Wild West Podcast

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Step back into the raw, untamed reality of the Kansas frontier and listen to the true story of Fort Dodge—stripped of Hollywood gloss. Scan to hear how a windswept outpost born in April 1865 along the Arkansas River survived brutal blizzards, disease-ridden sod dugouts, desertion, and illicit whiskey and arms trafficking to become a critical military lifeline along the Santa Fe Trail. Follow General Philip Sheridan and Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer as Fort Dodge served as the staging ground for their relentless 1868–1869 winter campaign—culminating in the devastating dawn attack on Black Kettle’s village at the Washita River that forced Southern Plains tribes onto reservations—before the railroad arrived in 1872, the Army marched away in 1882, and the historic limestone post was reborn in 1890 as the Kansas Soldiers' Home, where it continues to serve veterans today.

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Picture the summer of 1843, heat shimmering off the prairie. Jacob Snively, a surveyor with a score to settle, gathers a band of Texas volunteers and heads north along the Santa Fe Trail. Their mission? Intercept Mexican trade caravans and settle old debts with whatever goods they can haul away. Sam Houston gave his blessing, but only on paper and behind closed doors. The Texas Invincibles, as they called themselves, rode out looking for payback along the Arkansas River, where the border was more rumor than fact. They found it, too—a quick, lopsided fight with Mexican scouts. But the real trouble started when Captain Philip St. George Cooke and his U.S. Dragoons showed up at Jackson's Grove, rolled out their artillery, and told the Texans to hand over their guns. Suddenly, three nations were staring each other down on the prairie, and nobody wanted to blink first. What happened next nearly rewrote the map. And as for Snively? He kept chasing fortune all the way to Arizona's gold fields, never quite finding a place to land.

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In September 1868, a desperate overnight engagement unfolded at Little Coon Creek, located approximately thirty miles east of Fort Dodge along the dry route. Fred Hagsby—an Englishman stationed at Fort Dodge at the time—wrote the accompanying song, which commemorates a small band of four men who marched out from the post with supplies for their comrades and fought valiantly through the night against overwhelming odds.

While the lyrical verses state that the attacking party consisted of fifty Native Americans, this number was adjusted by the author strictly to fit the rhyme scheme of the song, as historical accounts confirm that the actual force was significantly larger. Nearly half a century earlier, the tune used for this frontier ballad was the same melody associated with the historical song "Sherman's March to the Sea".

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In Ida Ellen Rath’s book The Rath Trail (1961), Chapter 18 ("Where the Rath Trail Led”) covers the trail's physical establishment and history. This chapter focuses directly on the southern extension of Charles Rath and Robert M. Wright’s freighting and buffalo hunting operations into the Texas Panhandle and Double Mountain country. It details the heavy ox trains heading south out of Dodge City, passing Fort Elliott, and blazing the supply and hide corridor down to Rath City (Reynolds City) in Stonewall County, Texas.  

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This audiobook preserves, honors, and brings to vivid life a vital yet often-overlooked chapter of 19th-century American frontier history: the harrowing September 1868 Battle of Little Coon Creek along the Santa Fe Trail. While grand military strategies and high-ranking generals frequently dominate historical accounts, the daily perils, sacrifices, and extraordinary valor of common soldiers and non-commissioned officers often slip into obscurity. This book was written to ensure that the remarkable courage of defenders like Medal of Honor recipient Corporal Leander "Lee" Herron and the desperate midnight ride of Corporal Patrick "Patty" Boyle are permanently recorded, remembered, and made accessible to modern readers. By drawing upon primary accounts—including Robert M. Wright’s 1913 memoirs, rare historical songs, expert historical analysis by Dr. Jeff Broome, and a newly rediscovered 1930 radio broadcast featuring Corporal Herron himself—the book captures the raw, human reality of the Kansas frontier.

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Get ready for a chilling walk down memory lane as we take you on a ghostly journey through Dodge City with our mischievous guide, Luke McGlue. Picture this: it's Halloween night, and the usually bustling streets are eerily silent. Luke has a mission - to administer the infamous Keely Cure to a stubbornly intoxicated judge. Sounds simple, right? But things aren't always as they seem in this legendary Wild West town. 

In the second act, we take a haunting detour to the city's graveyard with our special guest, historian Brad Smalley. Uncover the tragic tales of Lizzie Palmer and J.M. Essington, victims of the city's lawless past. Ever wondered about the spectral figure of Billy Brooks, Dodge City's first appointed Marshal? Hear a captivating recount of his life and the mystery surrounding his ghostly presence. And don't worry, we won't leave you in suspense. Stick around after the show as Brad and Mike unravel the intriguing blend of truth and tales that make up this riveting episode. So, are you ready for a wild ride through Dodge City's shadowy past?

