Award-winning author Jan Cleere brings her exceptional skills in research and writing to a new book about more than 35 heroic women of Arizona. From teachers and entrepreneurs to artists and healers, Cleere provides an informative text that highlights historical Hispanic, African American, Native American, and Anglo women who made their mark in the intriguing history of this state.

This collection of fifty outlaw tales includes well-knowns such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Frank and Jesse James, Belle Starr (and her dad), and Pancho Villa, along with a fair smattering of women, organized crime bosses, smugglers, and of course the usual suspects: highwaymen, bank and train robbers, cattle rustlers, snake-oil salesmen, and horse thieves. Men like Henry Brown and Burt Alvord worked on both sides of the law either at different times of their lives or simultaneously. Clever shyster Soapy Smith and murderer Martin Couk survived by their wits, while the outlaw careers of the dimwitted DeAutremont brothers and bigmouthed Diamondfield Jack were severely limited by their intellect, or lack thereof. Nearly everyone in these pages was motivated by greed, revenge, or a lethal mixture of the two. The most bloodthirsty of the bunch, such as the heartless (and, some might argue, soulless) Annie Cook and trigger-happy Augustine Chacon, surely had evil written into their very DNA.

This book presents the compelling histories of fifteen pioneer women, all born before 1900, who traveled Nevada Territory in unstable wagons, on temperamental mules, and in early Motel Ts to leave a legacy of courage and celebration as they broke records, hearts, and rules while conquering uncharted ground. Meet Ferminia Sarras, a Nicaraguan immigrant with four young daughters who arrived in Nevada in the early 1800s determined to seek her fortune as a miner . . . and succeeded; Dat so la lee, a Washoe Indian renowned for her basket-weaving artistry whose work is today preserved in museums; and Anne Henrietta Martin, a lifelong suffragette who fought for women's rights and was instrumental in securing the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote.

Louise Larocque Serpa often said she was born "in the wrong place, to the wrong woman, at the wrong time." Born in 1925 and growing up in New York society with a mother who was never satisfied with her rather lanky, unpolished daughter, teenager Louise eventually found happiness when she spent a summer on a Wyoming dude ranch scrubbing toilets, waiting tables and wrangling cattle. Later in life, she settled in Tucson, Arizona, where her introduction to photographing rodeos came about after a friend invited her to watch his children participate in a junior rodeo competition. Using a cheap drug-store camera, Louise began photographing youngsters as they bounced and bucked on small sheep and calves, then sold the pictures to proud parents, beginning a career that would span fifty years and take her to the highest pinnacles of rodeo photography. This biography of the legendary rodeo photographer Louise Sherpa, reveals the story of a woman who made her own way in a man's world and who helped shaped the character of rodeo. Interviews with her contemporaries and family and photographs from her family archives add flavor to this lively portrait of a remarkable Western woman.

True stories of the Grand Canyon state's most infamous robbers, rustlers, and bandits.

When the U.S. Army ordered troops into Arizona Territory in the 19th century to protect and defend the new settlements established there, some of those military men brought their wives and families. Many of these women worked as laundresses for the military and maids to officers' families to supplement their husband's meager salaries. They had little time for leisure, but their letters, diaries, and journals from their years on the army posts reveal the hardships and challenges faced by families on the frontier. These women were bold, brave, and compassionate. They were an integral part of military posts that peppered the West and played an important role in civilizing the Arizona frontier. Combining the words of these women with original research tracing their movements from camp to camp over the years they spent in the West, From Reveille to Taps explores the tragedies and triumphs they experienced.

Wild West Women features the true stories of the pioneering wives, mothers, daughters, teachers, writers, entrepreneurs, and artists who shaped the frontier and helped change the face of American history. These fifty stories cover the Western experience from Kansas City to Sacramento and the Yukon to the Texas Gulf.