HAPPY FRONTIERADO! The first Friday of every August marks Frontierado, the holiday devoted to the myth of the old west rather than the grinding reality.
Enjoy your buffalo steaks, rattlesnake fried rice, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, tumbleweed pizza, cactus salad and more today and tonight, and enjoy the leftovers on Saturday and Sunday.
PRAIRIE DOG MORROW – This overlooked gunslinger was also called Prairie Dog Dave Morrow. He was born on April 14th, 1837 in Jackson, Ohio. His was a farming family but that life didn’t appeal to David Morrow so in his teens he left home and made his way to California in hopes of making his fortune.
Morrow was still out there when the U.S. Civil War broke out and he enlisted in the Union Army at Camp Latham near Los Angeles. David served in the First California Cavalry as part of the storied California Column under Colonel James H. Carleton.
The unit was stationed in New Mexico and Arizona during the war, fighting Confederate forces and driving them out of short-lived Confederate Arizona and out of New Mexico and part of Texas. During the war years the First California also dealt with hostile Navajo and Apache flair-ups. Morrow was injured in the left leg and was later awarded a Veteran’s Pension of $4.00 per month. Continue reading
LUCILLE MULHALL – This incredible woman, the first to defeat male competitors in roping and riding contests, was born October 21st, 1885 in St. Louis. Missouri. In 1889 her family moved to Alfred, Oklahoma which was soon renamed Mulhall, Oklahoma in honor of her father Zach Mulhall as they established their ranch there. 
In 1900, Zach Mulhall bet $10,000 that his daughter could out-rope any of the cowboys in El Paso, Texas. Lucille did just that, following which she and her brother Charlie had to fight their way out of a mob of angry losers determined to strip the young lady to verify that she wasn’t a boy disguised as a woman.
While visiting there, Theodore mentioned his interest in prairie wolves, so our heroine saddled up and caught one for Roosevelt with her bare hands. The following year they held a special competitive wolf hunt in Theodore’s honor.
BLUEBERRY – This movie (and then television series) that never came to be was based on the 1963 – 21st Century French comic book series Blueberry by iconic creator Moebius (Jean Guirard). The character’s real name was Michael S. Donovan and he was born in 1843 in the American South. Days before the U.S. Civil War broke out, he was mistakenly believed to have killed his fiancee Harriet Tucker’s father, a wealthy plantation owner.
For decades, the character appeared in countless adventures as he spent his Civil War service crusading against slavery, then when the war ended and he was sent out west to serve in Indian Wars he came to sympathize with Native Americans to the point where he was drummed out of the army and went on to further gunslinging heroics. He also championed Chinese railroad workers. 
The Blueberry stories were basically Spaghetti Westerns told in the sequential art (graphic novel) format. Martin Kove, an intense fan of Sergio Leone’s westerns, auditioned for the title role. When the initial project fell through, Kove and other parties tried producing a Lt. Blueberry film of their own, then a television series, but neither were completed. 
THE OREGON TRAIL (1976-1977) – Another seasonal post for Frontierado, which celebrates the myth of the Old West and not the grinding reality. The Oregon Trail was basically a 1970s attempt to imitate the classic western series Wagon Train. In the 1840s a recent widower played by Rod Taylor and his children join a wagon train headed to the Pacific Northwest. 
THE OREGON TRAIL (Jan 10th, 1976) – Pilot Movie. The story opens in 1842 on the wedding day of widowed Illinois farmer Evan Thorpe and his second wife Jessica (Blair Brown). The next day, they and Evan’s children join a wagon train headed for America’s Pacific Northwest. 
AH TOY – This Chinese American woman rose to notoriety in the San Francisco sex trade of the 1800s. Yes, Frontierado is about the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality but I’ve never done a blog post specifically about a Madame of the time period. It’s a fine line to walk and I want to make it clear that this item is more of a True Crime story than anything like an adventure. 
TWENTY-SIX MEN (1957-1959) – This television series ran for two seasons and 78 half-hour episodes. It dramatized the early years of the Arizona Rangers, who were established on March 21st, 1901, and for years consisted of just 26 men. Stories were based on the Arizona Rangers case files.
THE RECRUIT – In this 1st episode of the series, Captain Rynning and Clint Travis receive an emergency telegram from a newspaper editor in Wilcox, Arizona. They ride there, but find the editor has been lynched, so they set about investigating what happened. With Don Haggerty as Big Red Monahan.
HUGH ANDERSON – Born in 1851, Hugh was the son of a successful Texas rancher. Anderson learned every aspect of the business from his father but had a tendency to fall in with rowdy crowds and sometimes engaged in hell-raising with mad dog gunfighter John Wesley Hardin. 
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