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Nov 5, 2020
14 min

Texas Jack, the Prairie Rattler

The Papers For The People Dime Novel Symposium concludes tonight (November 5, 2020) at: https://dimenovels.lib.niu.edu/papers-for-the-peo...

22 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Nov 2, 2020
3 min

The Election

The last election Texas Jack could vote in before he left the prairies of Nebraska for the stages of the east with his best friend and pa...

13 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Oct 31, 2020
2 min

A Letter From the General

Headquarters Military Division of the Missouri Chicago, Illinois Oct. 26th, 1872 Mr. J. B. Omohundro (Texas Jack) Fort McPherson, Neb. Si...

16 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Oct 17, 2020
2 min

Morlacchi's Cancan

The song most often associated with the cancan, and one that Morlacchi occasionally used with her troupe, is Jacques Offenbach's Galop In...

45 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Oct 12, 2020
5 min

The Can-Can

The Peerless Giuseppina Morlacchi, who would later become Texas Jack's wife and costar, introduced the Can-Can to America on December 20t...

31 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Oct 8, 2020
3 min

The Peerless Morlacchi

The love of Texas Jack's life, and the first lady of the American western, was not western at all. She was an Italian danseuse and the wo...

39 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Oct 1, 2020
2 min

Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star

Texas Jack Omohundro. In September of 1873, three men stood together on a New York stage. On the right was Buffalo Bill Cody, the most fa...

200 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Sep 28, 2020
1 min

The Past in Color

Working on adding some color to a few Texas Jack images. This is Jack circa early 1873 when the Scouts of the Prairies played in New York...

12 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Sep 25, 2020
1 min

The Great Scout Alliance

While Texas Jack traveled with Doc Carver, demonstrating his skills with the lasso and six-shooter at exhibition and parade grounds up an...

17 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Sep 15, 2020
5 min

Any Oakley

I bet you didn't learn this one in school. During the sweltering August heat of the summer of 1903, Annie Oakley—"Little Miss Sure Shot" ...

322 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Sep 2, 2020
4 min

We Were All Cowboys

I recently came across a poem I wrote somewhere back in the mid 90s: We were cowboys in our childhood. Indians in the weed-grown lawns Pi...

193 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Aug 21, 2020
1 min

A Picture Says a Thousand Words

Doing some image enhancement work on a great old picture of Texas Jack. The inscription, which doesn't look like Jack's signature and was...

352 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Aug 11, 2020
3 min

A Letter to The Field

This letter was sent to The Field magazine and printed on Saturday, January 10, 1877. It was written by Dr. George Henry Kingsley, who m...

23 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Jul 25, 2020
6 min

The Cowboy

For much of American history, it was an insult to call a man a "cowboy." During the American Revolution, cowboys were British loyalists w...

47 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Jul 6, 2020
4 min

James F. Omohundro

My parents love antique malls. I grew up following them down the dusty aisles of shops in small towns around the South with names like W...

40 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Jul 2, 2020
4 min

Texas Jack's Funeral

From The Denver News - September 4, 1892. To one who passes along the streets of Leadville, Colorado, now there is just one feature in pa...

22 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Jun 20, 2020
3 min

Harry Jackson

Texas Jack's legacy in the American West ripples down through generations. We've talked about Otto Franc, who visited the Bighorn Basin w...

29 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

Jun 12, 2020
2 min

Charles Belden

Texas Jack Omohundro shaped the American West not just in the perceptions of theater-goers who watched him on stage, but through the live...

57 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

May 27, 2020
19 min

Wild Bill Was Not Named William

Hush! Talk low! There are listening ears everywhere, Sam! I don't know why, but there is a chill at my heart, and I know my time has abou...

81 views0 comments

Matthew Kerns

May 18, 2020
4 min

Texas Jack Junior

On one of his cattle drives through Texas in the late 1860s, Texas Jack Omohundro chanced upon a number of ransacked wagons with an escor...

832 views0 comments

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