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.
DRACULINDA THE GHOUL-GIRL – Liz Herring, the Assistant Program Director at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, NC put her theater experience to good use as North and South Carolina’s Movie Hostess Draculinda the Ghoul-Girl. Draculinda hosted films on Nightmare, which aired Saturday nights at 11:00pm.
This Movie Host show would open with thunder and lightning as well as screams and the sound of a werewolf howling. Fake blood would drip down the screen. That would be followed by the appearance of Draculinda, seated on a stool with a spotlight on her. 
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. 
BLACK ROSES (1988) – This legendarily laughable attempt at a horror film belongs to quite a few niche sub-genres. It’s a Canadian horror movie, it’s one of the wonderfully campy Heavy Metal Horror productions of the 1980s and most importantly for trivia lovers Black Roses is one of the Big Three Canadian turkeys to feature Frank Dietz in a supporting role. (The other two are Rock’N’Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare. ) 
CREATURES ON THE LOOSE Vol 1 #22 (Mar 1973) 
Synopsis: Thongor (at right), as always wielding his father’s god-forged sword Sarkozan, is working as a thief in the city-state of Zangabal. During one caper Thongor comes close to being captured by the authorities but is given shelter by Kaman Thuu, a Priest of the Seven Gods of Zangabal. 
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. 
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