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Deadwood Gold Stamp, 1888


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.

frontiersman


The Result of Fast Driving.


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Editor: Speeding drivers is not a modern plague. This report from New Mexico editorializes about the need to control fast horse riding.

Published in the Rio Grande Republican / August 27, 1881

A very serious accident happened to Mrs. Romero, wife of Manuel Romero on Wednesday afternoon, on the Mesilla road near the public school building. Mrs. Romero was riding out of town in Jesus Flores' wagon, Flores himself being the driver. He was driving very rapidly and when he turned the corner near the school building the wagon tipped to one side throwing the lady out.

She alighted on the back of her head sustaining injuries thought to be fatal. When the physician was called in she complained of numbness in her limbs and feet, which would indicate that the spinal column has been injured. She was otherwise seriously bruised.

Burial Scaffolds


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Black HillsA stereograph card showing scaffolds bearing dead Indian bodies in Black Hills, South Dakota. c1907. View full image.

THE RECENT INDIAN MASSACRE.


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ACCOUNTS GIVEN BY THE GOVERNMENT OFFICERS -- SHOCKING BARBARITY OF THE SIOUX.

Accounts published in The New York Times / August 21, 1873

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20. -- The following accounts of the fight between the Pawnee and Sioux Indians, on the 4th of August, have been received at the War Department, through Gen. Sherman:

Chief Little Wound


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Chief Little WoundChief Little Wound, wearing feather headdresses, in council with other Indians in Dakota Territory, c1899. View full image.

 

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