Last Rides, Cowboys, Indians & Generals & Chiefs

     This book presents the closing days of America’s untamed West

as lived and recorded through the lens of three of the best-known

photographers of the era: David Francis Barry, John C.H. Grabill, and L.A.

Huffman. These men knew Custer and the 7th Cavalry, as well as the

leaders of the Native people who fought valiantly to preserve their lands

and their historic way of life. These photographers knew the cowboys and

ranchers and even the leaders of the Mexican Revolution.

     Through the publication of their work, the photographs these men

took gave people from coast to coast a realistic and sometimes spectacular

image of what was happening on the frontier as the relentless waves of

immigrants swept westward in search of land, gold, and new lives.

You may know the general history of these events, but these

photographers presented visual evidence of their times that has been

preserved for more than a century. Paul Jensen has gathered both the

stories of their lives and the historic photos of their times to serve up a

savory taste of the Wild West.

     The world’s awareness of the American West was heavily shaped by

great 19th-century photographers who captured vistas, characters, and

the dramas of settlement and conquest. Paul Jensen, a cowboy and 21st

century historian of the frontier, vividly conveys the world in which these

photographers operated, and the lasting impact of their version of the people

and places of the frontier.—James Fallows, National Correspondent for the

Atlantic Monthly and nationally acclaimed author, including his recent book

with his wife Deborah Fallows, Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the

Heart of America.