Latest Texashistory Podcast Episodes
Liver Eating Johnson
The Wild West Extravaganza - June 06, 2023 05:17 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsJohn “Liver Eating” Johnson was the inspiration behind 1972’s Jeremiah Johnson but the real man’s life was even more extraordinary than portrayed on film. Johnson/Johnstone was a sailor, soldier, fur trapper, prospector, scout, Indian fighter, and lawman. Sometimes a good guy, sometimes a bad guy...
The Last Wild Apache
The Wild West Extravaganza - May 30, 2023 23:42 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsOn September 4th, 1886, the mighty Apache leader Geronimo surrendered to the U.S. Army. The last American Indian warrior to formally surrender to the United States. And with him, so went the Indian Wars. The buffalo were gone, the railroads and churches were here to stay, and the wild west was – ...
Billy the Kid's Trigger Finger
The Wild West Extravaganza - May 24, 2023 14:39 - 19 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsJust a few days following the death of Billy the Kid a newspaper out of Las Vegas, New Mexico reported that they had, in their possession, the notorious bandit’s severed trigger finger. Others claimed to have Billy’s skull, and clumps of his hair, and one scoundrel was even peddling a skeleton he...
The Big Fight at Jenkins Saloon
The Wild West Extravaganza - May 17, 2023 04:03 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsTascosa, Texas, in those turbulent times of the 1880s, epitomized lawlessness and chaos. It was a place where legends were born, and outlaws roamed freely. The echoes of Billy the Kid's footsteps still reverberated through its dusty streets, mingling with the shadowy presence of Dave Rudabaugh, J...
Al Swearengen & the Gem Saloon
The Wild West Extravaganza - May 10, 2023 02:13 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsAl Swearengen was the notorious owner of Deadwood’s Gem Theatre, which quickly became one of the boom town's most popular entertainment venues. Swearengen’s business practices, however, were far from ethical. He coerced desperate women into becoming prostitutes, often through bullying and physica...
Jim Crow Chiles | The Dancing Missouri Bushwhacker
The Wild West Extravaganza - May 03, 2023 02:12 - 25 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsYou can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family. An old adage that the 33rd President of the United States Harry S. Truman knew all too well. Every family has that one black sheep, right? In the case of the Trumans, that shameful distinction fell on James John...
Jose Chavez y Chavez
The Wild West Extravaganza - April 26, 2023 03:45 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsOne of the more memorable characters from Young Guns 1 and 2 was Chavez y Chavez, portrayed by the talented Lou Diamond Philips. And yes, Chavez was real! He was a constable in San Patricio and an ally of the Tunstall McSween faction during the Lincoln County War. Jose was a full participant in t...
Doc Scurlock | The Thinking Man's Outlaw
The Wild West Extravaganza - April 19, 2023 03:26 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsJosiah "Doc" Scurlock was a poet, philosopher, intellectual, and a hardened killer long before he ever met Billy the Kid. A mysterious past in Mexico, rumors of dead men from New Orleans to Texas, a penchant for vigilantism, and several close calls with the hostile Natives all made Doc a man to b...
Billy the Kid | Quién es (Part 5)
The Wild West Extravaganza - April 12, 2023 04:06 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsBy 1880 The Kid was not only being hunted by Sheriff Pat Garrett and the Texas Panhandle Stock Association, but the federal authorities as well. He’d be arrested, sentenced to hang, and then make one of the most daring escapes of the Old West. Little did Billy know how numbered his days truly wer...
Billy the Kid | Desperado (Part 4)
The Wild West Extravaganza - April 04, 2023 23:56 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsThis is part four in the series on Billy the Kid. See the links below for the previous three installments. In the aftermath of the Battle of Lincoln, Billy and the Regulators sought to acquire much-needed horses by striking the Mescalero Reservation. Although successful, they left a man dead in ...
Billy the Kid | Lincoln County War (Part 3)
The Wild West Extravaganza - March 29, 2023 01:29 - 57 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsLincoln County, New Mexico Territory was the setting of a brutal conflict between rival factions vying for control of the county's dry goods and cattle interests. The Lincoln County War, as it came to be known, began in 1878 and persisted until 1881, a time of lawlessness and bloodshed in the Old...
Billy the Kid | Croquet Photo
The Wild West Extravaganza - March 27, 2023 20:49 - 13 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsIs the croquet photo legit? Check out my website for more true tales from the wild and woolly west https://www.wildwestextra.com/ Email me! https://www.wildwestextra.com/contact/ Buy me a coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wildwest Free Newsletter! https://wildwestjosh.s...
Billy the Kid | Prelude to War (Part 2)
The Wild West Extravaganza - March 21, 2023 21:30 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsFleeing a potential hangman’s noose in Arizona, Kid Antrim returns to New Mexico, taking on the alias William H. Bonney as he begins riding with the outlaw Jesse Evans and his Boys. The Kid would soon find legitimate work elsewhere, however, coming into the employ of English rancher John Tunstall...
Billy the Kid | Orphan (Part 1)
The Wild West Extravaganza - March 15, 2023 22:57 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsIn the summer of 1881, Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett. The lawman had been on the hunt ever since Billy broke out of jail in the town of Lincoln and finally caught up to the bandit at Old Fort Sumner. It was around midnight, and Pat was waiting inside Pete Maxwell’s dark...
Old West Books
The Wild West Extravaganza - March 08, 2023 12:17 - 14 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsJust a short update. No new episode today but next week we’ll kick off the Billy the Kid series. In the meantime, check out some of these book recommendations and give a listen to a few of my friends! Topics include: Louis L’Amour, Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy, William W. Johnstone, Terry C. J...
