🤠This Week in the West

🎙️ Episode 67: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House Author’s Version of Pioneer Life

📢 Episode Summary: This episode of This Week in The West explores the life and legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose Little House books shaped how generations of Americans imagine frontier life. Born in 1867, Wilder grew up in a constantly moving pioneer family that faced illegal settlement on Native land, brutal winters, crop failures, disease and near-constant financial instability. Far from a romantic adventure, her childhood was marked by hardship, early labor and survival on the margins of the American frontier.

After marrying Almanzo Wilder and enduring years of personal loss and economic struggle, Laura eventually settled in Missouri, where she began writing seriously in her 60s, encouraged by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. Although her first autobiographical manuscript was rejected as too bleak, she reworked her memories into books for young readers, beginning with Little House in the Big Woods in 1932. The series became a cultural phenomenon, later adapted into the beloved TV show Little House on the Prairie.

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Host: Seth Spillman

Producer: Chase Spivey

Writer: Mike Koehler

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Belle Starr’s life sits at the uneasy intersection of fact and legend, shaped as much by mythmaking as by crime. Born in Missouri in 1848 and educated in refinement, the Civil War upended her world and drew her into outlaw circles that included Confederate guerrillas and future members of the James-Younger Gang.

In Indian Territory, Starr reinvented herself not as a gunslinger, but as a savvy organizer who harbored fugitives, moved stolen goods and cultivated a dramatic public image that captured national attention. Her unsolved murder in 1889 and the flood of dime novels that followed transformed Belle Starr into one of the most enduring—and controversial—figures in Wild West lore.

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Tibbs wasn’t just a champion rider—he was rodeo’s first true superstar. His distinctive style, fearless riding and larger-than-life personality helped elevate rodeo into mainstream American culture, earning him a Life magazine cover and widespread fame. Even as injuries mounted, Tibbs continued to compete and win, famously shrugging off broken bones and hospital stays. His impact was so profound that he was inducted into the inaugural class of the National Rodeo Hall of Fame while still actively competing.

After stepping away from full-time competition at just 26, Tibbs carried the spirit of rodeo into Hollywood and beyond. He appeared on television, advised film productions, worked with legends like John Wayne, produced his own movies and took American rodeo worldwide through international tours and Wild West shows. In his later years, Tibbs fulfilled his dream of ranch life in California, remaining connected to the sport he helped shape until his death in 1990. The episode honors Tibbs not just as a champion, but as a cultural ambassador who forever changed how the world saw rodeo.

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🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

As co-founder of the Essanay studio, Anderson didn’t just act—he helped shape how films were made. When early Westerns struggled to connect with audiences, he created Broncho Billy, a cowboy character with depth, emotion, and humanity. Through innovative techniques like close-ups and structured storytelling, Anderson turned simple short films into powerful narratives, producing nearly 150 Broncho Billy movies and helping establish the visual language of cinema that’s still used today.

After stepping away from filmmaking, Anderson faded from public memory until a rediscovery in the 1950s led to a long-overdue Honorary Academy Award. Accepting the Oscar at age 78 with humor and humility, Anderson was finally recognized for the enormous impact he had on motion pictures and Western storytelling. Today, his legacy lives on as one of the foundational figures who defined both the movie Western and the art of filmmaking itself.

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🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

At age 37, Reeves became one of the first Black deputy marshals west of the Mississippi, serving under Judge Isaac Parker out of Fort Smith. Illiterate but possessing an extraordinary memory, Reeves memorized every warrant before riding out, often covering more than 75,000 square miles of dangerous territory. Over 32 years, he made more than 3,000 arrests, relied on disguises and strategy more than brute force, and upheld a strict moral code—even when it meant arresting his own son for murder.

Reeves’ reputation grew into legend, influencing Western storytelling and possibly inspiring the fictional The Lone Ranger. His legacy experienced a resurgence in recent decades, with honors including induction into the Hall of Great Westerners, a statue in Muskogee, the U.S. Marshals Museum in Fort Smith, and renewed popular attention through the TV series Lawmen: Bass Reeves. Once nearly erased from history, Bass Reeves is now rightly recognized as a towering figure of justice, resilience, and frontier law.

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🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Born in rural Pennsylvania and shaped by ranch work, military service and a winding path through Oklahoma, Mix found his calling with the legendary 101 Ranch Wild West Show. His natural horsemanship and showmanship caught the eye of early filmmakers, launching a prolific film career that saw him appear in more than 230 movies for Selig Polyscope and later become a worldwide sensation at Fox Film Corporation. There, Mix helped transform short Western reels into full-length adventure films and established enduring genre tropes—from white-hat heroes to daring horseback rescues—often alongside his famous partner, Tony the Wonder Horse.

