Bonanza Publishing: 23 books

Early-day women of the West are depicted in fading photographs: a gaunt, bonneted figure in a long dress walking beside a wagon, baby cradled in her arms, children scattered behind, a woman, looking older than her years, stirring lye soap over an open fire, a dancehall girl on stage, miners watching...

Mountain men and fur traders were the first to travel the route that would one day become the Oregon Trail. In their wake came missionaries who wrote letters and reports describing the far side of the continent and praising the mild climate, healthful conditions and the deep, fertile soil. Historians...

The first white children to come west were sons and daughters of the pioneers. They trudged barefooted beside the wagons, across the dusty plains, through the heat and the prickly pear cactus and over the mountains of sharp volcarlic rocks. Some never made it and piles of stones and improvised crosses...

Through bravery, courage and strength of character these men and women stood head and shoulders above their contemporaries. They are our true Western American Heroes.

One of the great things about the West is that our history lies so close to the surface. It was our grand parents and parents who were the pioneers. The first wagon train west arrived late in the fall of 1843. It is estimated one-half million emigrants traveled this great wagon trail, until...

The storyteller spins a web of fantasy while the campfire sends a shower of sparks leaping into the night sky to drift among the ancient stars. It is in this manner that the history of mankind has been passed from one generation to the next. In North America the native people formed their cultures...

Born into every generation are a few restless souls who long for adventure. In the early 1800s this wild breed became mountain men who headed up the Missouri, crossed the Rock-ies and continued west, hunting, trapping and exploring as they went. One mountainman,reflecting the general attitude...

The men who ride the open range of the far West are known under a variety of names: vaquero, range rider, mustanger and buckaroo, but the name most commonly known is cowboy. The nature of a cowboy's work demands independence and toughness. He is a man of action; yet the long, lonely hours spent...

The names of the gunfighters are legendary: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Doc Holliday, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Henry Plummer, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok.... These men, and others like them, epitomize the image of the Wild West. The gunfighting era...

On the last day of summer in 1994, while cowboy Phil Brooks was riding in the hills of Eastern Oregon, he was struck through the heart by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle. Although an intensive police investigation was launched, nobody has ever stood trial for that murder. Some locals speculate...

Logging in North America began with the arrival of European colonists in the 1600s. In a few short decades there were water-powered sawmills scattered up and down the eastern seaboard with the main concentration in northern New England. The lumber was used to build ships, furniture, kegs and barrels,...

Grandma grew up on a farm and, at a relatively young age, she fell in love and married Grandpa. They moved west, found the opportunities to their liking and together they raised a wonderful family. Grandma was the glue that held the family together. She performed the necessary domestic...

A COWBOY AND THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE Herman Vowell grew up on an Oregon homestead dreaming of being a cowboy. He was barely 21 when he became buckaroo boss of the Pitchfork Ranch, one of the biggest spreads in the West. He felt his life was complete and then he met Betty Torrens, a city girl...

Great-grandfather has witnessed so much change in his life. When he was a boy the horse and buggy was the mode of transportation. He has lived to see aviation progress from a few barnstorming pilots hop-scotching across the country to jet aircraft thundering across the sky. And he was sitting there...