Jim Bridger | The Scout (Part 5)
The Wild West Extravaganza - March 01, 2023 12:20 - 44 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsGold was discovered in Montana in 1862, ushering in a flood of prospectors straight through the heart of Lakota territory on a new road called the Bozeman trail, further straining tensions between settlers and Natives. Jim Bridger opened up his “Bridger’s Trail”, a much safer – and popular - alte...
Jim Bridger | The Guide (Part 4)
The Wild West Extravaganza - February 22, 2023 11:36 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsIn the 1850s, Jim Bridger put his extensive knowledge of the West to use by guiding wealthy adventurers, geological surveyors, and the U.S. military. Then, in 1862, the discovery of gold in Montana sparked yet another gold rush, leading thousands of prospectors to illegally trespass on Lakota and...
Trailer
The Wild West Extravaganza - February 20, 2023 20:21 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsThe Wild West Extravaganza is a history podcast that delves into the fascinating and often tumultuous world of the American Old West. From outlaws like Billy the Kid and Jesse James to lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok to trailblazing pioneers, Native Americans, and frontiersmen, The Wi...
Jim Bridger | Mormons (Part 3)
The Wild West Extravaganza - February 15, 2023 13:14 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsThis is part 3 of the series on Jim Bridger. For the previous 2 installments see the links below. Fur trading no longer lucrative, Jim Bridger and a business partner decide to open up a trading post of their own, dubbing it Fort Bridger. Wasn’t long before Jim began doing brisk business, both to ...
Jim Bridger | Bugs Boys (Part 2)
The Wild West Extravaganza - February 08, 2023 12:00 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsSome of the richest beaver country was in the heart of territory claimed by the Blackfeet Confederacy; a tribe known to the fur trappers as Bug’s Boys, or the Sons of Satan. Needless to say there was no love lost between the American trappers and the Blackfeet, and violence became a given any tim...
Jim Bridger | Ashley's 100 (Part 1)
The Wild West Extravaganza - February 01, 2023 06:05 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsJim Bridger would join the ranks of Ashley’s One Hundred while still a teenager and - alongside other future old west legends like Hugh Glass, Jedediah Smith, and James Beckwourth - head up the Missouri river in search of beaver. From present day northern Montana all the way down to the Gulf of C...
Wyatt Earp in Hollywood
The Wild West Extravaganza - January 04, 2023 02:44 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsMy Darling Clementine is considered the greatest Wyatt Earp film of all time. It also just so happens to be the least accurate, despite legendary director John Ford having known Wyatt personally. Contrary to popular belief – and Ford’s own claims - this film was NOT based on Earp’s own account of...
Huckleberry or Hucklebearer?
The Wild West Extravaganza - December 21, 2022 13:18 - 27 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsWe all know the "scene", right? Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp are walking the streets of Tombstone when they’re confronted by a visibly inebriated Johnny Ringo. He informs the trio that he wants their blood and their souls, and he wants them now. Wyatt refuses to fight, says there ain’t no money...
Frank Canton | The General (Part 5)
The Wild West Extravaganza - December 14, 2022 13:36 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsThis is the fifth and final installation in the Frank Canton series. Link below for the previous four. In the early morning hours of June 2nd, 1899, five masked men held up a Union Pacific Train near Wilcox, Wyoming. In what would become one of the more famous robberies of the old west, the bandi...
Frank Canton | Alaska (Part 4)
The Wild West Extravaganza - December 07, 2022 03:09 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsThis is part 4 in the series on Frank Canton. Link to previous episodes below. When we left off, Frank was laying low in Nebraska following the aftermath of the Johnson County War. On this episode we’ll take a look at Canton’s next job – that of Undersheriff in a newly formed county down in India...
Frank Canton | Johnson County War (Part 3)
The Wild West Extravaganza - November 30, 2022 13:32 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsThis is Part 3 in the Frank Canton series. See links below for Parts 1 2. https://open.spotify.com/episode/04X4DO7USW9EzqK0xFNhSJ https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Nh2kWENOVK8xwZgy5SLf6 Things in Johnson County, Wyoming had finally come to a head. After the Wyoming Stock Growers Association all...
Frank Canton | Sheriff (Part 2)
The Wild West Extravaganza - November 23, 2022 03:10 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsThis is Part 2 in the Frank Canton series. See link below for Part 1. https://www.wildwestextra.com/frank-canton-part-1-the-outlaw-years/ During Canton’s time as Johnson County Sheriff, he sent over a dozen men to prison – mostly for horse theft – and even executed a murderer. He wasn’t very tri...
Frank Canton | The Outlaw Years (Part 1)
The Wild West Extravaganza - November 16, 2022 02:47 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsFrank Canton was not born; he was created. The mental fabrication of a notorious outlaw and escaped convict by the name of Joe Horner. After possibly killing his first man at the tender age of 15, Horner would spend the next several years as a cowboy and ranch hand before forming the infamous Hor...
Frank James - The Old Shoe Salesman
The Wild West Extravaganza - October 29, 2022 08:59 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsIt’s safe to say that a career as an outlaw doesn’t lend itself to a long life. Billy the Kid was only twenty-one years old when he was killed. Cherokee Bill a year younger. The notorious Bloody Bill Anderson not yet twenty-five. Jesse James, Joaquin Murrieta, Rube Burrow, Bill Longley, the list ...
An Execution Gone Wrong - The Terrifying Story of Clemente Apolinar
The Wild West Extravaganza - October 26, 2022 11:58 - 14 minutes ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsHappy Halloween! Clemente Apolinar was the last person publicly hanged in Texas. Not only did his execution go horribly wrong but you won’t BELIEVE what the location is currently being used as. Check out my website for more true tales from the Wild West: https://www.wildwestextra.com/ Ema...
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