Historians have long admired Ralph Emerson Twitchell's "The Leading Facts of New Mexican History," considered the first major history of the state. Put succinctly by former State Historian Robert J. Torrez, Twitchell's work (of which this is one of the first two volumes Sunstone Press is reprinting in its Southwest Heritage Series) has "become the standard by which all subsequent books on New Mexico history are measured." As Twitchell wrote in the...

Bob Knox grew up in the cowboy lifestyle of the 1930s and 40s, spending summers with two old-time cowboy uncles in various locations around Colorado. During this time, in the settings of no vehicles, staying in some pretty crude cow camps, he learned some of life's valuable lessons. His story gives good insights into what it was like being a cowboy before the advent of four-wheel drive pickups and horse trailers and later when it was important to...

"I will show them there is at least one Mexican in the country who is not afraid of a Texas cowboy." Having drawn the line, teenager Elfego Baca backed up his words with his six guns. Nobody, but nobody, even Texans, would any longer subject the peaceful Mexican settlers of the New Mexico frontier to abuse, mutilation or humiliation. It took Baca just thirty-six hours in the fall of 1884 to earn his reputation as savior of the Hispanics of the Territory...