It is often said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Though that phrase has often been misattributed to Oscar Wilde, it was actually included in a collection of aphorisms by charles Caleb Colton, printed in 1820, 34 years before Wilde's birth. Sometimes, attribution, like imitation, can be tricky. In the world of history, writing, and research, it has a different name: plagiarism. Recently, a post by @Dr_TheHistories / @archaeohistories (Dr. Mohammad Firoz Khan) went viral on X...

Continuing our look through the archives of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  (which recently announced it would be shuttering its doors), I came across this curious piece of culinary history from the February 3, 1958, edition. While yesterday we shared the Gazette’s coverage of Texas Jack’s final resting place in Leadville, today we see how his name lived on in the mid-century American kitchen. This recipe for "Texas Jack" —a hearty mix of bacon, kidney beans, and frankfurters served over English...

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper, which has been in print for nearly 240 years since it was founded as the Pittsburgh Gazette in July of 1786, just announced it will cease operations in May. The Post-Gazette was one of the many papers I referenced when I was researching my Texas Jack book, so I thought I would share a few stories from its pages. This one, from the July 25, 1887, edition shares an illustration of the second marker to adorn Texas Jack's grave in Leadville, Colorado. The...