This Week in the West

🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

The podcast traces Texas Jack's remarkable rise to fame through his friendship with Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok. In 1872, he joined Cody and actress Giuseppina Morlacchi in Scouts of the Prairie, a groundbreaking theatrical production that featured real frontier scouts instead of actors. The show captivated audiences, helped lay the foundation for the Wild West entertainment genre and introduced many eastern Americans to their first authentic image of the cowboy. Texas Jack also pioneered rope demonstrations on stage and became one of the nation's first celebrity cowboys.

Despite his enormous popularity, Texas Jack's career was cut tragically short when he died of pneumonia in 1880 at just 33 years old. While Buffalo Bill went on to build an entertainment empire, Texas Jack's legacy gradually faded from public memory. Yet his influence on Western culture remains profound, shaping the world's image of the American cowboy and helping establish many of the myths and traditions that continue to define the West today.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

👥 Behind the Scenes

🔗 Further research:

📬 Connect With Us:

🗺️ 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 will follow the dramatic showdown in Springfield, Missouri, where the two men faced each other across the town square before exchanging shots from an astonishing distance of about 75 yards. The episode examines Hickok's subsequent manslaughter trial, why a jury acquitted him under the frontier's evolving ideas of self-defense and honor, and how the event transformed him from a local gambler into a national celebrity. It also reveals the irony that Hickok's own death eleven years later bore little resemblance to the legendary duel that made him famous, reminding us that the reality of the Old West was often far messier—and far less romantic—than its enduring myths.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

👥 Behind the Scenes

🔗 Further research:

📬 Connect With Us:

🗺️ 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/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate & review!

🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Before becoming rodeo's leading organizer, Bowman built an extraordinary competitive career. Raised in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona, he developed his skills as a ranch hand before entering professional rodeo in the 1920s. Over the next two decades, he captured 10 officially recognized world championships, won two rare rodeo Triple Crowns and claimed victories at many of the sport's most prestigious events, including Calgary, Pendleton and Ellensburg. His combination of athletic excellence and determination made him one of the defining cowboys of his era.

After retiring from competition, Bowman remained deeply involved in Western life as a rancher, law enforcement officer and aviation enthusiast. He continued promoting rodeo until his death in a plane crash in 1971. Today, his legacy lives on through multiple Hall of Fame inductions, including the inaugural class of the National Rodeo Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, where many of his championship trophies and saddles are preserved as reminders of the man who helped shape modern professional rodeo.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

👥 Behind the Scenes

📬 Connect With Us:

🗺️ 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/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate & review!

🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

King's greatest achievement began in the early 1850s when he recognized the potential of the South Texas grasslands and established what would become the legendary King Ranch. Through relentless expansion, business vision and resilience during the Civil War, he transformed a modest landholding into one of the largest ranches in the world. His cattle drives helped fuel the booming postwar beef industry, while his investments in breeding, transportation and infrastructure reshaped ranching into a modern business.

The episode also explores Richard King's enduring legacy, from the famous Running W brand and the development of the Santa Gertrudis cattle breed to the founding of Kingsville, Texas. Inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners in 1959, King left behind more than a ranch—he created an institution that continues to symbolize innovation, perseverance and the entrepreneurial spirit of the American West.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

👥 Behind the Scenes

🔗 Further research:

📬 Connect With Us:

🗺️ 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/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate & review!

🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

During World War II, Lovell served as a Marine Corps artist, further refining his commitment to historical accuracy. After the war, he illustrated for National Geographic and researched subjects ranging from Vikings to Alexander the Great before a major commission on the history of the American Southwest redirected his focus toward Western art. Moving to Santa Fe in 1972 immersed him in the landscapes and cultures that inspired many of his most celebrated paintings.

Lovell became a leading figure in Western art, earning honors from the Cowboy Artists of America and the Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale, where his painting Target Practice won the Ann Noble Brown Purchase Award in 1986. Following his death in 1997, his legacy has endured through paintings held in museums and private collections, including significant works, papers and studio artifacts preserved at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. His career remains a testament to the power of careful research, historical authenticity and visual storytelling.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

👥 Behind the Scenes

🔗 Further research:

📬 Connect With Us:

🗺️ 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/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate & review!

🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Traveling from New Orleans to St. Louis and deep into the fur-trade country of the Missouri River, Wilhelm followed in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark. Along the way, he met legendary explorer William Clark and became acquainted with Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who later accompanied him back to Europe. His journeys took him among numerous Indigenous nations, including the Sioux, Blackfoot and Mandan peoples, and ultimately to the Three Forks region of present-day Montana, where he helped expand scientific knowledge of the Missouri River watershed.

What makes Wilhelm especially significant today is the detailed record he left behind. Unlike many travelers of his era, he approached Indigenous cultures with genuine curiosity and carefully documented languages, customs, clothing and daily life. His journals, sketches and collections preserved a snapshot of the American frontier during a brief period before railroads and large-scale settlement transformed the West. Though much of his work was later lost during World War II, his surviving writings remain an important resource for historians studying the early American frontier.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

👥 Behind the Scenes

🔗 Further research:

📬 Connect With Us:

🗺️ 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/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate & review!

🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

Although not a chief, Geronimo emerged as an influential Apache spiritual leader, warrior and strategist during the Apache Wars. As American expansion accelerated following the Mexican-American War, the Apache faced increasing pressure from settlers, soldiers and government policies that confined Indigenous peoples to reservations. Refusing to accept life on the San Carlos Reservation, Geronimo repeatedly led small groups of Apache followers into the mountains of the Southwest, evading capture and conducting raids for years. His ability to escape much larger military forces made him both feared and legendary throughout the region.

Geronimo finally surrendered in 1886, marking the end of major Apache resistance campaigns in the Southwest. He and the Chiricahua Apache spent the rest of their lives as prisoners of war, eventually being relocated to Fort Sill in Oklahoma Territory. In later years, Geronimo became a national celebrity, appearing at fairs, expositions and even President Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade. Yet he never stopped seeking permission to return to his homeland. His 1905 autobiography remains one of the most important firsthand accounts by an Indigenous leader of the American West. He died at Fort Sill in 1909, still a prisoner of war, leaving behind a legacy that continues to shape conversations about resistance, survival and the history of the American West.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

👥 Behind the Scenes

🔗 Further research:

📬 Connect With Us:

🗺️ 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/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate & review!

🤠This Week in the West

📢 Episode Summary:

After years of writing short stories for pulp magazines, L’Amour achieved national success with Hondo in 1953. The novel's popularity launched a remarkable career that produced nearly 100 novels, more than 250 short stories and hundreds of millions of books sold worldwide. His stories of ranchers, settlers, prospectors and wanderers helped define how generations of readers understood the American West, while his dedication to historical research gave his work a reputation for authenticity.

This episode explores L’Amour's relentless work ethic, his love of reading and learning, and the legacy he left behind when he died on June 10, 1988. While some aspects of his work have been reassessed by modern audiences, his influence on Western literature, film and popular culture remains enormous. More than three decades after his death, his books continue to introduce new readers to the history, adventure and mythology of the American West.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

👥 Behind the Scenes

🔗 Further research:

📬 Connect With Us:

🗺️ 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/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate & review!