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. For some of us the celebration kicks off Thursday night; for others they wait until the actual day of Frontierado to hold their festivities.
Enjoy your buffalo steaks, rattlesnake fried rice, corn on the cob, tumbleweed pizza, cactus salad and more today and tonight, and enjoy the leftovers on Saturday and Sunday.
WHISKEY JIM – James Greathouse was born in Texas around 1854. Nothing is known about his early life but at age 20 he was living in Fort Griffin and running a successful bootleg whiskey network he had shot his way to the top of. As you could guess that illicit trade earned him his nickname Whiskey Jim.
Greathouse and his ring thrived selling their contraband liquor largely to Native American tribes along the Colorado River. By 1874 Colonel Ranald (his spelling) S. Mackenzie was expending every effort to take down Whiskey Jim and his network, even offering a Dead or Alive reward for him.
Mackenzie had his entire 4th Cavalry scouring Texas for Greathouse, picking off his operatives one by one. During 1875 Whiskey Jim was so hemmed in from every direction that he decided to get out of bootlegging. He also steered clear of Fort Griffin for years. Continue reading
THE KNIGHTS – In The Knights Aristophanes pioneered a new sub-genre of Attic Old Comedy: the Demagogue Comedy. The villain of this masterpiece of political satire was a figure called the Paphlagonian, who was patterned on Cleon, a notorious Athenian politician of the time period. 
HENRY SEYMOUR LOOT – In 1879 Henry Seymour led his outlaw gang in robbing a stagecoach just out of Brigham City, Arizona and outside the Pine Spring Stage Station. The gang had targeted this particular stage because it carried a shipment of newly minted gold coins supposedly worth over $200,000. (If true that would be $6,429,000 here in 2025) 
Here’s today’s current events roundup from 
A VOYAGE TO THE WORLD IN THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH (1755) – This intriguing work was published in London anonymously and no author has yet been decisively identified. The novel’s narrator – who remains as anonymous as the book’s author – parties away his inheritance and then ships out for Italy. 
STAGECOACH WEST (1960-1961) – This Friday, August 1st will mark the Frontierado Holiday this year, so let me slip in a few more seasonal blog posts along with my usual items. Stagecoach West starred Wayne Rogers as Luke Perry and Shannen Doherty as Brenda Walsh! 
HIGH LONESOME – Stagecoach driver Luke Perry meets his latest load of passengers, among them Simon Kane, a man searching for his runaway wife. His son Davey travels with him and Sime told the boy his mother died to keep the more painful truth from him. 
DUSTY DELIA HASKETT – She was the first female stagecoach driver for the United States Mail Service. Delia was born in 1861 and built a reputation for herself during her adventurous career driving stagecoaches throughout California. 
Before MST3K there was … The Texas 27 Film Vault, which debuted on February 9th, 1985. 
AVENGERS Vol 1 #115 (September 1973)
Synopsis: The Avengers fly in a Quin-Jet to Garrett Castle in England to check up on their British member the Black Knight (Dane Whitman). He has been out of touch for an alarmingly long time. 
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