The grandfather of all cowboy gathering events will be held at Elko, Nevada from January 30 to February 4.

For the last 27 years cowboys, ranchers, rural and urban people have traveled to this small high desert community.

This year’s event will focus on the southwestern United States.  To get more information visit www.westernfolklife.org.

Incidentally, one may ask why would they have this event during January in Nevada.  This is because when they started the event this was the only time of the year when the weather was so bad that the cowboys could get time off to attend the event.

Of all the Old West characters Wyatt Earp is probably the most controversial.  There are those who think he was the Old West’s greatest lawman, and others who say he was a con man.

Not far behind him is George Armstrong Custer.  There are those who feel he was a great military tactician, and others who believe he was a publicity hound.

 Tonight the PBS history series AMERICAN EXPERIENCE will be airing a two hour special on Custer as a part of their month-long “Wild West” collection.  You can catch it at 8/7 C on PBS

Last week I commented on the Billy the Kid PBS special and how the famous picture of Billy the Kid kept appearing on the screen over and over.

That’s because there are only two authentic photographs of Billy the Kid presently in existence.  The most famous one is a two-by-three-inch ferrotype or tintype, taken by an unknown itinerant photographer outside Beaver Smith’s Saloon in Old Fort Sumner, around 1880…Because it portrays Billy as a very unattractive person, many have called it his visa picture.

Originally people didn’t realize that since it was a tintype, the image was actually reversed.  So, everyone though Billy the Kid was left handed. This misconception even inspired the 1958 movie “The Left Handed Gun,” starring Paul Newman as Billy. 

Finally firearms experts looked at the Kid’s Winchester and noticed its spring plate, where the cartridges are loaded, was on the left side.  But Winchester produced firearms with spring plates only on the right side.  So, later books and publications have the reversed image reversed, so it’s correct.

Recently this picture went on the auction block and a retired Wichita industrialist who collects everything from Wild West memorabilia to Picassos bought it for $2 million…Incidentally, it was thought it would go for about $300,000.

  Why did we name our Old West blog “Cowboy to Cowboy”?  At onetime everyone who’s intrigued with the Old West has wanted to be a cowboy… even the ladies.  Unfortunately, for most of us the closest we’ve been able to come to being a real cowboy is to own horses, go on horse pack trips and do a little roping.

We regularly have people come up to us… mostly men… and say they were born 125 years to late.  They should have lived in the Old West.  Incidentally, I would like to go back to the late 1800’s just for a couple of days.  I love my hot showers and flush toilets to much.

I truly believe the Old West is a time and place of the heart.  And in the spirit of that belief whether you’re a working cowboy in Wyoming or a Los Angeles banker living in a high‑rise apartment, if you love the Old West and have the spirit of the cowboy, you’re a cowboy.  And so, when you visit us, we’ll be communicating “Cowboy to Cowboy.”