Tombstone Epitaph

09/27/2025

You do NOT want to miss the upcoming October 2025 issue of the Tombstone Epitaph! Ron Williams provides us with our cover story about Virgil Earp's arrival in Prescott, Brad Courtney profiles Doc Holliday's Prescott housemate Richard Elliott, and Roy Young investigates highwaymen. Our James B. Mills also willingly stepped aside to allow Janelle Molony to host our Letters From The Frontier column with a special letter written by Nicolas Earp about the Earp family's travels.

The issue will be mailed to our thousands of subscribers in a few days.

Subscribe to our monthly newspaper for just $25 a year at www.tombstoneepitaph.com

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09/24/2025

Star of the classic Westerns "Once Upon A Time In The West" and "The Professionals"...

09/18/2025

September 18, 1877. The Joel Collins Gang holds up a Union Pacific train at Big Springs, Nebraska. The outlaws--a laughingstock before this--stumble upon wooden boxes with $20 gold pieces. They make off with more than $60,000. Several of them--including Collins (lower right in photo)--are gunned down by posses within two weeks.

But Sam Bass (upper left in photo) makes it back to North Texas, where he continues his outlaw ways before being mortally wounded by lawmen 10 months later.

09/11/2025

September 11, 1857. Mountain Meadows in southern Utah. Mormon militia and a few Paiute Indians murder more than 120 men, women and children from the Baker-Fancher wagon train party. Seventeen children under the age of 7 are spared and placed with Mormon families, although they are later reunited with other family or friends.

The reasons for the Mountain Meadows Massacre are varied. The United States was sending troops to Utah to gain control of the territory, and Mormon leaders were concerned about any Americans who were coming through their land. There were rumors--just rumors--that the Baker-Fancher party was poisoning water as they went through the region. And there's some thought that the act was in revenge for the murder of Mormon Apostle Parley Pratt, who was killed in the same area of Arkansas that many in the wagon train came from.

The ongoing question: did Mormon Prophet Brigham Young know of the massacre ahead of time--or did he order it? The evidence is sketchy.

Only one man is ever tried for Mountain Meadows. John D. Lee was a southern Utah Mormon leader in 1857 and certainly participated. He is found guilty and executed by firing squad--nearly 20 years after the massacre.

09/07/2025

September 7, 1876. The James-Younger Gang tries to rob the First National Bank in Northfield, MN. The citizens rise up and fight back. Over the course of the battle and eventual chase, three outlaws die; three others are wounded and captured.

Two of the locals also die. Nicholas Gustavson is shot, in part, because he doesn't understand English and fails to get off the street. Joseph Lee Heywood--a substitute bank cashier (in photo)--is murdered (probably by Frank James) for refusing to give up the bank money.

The power of the criminal outfit was broken. Today, we honor those who fought back to protect their town.

09/04/2025

Culz Book Reviews went on location to Billy the Kid's grave in Fort Sumner and to Las Vegas, New Mexico, for this one...

For more Billy the Kid related content, * Playlist : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2v65FRcHQYsCMW-izGswaWmY1XPe4JDM&si=7rzSmULLB-WbFdhlFor more informa...

09/03/2025

Our James B. Mills's obituary for the late Chuck Parsons in the September 2025 issue of the Tombstone Epitaph...

09/03/2025

They would die before being taken. And so they did, the robbers of the Riverside (AZ)) stage. It's the front page story in the September Tombstone Epitaph.

Also--the strange tale of John Mantle, a postal inspector who secretly doubled as a stagecoach robber. Stories of Old West women who got back at the men who abused them. And a tribute to our friend and colleague Chuck Parsons.

tombstoneepitaph.com

08/30/2025

August 30, 1874. Frank and Jesse James and one of the Youngers rob a stage outside North Lexington, MO. One of the passengers, Mattie Hamlett, knows the outlaws--and had cared for a wounded Jesse at the end of the Civil War. She pushes them to return most of the items they'd stolen from the passengers; they take less than $200.

Later, there are questions over whether this holdup took place--or, if it did, if somebody other than the James-Youngers did it.

But it still makes for a great story: a woman chewing out some of the most feared outlaws in the land, demanding they return the personal items they'd taken, and the boys meekly complying.