The Frontierado Holiday falls on Friday, August 7th this year. As always, the holiday is about the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality. For looks at female gunslingers of the West click HERE. For looks at other women and men of the Far North Gold Rushes click HERE.
IRISH NELLIE CASHMAN – Nellie Cashman was born Ellen O’Kissane in 1845. Sometime between 185o and 1852 her family moved to Boston, where the ambitious young woman was later working as a bellhop at Boston hotels. During the U.S. Civil War Nellie did some spying for the Union cause, following which she and her family moved to San Francisco in 1866.
Irish Nellie worked at various legal professions in Virginia City, NV and Pioche, NV before heading North to British Columbia in Canada during the 1870s Gold Rush. Cashman established a boarding house for gold miners at Telegraph Creek. The savvy businesswoman made money from that venture as well as investing in the gold claims of some of her boarders.
Irish Nellie used part of her growing fortune to finance the Sisters of Saint Anne. When snowstorms trapped dozens of gold seekers in the Cassiar Mountains in a series of avalanches, Irish Nellie heard that Canadian authorities were advising against rescue attempts due to how dangerous the Cassiars were.
That kind of talk was the proverbial music to Nellie’s ears, and soon she took charge of a half-dozen men and led them to the rescue of the trapped gold seekers, many of whom were already dead. She brought food and medicine to them. Cashman herself was briefly buried in one of the series of avalanches but managed to dig herself out. The “Angel of the Cassiars” saved the lives of around 75 people. Continue reading
Here’s another item from the unhinged case files of Anti-Donald Trump Hysteria. This was originally posted when Trump-hating buffoons went berserk about Trump firing an ambassador AS ALL PRESIDENTS ARE FREE TO DO. The ignorant and uninformed anti-Trumpers have no clue about how their own country functions as incoming presidential administrations replace the previous administration’s ambassadors (and other personnel) with their own people. 
With America’s increasingly unhinged Democrats pretending it’s some sort of scandal that de facto Third Party President Donald Trump fired the insubordinate and partisan Marie “Tears of a Clown” Yovanovich as Ambassador to Ukraine, here’s a reminder that ALL PRESIDENTS ARE FREE TO FIRE AMBASSADORS WHENEVER THEY WANT AND FOR ANY REASON. PRESIDENTS SET POLICY, NOT TENURED FUNCTIONARIES. 
AUD-I-SEE aka AudiSee (1978) – Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the largely forgotten AudiSee series of audiovisual science fiction stories for adolescents. Each episode is roughly 30 minutes long. The audio element consists of voice actors including a narrator. The visual element consists of an illustrated booklet that came with the AudiSee package. 
This weekend’s superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at some of the earliest comic book adaptations of the iconic character the Green Hornet. That figure originated on radio in January 1936 and in a very early example of a shared universe, the Green Hornet’s secret identity was Britt Reid, grand-nephew of John Reid – the Lone Ranger. 
And just as the Lone Ranger show’s theme music came from classical music – the William Tell overture – the Green Hornet show’s theme came from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee. 
The police and even Daily Sentinel crime reporter Mike Axford (formerly of the 1932 radio series Warner Lester, Manhunter) misunderstood the Green Hornet’s vigilante activities and suspected the masked hero of being a criminal himself. The Hornet took advantage of that misperception by convincing some of his gangster foes that he was indeed an outlaw and wanted a cut of their illegal operations. 
PART 70 – Some of the Fool Killer’s targets on both sides of the aisle in the April 1914 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of the folk figure: 
THE STEAM MAN OF THE PRAIRIES (1868) – Written by Edward Sylvester Ellis. Before the Frank Reade stories came this work that is often hailed as the first Dime Novel with a science fiction theme. 
JOHN WILSON VERMILLION aka TEXAS JACK VERMILLION and “SHOOT-YOUR-EYE-OUT” VERMILLION, was born in Virginia in 1842 to William and Nancy Vermillion. After the Civil War broke out in 1861, Jack enlisted in the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry sometime in 1862. 
Some accounts state Vermillion claimed to be from Texas and related Tall Tales that the Lone Star State had jackrabbits as big as horses. One illogical account claims that when Jack was asked why he was called Texas Jack he replied “Because I’m from Virginia.” Well, okay then! 
WOLFMAN MAC – This werewolf Movie Host was played by Mac Kelly, who took the obvious Wolfman Jack reference and ran with it! And good for him! Why not? Kelly had grown up watching Michigan Movie Hosts like the Ghoul and 
Retitled Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In, the show, the happy go lucky lycanthrope and his supporting cast debuted April 25th, 2009 on Detroit’s WMYD as well as MyNetworkTV affiliate stations in Florida. Devil Doll (1964) was the movie presented on that date. Continuing as virtual co-host was Boney Bob (Aaron Helferich) a wisecracking skeleton puppet in the spirit of 
Balladeer's Blog 