People of the Moonshell is an award-winning history of the Platte River, the primary way west during the frontier era. Peterson focuses on people, some well-known, some unknown, who had some extraordinary experience along the Platte. Subjects range from Spanish explorers to Mormon settlers, from Buffalo Bill Cody and Robert Louis Stevenson to Native Americans fighting for their homeland. Written largely from diaries and journals, the tales weave into an overview of Plate River history described by the El Paso Corral of Westerners as "one of those rare treasures."