This detailed history explores Cheyenne’s formative years and tells the broader story of America’s last West. Founded as a railroad boomtown, Cheyenne quickly earned its reputation as a rough and violent “Hell on Wheels,” rising seemingly overnight from the open prairie to become the famed “Magic City of the Plains.”

The book brings to life a colorful cast of characters who shaped the city and the region, including cattle barons, cowboys, soldiers, lawmen, gamblers, and gunfighters. Cheyenne welcomed an extraordinary parade of national figures, from Presidents Grant and Theodore Roosevelt to Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Sarah Bernhardt, and Buffalo Bill Cody. The city also played a central role in landmark Western legal dramas such as the Johnson County Wars and the story of Tom Horn.

As Cheyenne evolved into the “Holy City of the Cow,” it became a powerful center of the cattle frontier, where fortunes were made and lost. The book also traces the roots of one of America’s most iconic rodeos, the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, known as the Daddy of ’em All.

Format: Paperback
Publication Date: July 1, 2006
Print Length: 398 pages