Ogallala: A Century on the Trail

Founded in the late 1800s as the hub of the burgeoning plains cattle trade, Ogallala serves as a microcosm of western history. The town typified western outposts of the age with cowboys—the knights-errant of the plains—ranchers, lawmen, Indians, dance hall girls, cardsharps, drifters, and adventure seekers, and was backdrop to some of the most rowdily lawless days in American history. But as the heady period of grazing cattle on the public domain came to a close, a new era of deeded land, ...