I was file-diving over the past few days and came up with a Frontier Times magazine of January 1968. I thought I had given away these old magazines before I became interested in writing, but evidently this one was still here. It was published by Western Publications, Inc., in Austin, TX, and is Vol. No. 42, No. l, New Series No. 51, Pat Wagner, Editor, and Joe Austell Small, Publisher, cost 35 cents.
It contains true stories of the old west, and this issue has The Canyon Springs Robbery, Fastest Gun in Phoenix, "Git Fer Vegas, Cowboy!", Billy the Kid's Last Christmas, and An Irishman in Indian Country, and others, including a couple of Tumbleweeds three-panel comic strips. It appears similar to the present day True West mag and for all I know, may be it's forerunner or not
I never got around to reading it, or the ones I gave away, but I'm certainly going to dive into this one in my spare time. One of the book reviews is about the Spanish Naval Center in San Blas in Mexico, a very active port for the support of California in its early years. San Blas has not been prominent in the history of California, at least in the material I've read about it, but played an important part according to the review. I will be interested in reading the volume, if I can get a hold of it.
But before that I'll read The Fastest Gun in Phoenix by Maurice Kildare. This man was Henry Garfias, who at 23 pinned on a law badge and became the man who tamed Phoenix in 1874. The article begins with him confronting a free-for-all in a saloon on Whiskey Row where he kills one man and wounds another and goes on to solve stage coach robberies and rounds up the Valenzuela gang. A tough lawman to be sure. He was injured in a horse accident and died a few days later in 1896. In 1874 the population of Phoenix was about 1,500 and now its close to two million (1.6 in 2007).
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