Following are brief reviews of some of the books I’ve read to date. Most of these have been reissued in paperback, but I’ve mostly ordered old hardbacks , which tend to run about the same price.

Slade’s Wells Fargo Colt
What I'm Reading

Slade’s Wells Fargo Colt

John B. McClernan, Slade's Wells Fargo Colt (Historical Notes) This is a short, wonderful book. Ostensibly, it is about one...
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The Year of Decision
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The Year of Decision

Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision: 1846 (1942) This book took a long time to read. It's very well written—I...
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A Route for the Overland Stage
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A Route for the Overland Stage

Jesse G. Patterson, A Route for the Overland Stage: James H. Simpson's 1859 Trail Across the Great Basin (2008) This is...
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Ben Holladay, The Stagecoach King
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Ben Holladay, The Stagecoach King

J.V. Frederick, Ben Holladay, The Stagecoach King (1940) This book is something of a biography of Ben Holliday, who developed...
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Saddles and Spurs
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Saddles and Spurs

Mary Lund Settle and Raymond W. Settle, Saddles and Spurs (1955) Saddles and Spurs is one of the seminal books...
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Prairie Schooner Detours
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Prairie Schooner Detours

Irene D. Paden, Prairie Schooner Detours (1949) This is a follow up book to Paden's The Wake of the Prairie...
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The Wagonmasters
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The Wagonmasters

Henry Pickering Walker, The Wagonmasters (1966) This book is subtitled "High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe...
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Guarding the Overland Trails: The Eleventh Ohio Cavalry in the Civil War
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Guarding the Overland Trails: The Eleventh Ohio Cavalry in the Civil War

Robert Huhn Jones, Guarding the Overland Trails: The Eleventh Ohio Cavalry in the Civil War (2005) This book details the...
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The Mormon Conflict
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The Mormon Conflict

Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict: 1850–1859 (1960) I came across this book while reading Jess Unruh's The Plains Across....
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The Great Platte River Road
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The Great Platte River Road

Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road: The Covered Wagon Mainline via Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie (1960) From the...
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The Wake of the Prairie Schooner
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The Wake of the Prairie Schooner

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner (1944) For nine summers during the 1930s and early '40s, Paden...
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The California Trail
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The California Trail

George R. Stewart, The California Trail (McGraw Hill, 1962) This book details the story of the California Trail from 1841...
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The Overland Mail: 1849-1869
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The Overland Mail: 1849-1869

LeRoy Hafen, The Overland Mail: 1849-1869 (Originally published 1926) Hafen's book, which grew out of his doctoral dissertation, is the...
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Wagon Roads West
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Wagon Roads West

W. Turentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West: A Study of Federal Surveys and Construction in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1846–1869 (University of...
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The Plains Across
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The Plains Across

John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 (Univ. of Illinois, 1979) This...
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The Old Trails West
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The Old Trails West

Ralph Moody, The Old Trails West (Promontory Press 1963) This book details the various trails used across the western U.S.,...
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Death of a Gunfighter
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Death of a Gunfighter

Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter: The Quest for Jack Slade, the West's Most Elusive Legend (Westholme 2008) This book...
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South Pass: Gateway to a Continent
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South Pass: Gateway to a Continent

Will Bagley, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015) So far, this is the only book...
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Historic Resource Study of the Pony Express National Historic Trail
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Historic Resource Study of the Pony Express National Historic Trail

Anthony Godfrey, Historic Resource Study of the Pony Express National Historic Trail (United States Department of the Interior/National Park Service...
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Empire on Wheels
What I'm Reading

Empire on Wheels

Raymond W. Settle and Mary Lund Settle, Empire on Wheels (Stanford University Press 1949) Empire on Wheels, along with a couple...
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