A Few Old West Tidbits

• ·         The Santa Fe Trail came close, but never actually made it to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

• ·         An estimated 350,000 people traveled the Oregon Trail. One in seventeen did not make it to Oregon. The most common cause of death was cholera.

• ·         As partial compensation for his lost territory, in 1905 the United States Government gave Geronimo a Cadillac.

• ·         The first gold rush wasn’t to California in 1849, but to New Mexico in 1832.

• ·         After committing a robbery, Charles E. Bolton would leave a note signed “Black Bart”. He was almost sixty when he started robbing stages. 

• ·         Wyatt Earp was arrested for horse theft in Arkansas, and he and his brother Morgan were arrested for running ‘bordellos’ in Chicago before they made their way west. Though proclaimed to be a Buffalo Hunter, Earp never shot a buffalo, he did drive a wagon on a hunt once.

• ·         Clay Allen pulled out a dentist’s teeth after that dentist had pulled one of Clay’s—the wrong one.

• ·         The Dalton Gang met their fate in Kansas in 1892 when they attempted to rob two banks at the same time.

• ·         Billy the Kid was also known a Billy Bonney, Henry McCarty, and Henry Antrim.

• ·         Jesse James’s nickname to his close friends was Dingus.

• ·         Cole Younger, who rode with Jesse James, after serving over 20 years in prison, got a job selling tombstones when he got out.

• ·         Ben Kilpatrick, one of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch known as the “Tall Texan”, loved riding bikes and only ever ordered ham and beans to eat because he couldn’t read.

• ·         It’s said Mail Order Brides did more in taming the west than any law or lawman.

On that note…My next book is another mail order bride story in the Mail Order Brides of Oak Grove series. Winning the Mail Order Bride will be released in print on August 24^th and ebook on September 1^st. 

She was promised to another… 
When widow Fiona Goldberg and her two adorable sons arrive in Oak Grove, Kansas, proclaimed bachelor Brett Blackwell is instantly captivated. But when he learns she is promised to the mayor, he tries his best to keep his distance…

Out of desperation, Fiona had agreed to become a mail-order bride to the disagreeable, self-important mayor. But something about her neighbor Brett makes her feel safe. She knows she must fight her growing feelings for the forbidden blacksmith, even while longing for him to rescue her and take her as his bride himself!