansas, and Indian Territory.

For readers steeped in romantic cowboy legend, the journal contains surprises. Bailey's time on the trail was hardly lonely. We travel with him as he encounters Indians, U.S. soldiers, Mexicans, freed slaves, and cowboys working other drives. He and other crew members--including women--battle hunger, thirst, illness, discomfort, and pain. Cowboys quarrel and play practical jokes on each other and, at night, sing songs around the campfire.

David Dary's thorough introduction and footnotes place the journal in historical context.