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Winter Indian Camp: 1908


Ghost Cowboy is about real tales from the 19th-century American frontier, when the Old West was young. Most of the posts here are actual news items from the 1800s and early 1900s. We'll be adding "new" content every week. Travel with us and sign up for an account, and you'll be able to leave comments and post in our forums. Your trailmasters, Ken in Alabama and Dave in Virginia, don't get to saddle up and vacation out west as often as they'd like, so they started this site. Drop us a note.

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Old Bedlam, Fort Laramie


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“Old Bedlam” (officers’ quarters), Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Full size.

CALLED HIM A SQUAW.


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Today, 1 p.m.: Meeting w/Big Bear. Note to self: Don't forget cannon!

New-York Times / September 12, 1854

INDIAN OUTRAGES.

Important News from Fort Laramie -- Indians Attacking the Fort and Destroying the American Fur Company's Station -- Carrying off $15,000 Worth of Property.

LOUISVILLE, Monday, Sept. 11.

Information of an authentic nature had been received at St. Louis that about the middle of August a Sioux Indian killed an ox belonging to an emigrant near Fort Laramie. The Chief of the tribe thereupon sent a messenger to Lt. Fleming, the commander of the fort, requesting him to send a force, and he would deliver up

Soapy's Luck Runs Out


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View full size. Two Skagway docks near where Soapy Smith was killed in 1898.

UNDER MARTIAL LAW.


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Skaguay, Alaska, Feels the Strong Grip of Military Rule.

Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette / July 23, 1898

Juneau, Alaska, July 17, by Steamer Al-Ki to Departure Bay, July 28 -- The town of Skaguay is still under martial law, and all saloons are closed. Twenty-six men who have been bound over by the United States commissioner have been taken to Sitka. County Surveyor Reid, who killed "Soapy" Smith recently, received a

 

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