Despite earning a fortune and building his own studio “frontier town,” Mix’s life mirrored the boom-and-bust arc of early Hollywood. The transition to sound films, financial setbacks, and personal struggles pushed him back to live performance in circuses and serial films like The Miracle Rider. His life ended tragically in a 1940 car accident, but his legacy endured. Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in 1958, Tom Mix remains a foundational figure whose blend of myth, spectacle and authenticity helped fix the image of the Old West in American popular culture.

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🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

🎟️: You can now buy tickets to The Cowboy online, go to https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/tickets/

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Born and raised on a ranch in Mason, Texas, Bush learned horsemanship from her father and developed a work ethic that would shape a historic career. As one of the earliest members of the Girls’ Rodeo Association, she helped define women’s professional rodeo, earning card number 14 and winning her first world championships at just 20 years old. Over nearly two decades, Bush amassed an astonishing 32 world titles across multiple events, including nine All-Around championships, while competing in an era when women’s rodeo fought for recognition and equal prize money.

Beyond competition, the podcast highlights Bush’s lasting influence as a teacher, mentor, and leader. Through her barrel racing clinics, board service with what became the WPRA, and advocacy for equal pay, she shaped opportunities for generations of cowgirls. Inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Bush is remembered as “quietly famous”—a humble champion whose impact still echoes throughout the rodeo world.

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🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Born in Pennsylvania in 1796, Catlin defied his family’s wishes that he pursue a legal career, abandoning law to follow his passion for art. Drawn west by stories of Native peoples and inspired by the legacy of Lewis and Clark, Catlin traveled to St. Louis in 1830 to meet William Clark and secure support for his ambitious goal: painting members of as many tribes as possible. Over the next several years, he visited more than 50 tribes, journeying across the Plains and into the Rocky Mountains, creating portraits and scenes that emphasized dignity, individuality, and cultural richness.

By the late 1830s, Catlin had assembled more than 500 paintings into his famed Indian Gallery, even as he openly worried about the impact of policies like the Indian Removal Act and events such as the Trail of Tears. Although his work was better received in Europe than in the United States, financial hardship forced him to sell the original collection. Undeterred, Catlin spent his final decades recreating much of his work in what became known as the “Cartoon Collection.” Though recognition came too late for him, his original gallery was eventually preserved by the U.S. government and now resides in the Smithsonian, securing his vision for future generations.

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🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Sundown didn’t enter the rodeo world until later in life. Already in his late 30s, he was known across the Northwest as a skilled horse trainer and rancher in Idaho, breeding and selling horses with his wife. Rodeo competition began as a way to supplement his income, but it quickly became the stage where his talent—and resilience—shone brightest. By his late 40s and 50s, Sundown was so dominant in bronc riding that competitors sometimes withdrew rather than face him.

His most legendary moment came at the Pendleton Round-Up in 1916. At age 53, wearing bright shirts and distinctive orange Angora chaps, Sundown rode the bronc Angel into submission and captured the Broncho Busting title, along with the All-Around Cowboy belt. He became the first Native American to win the championship, a triumph made all the more powerful given his past. “Many years I ride and many times I win money,” Sundown said afterward, “But never did I get first place before.”

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🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

🎟️: You can now buy tickets to The Cowboy online, go to https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/tickets/

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🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Listeners learn that long before he returned to ranch life, Harper revolutionized Notre Dame athletics. After playing under legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg at the University of Chicago, he brought innovation, discipline, and administrative organization to a struggling Notre Dame program. As head coach and the school’s first full-time athletics director, Harper went 34–5–1 in football, helped popularize the forward pass, and upgraded scheduling with national powers such as Army and Texas. He insisted athletics should be financially self-sufficient and embodied his son’s memory that “his whole religion was geared around the Golden Rule.”

Harper walked away from coaching in 1918 at the height of his career, explaining to his son that he rejected the rising pressure “to do nothing but win, win, win, regardless of what you did to the boy, the school or anything else.” He believed that football should “build men,” not break them. Naming Rockne as his successor, Harper returned to Kansas ranch life, where he later led the Kansas Livestock Association, survived the Depression, and built a respected career as a cattleman—all while remaining a trusted adviser to Rockne.

After Rockne’s death, Notre Dame again called Harper back to stabilize the athletic department, and by the time he stepped away in 1934, he had restored order during one of the university’s hardest chapters. When Harper died in 1961, Notre Dame officials traveled to his rural Kansas gravesite to honor him with “A Sportsman’s Prayer.” He was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners in 1962 and enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 1971—belated recognition for a man who, as one journalist wrote, too often “is in the shadows,” despite shaping Notre Dame’s identity for a century.

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🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

🎟️: You can now buy tickets to The Cowboy online, go to https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/tickets/

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