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In November 2026, The Wild West Podcast will launch a new month-long series, Beyond the Legend: The True History of the Frontier, that deconstructs popular Hollywood myths about the 19th-century American West. Drawing on primary sources, court records, and historical archives, the series will examine the facts behind romanticized cowboy clichés to reveal a grittier, darker, more complex frontier. The series will debunk the cinematic "quick-draw" duel and explore the ruthless, flawed realities of famous lawmen such as Wyatt Earp. The narrative will also clarify regional historical facts, showing that primary nineteenth-century sources consistently referred to the cattle route into Dodge City as the "Western Trail" or "Western Cattle Trail," and examine frontier gun-control ordinances that directly contradict cinematic depictions of a lawless, unrestricted jurisdiction.

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Halloween night in Spearville, Kansas, arrived with a blizzard so dense it erased the horizon and pressed the cold into the marrow of every bone. The wind rattled the windows of the Ford County Bank, carrying with it the scent of scorched kerosene and the faint, metallic tang of fear. Inside, Oliver Yantis, Bill Doolin, and George "Bittercreek" Newcomb moved with the practiced urgency of men who had robbed banks before. Yantis’s gloved hands shook as he stuffed silver coins and crisp Treasury notes into a battered canvas sack, the fabric stiff with frost. Outside, the storm thickened, and a darkness seeped through the mortar, heavy with the odor of old crypts and dried blood. The outlaws fled into the Cimarron breaks, their horses’ hooves muffled by the snow, only to find themselves swallowed by a white, endless void. In a sagging line shack, the stolen money lay between them like a curse, while the wind clawed at the boards and shadows stretched across the walls, alive with a slow, deliberate pulse.

Alone now, Yantis crouched in a dugout carved from frozen earth, the air thick with the smell of damp rot and gun oil. Somewhere beyond the door, a rider approached—headless, astride a pale horse whose breath steamed in the moonlight. The apparition’s coat flapped in the wind, canvas stiff with the memory of old blood. Yantis fired his revolver, but the bullets shattered like ice against the rider’s chest, falling useless to the dirt floor. Panic clawed at his throat as the dugout seemed to shrink, the darkness pressing in until he could taste the soil on his tongue. Desperate, he burst into the open, blinded by moonlight and snow, and ran straight into the waiting rifles of Sheriff Chalk Beeson and Deputy Tom Hueston. The shots echoed across the prairie, but the nightmare did not end. In the telegraph office, the wires began to chatter, keys clacking out warnings in the empty night. Even now, as October winds howl through Spearville, doors are bolted tight and children hush at the sound of phantom hoofbeats—Oliver Yantis, still running, forever lost in the frozen dark.

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The script tells the chilling story of a 1958 archival discovery at Fort Hays State University, where a graduate assistant listening to a reel-to-reel tape recorded by local resident Mary C. Highland uncovers a dark, hidden secret from the Kansas frontier. Prompted by a cryptic note left in the tape box, the narrative flashes back to 1888 Bucklin, Kansas, where investigator Jack Sterling looks into the legend of the "Sod-House Spectre". He learns that the haunting ghost is Eleanor Vance, a mother who froze to death with her child during the Great Blizzard of 1886 after being cruelly denied shelter and coal by a ruthless railroad official named Elias Corbin. 

The tale culminates in a fiery act of vengeance at the Bucklin City Opera House, where Corbin is confronted by Jack Sterling and ultimately dragged into the flames by the spectral figure of Eleanor Vance. Back in 1958, the young archivist preserves the haunting history, realizing that true historical memory often lives on through local folklore and unspoken truths rather than official documents alone. 

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This special Halloween episode of the Wild West Podcast, narrated by Brad Smalley, explores the dark history and haunting of Soule's Eureka Canal in Cimarron, Kansas. The story centers on Asa T. Soule, a wealthy New York tycoon who made his fortune selling Hop Bitters and sought to carve a massive irrigation ditch across the plains to build an agricultural empire. The venture ultimately failed due to unpredictable river flows and porous soil, earning it the bitter local moniker "Soule's Folly". Beneath the economic failure lay a much darker human cost, rooted in the ruthless displacement and ruin of ordinary men who crossed Soule's path.

The narrative follows a visiting New York journalist, Frank Hopper, who teams up with Cimarron local Eleanor Vance to investigate whispers of the supernatural. Hopper experiences a terrifying encounter with a phosphorescent, wailing specter in the dry canal bed—the restless ghost of Silas Croft, a former New York farmer whose life and livelihood were destroyed by Soule's early speculations before perishing alone in a brutal Kansas blizzard. Understanding that the haunting was an unsettled ledger demanding truth rather than vengeance, Hopper writes a searing exposé detailing Croft's tragic fate and Soule's exploitation. Once the story is published and the debt of memory is paid, the phantom vanishes into peace, inspiring Hopper to leave his eastern career behind and plant his roots in Kansas as a small-town journalist alongside Eleanor.

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If you'd like to buy one or more of our fully illustrated dime novel publications, you can click the link I've included.