If countless books and movies are to be believed, America’s Wild West was, at heart, a world of cowboys and Indians, sheriffs and gunslingers, scruffy settlers and mountain men—a man’s world. Here, Chris Enss, in the latest of her popular books to take on this stereotype, tells the stories of twelve courageous women who faced down schoolrooms full of children on the open prairies and in the mining towns of the Old West. Between 1847 and 1858, more than 600 women teachers traveled across the untamed frontier to provide youngsters with an education, and the numbers grew rapidly in the decades to come, as women took advantage of one of the few career opportunities for respectable work for ladies of the era. Enduring hardship, the dozen women whose stories are movingly told in the pages of Frontier Teachers demonstrated the utmost dedication and sacrifice necessary to bring formal education to the Wild West. As immortalized in works of art and literature, for many students their women teachers were heroic figures who introduced them to a world of possibilities—and changed America forever.

A seasoned historian assembles a remarkable cadre of authors, who reveal forgotten, true stories of the American frontier.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Montana started emerging from its rugged past. Permanent towns and cities, powered by mining, tourism, and trade, replaced ramshackle outposts. Yet Montana's frontier endured, both in remote pockets and in the wider cultural imagination. The frontier thus played a continuing role in Montanans' lives, often in fascinating ways. Author John Clayton has written extensively on these shifts in Montana history, chronicling the breadth of the frontier's legacy with this diverse collection of stories. Explore the remnants of Montana's frontier through stories of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, the Beartooth Highway, and the lost mining camp of Swift Current--and through legendary characters such as Charlie Russell, Haydie Yates, and "Liver-eating" Johnston.

An Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People Using journal entries, letters home, and song lyrics, the women of the West speak for themselves in these tales of courage, enduring spirit, and adventure. Women such as Amelia Stewart Knight traveling on the Oregon Trail, homesteader Miriam Colt, entrepreneur Clara Brown, army wife Frances Grummond, actress Adah Isaacs Menken, naturalist Martha Maxwell, missionary Narcissa Whitman, and political activist Mary Lease are introduced to readers through their harrowing stories of journeying across the plains and mountains to unknown land. Recounting the impact pioneers had on those who were already living in the region as well as how they adapted to their new lives and the rugged, often dangerous landscape, this exploration also offers resources for further study and reveals how these influential women tamed the Wild West.

Setting up shop in rip-roaring Spanish Fort, Texas, in the early 1870s, Big Eddie Hager outfitted many cowboys in boots as they headed up the Chisholm Trail. Hager's fame and his company grew with the years, turning Hager Boots & Company, Incorporated, into a global legend. But when a Dallas newspaper reporter arrives in what's left of Spanish Fort, an old-timer sets the record straight by telling the true story of the man behind the Hager legend-the real cobbler of Spanish Fort. The Cobbler of Spanish Fort, published for the first time, kicks off this collection of short fiction by Johnny D. Boggs, the most awarded writer in the history of Western Writers of America with nine Spur Awards and 14 Spur finalist honors. A Piano at Dead Man's Crossing-a 2002 Spur winner-tells the story of an Arizona frontier family from the viewpoint of an upright grand piano. A Comanche warrior imprisoned at Florida's Fort Marion attempts to paint his way to freedom in Comanche Camp at Dawn; Buffalo Bill Cody and his wife fight it out to save their marriage in The Cody War; and Wild Bill Hickok umpires a baseball game in Kansas City in Umpire Colt-all Spur Award finalists. Don't expect gunfights on dusty streets. Boggs fills these 21 Western, Civil War and Southern tales, old and new, with quirky cowboys, revenge, humor, heroes, baseball, teens coming of age, and even a kid playing cowboys and Indians with his mother's hair curlers

Discover the stories of twelve women who heard the call to settle the west and who came from all points of the globe to begin their journey. The author ties the stories of these pioneer women to the experiences of women today with the hope that they will be inspired to live boldly and bravely and to fill their own lives with vision, faith, and fortitude. To live with grit.

Fourteen stories of colorful western characters and how they are transformed.

"Frontier Stories" by Bret Harte Bret Harte was an American short story writer and poet best remembered for short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. This book showcases his propensity for the frontier by showcasing multiple short stories that have settlers as main characters. Flip: A California Romance, Found at Blazing Star, In the Carquinez Woods, At the Mission of San Carmel, A Blue-Grass Penelope, Left out on Lone Star Mountain, and A Ship of '40 are the tales in this collection.