Includes bibliography and inidex. Illustrated with photographs in black &amp; white within the text.

Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend

Biographies & Memoirs

DeArment, Robert K.

True Crime

The University of Oklahoma Press

Profiles the most successful professional gamblers of the nineteenth century American West and clarifies misconceptions about frontier life

Knights of the Green Cloth: The Saga of the Frontier Gamblers

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Univ of Oklahoma Pr

The colorful figures of the western American frontier, the Indian fighters, the mountain men, the outlaws, and the lawmen, have been romanticized for more than a hundred years by writers who found it easier to invent history than the research it. "Bat" Masterson was one such character who cast a long shadow across the pages of western history as it has been routinely depicted. "A legend in his own time," he was called in a television series produced in the 1960's. A legend he has become―one firmly fixed in the popular imagination. But in his own time W.B. Masterson was a man, a less-than-perfect creature subject to the same temptations and vices as his fellows, albeit one who, through circumstance and inclination, led an exciting life in an exciting time and place. As buffalo hunter, army scout, peace officer, professional gambler, sportsman, promoter, and newspaperman, Masterson's career was stormy and eventful. Surprising to many readers will be the account of Masterson's career after his peace officer days, during his employment as a sports writer and columnist. The gun-toting western peace officer reputed to have killed more men than Billy the Kid (not so, says DeArment) spent his last years happily in New York City, writing for a nationally known newspaper. This book, the product of more than twenty years of research, separates fact from fiction to extricate the story of his life from the legend that has enmeshed it. It is the most complete biography of Bat Masterson ever written.

Historical

University of Oklahoma Press

The English essayist Charles Lamb once said, “Man is a gaming animal.” If he had known the American frontier gamblers depicted in this book, he might have added “in spades,” referring to the avidity with which these “knight of the green cloth” pursued their profession. All of the pioneers who ventured into the American West of the nineteenth century were gamblers in a sense, betting on the land, the future, and themselves. They risked their fortunes and, sometimes, their very lives. And for those too impatient to wait for the bonanza of a rich ore strike, or for the cattle to multiply, or for the town to develop, the gambling table offered an opportunity for instant riches. The almost universal acceptance and popularity of gambling games on the frontier was predictable, and the rise of the professional gambler inevitable. It was a time of almost unlimited personal freedom in a tolerant society, with few to call gambling a sin, a crime, or a folly. The American public was introduced to the frontier gambler very early when a number of them became folk heroes and were interviewed in the popular press of the time. Later, fictional characters made known the western gambler stereotype now seen in movies and on television. Seeking to separate the myth from the reality, Robert K. DeArment gives us more than fiction in this book. Here we meet the long vanished and almost forgotten historical frontier gamblers who, between the years 1850 and 1910, were to be found playing their trade in every settlement from the Gulf of Mexico to the Klondike, Not many found fortunes, but some discovered at the tables an exciting way of life, a calling true and real for them as the law, medicine, or the clergy was for others. DeAement’s research into the lives of the well-known and less-known frontier gamblers provide a story replete with the color and excitement if the Old West. The Good Guys, the Bad Guys, and their women―wives, mistresses, and colleagues in gambling establishments―are here, honestly described in a refreshing, readable manner.

History

Americas

Now, for the first time, Robert K. DeArment has told the full story of George Scarboroughâ€™s life, illuminating his activity as a lawman during the final part of the nineteenth century and his controversial killings while wearing the badge-he was tried for murder on three occasions and acquitted each time.

George Scarborough: The Life and Death of a Lawman on the Closing Frontier

Here for the first time is the complete life story of the controversial lawman Frank Canton, born Joe Horner, who, after conviction and imprisonment for armed robbery, escaped to change his name and transform himself into an ambitious, hard-working peace officer pursuing felons all over the western frontier for almost half a century.Canton was active in widely separate sections of the country - Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Alaska - during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth. Western historian Robert K. DeArment has tracked down the facts of the mysterious Canton's early life and misdeeds in Texas; his participation in the Johnson County War as an agent of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association; his pursuit of the Daltons, Bill Doolin, and other outlaws in Oklahoma Territory; his experiences as a peace officer and gold prospector in Alaska; his career as a bounty hunter; and his ultimate success as adjutant general of the new state of Oklahoma.Based on exhaustive study of primary materials - court records, contemporary periodicals, and Canton's own writings and memorabilia collected during his lifetime - this fast-paced, objective biography will give readers unique insights into the legendary Canton's eventful life and a better understanding of how the rule of law was brought to the West by six-guns.

Alias Frank Canton

Now, for the first time, Robert K. DeArment has told the full story of George Scarborough’s life, illuminating his activity as a lawman during the final part of the nineteenth century and his controversial killings while wearing the badge-he was tried for murder on three occasions and acquitted each time.

Here for the first time is the complete life story of the controversial lawman Frank Canton, born Joe Horner, who, after conviction and imprisonment for armed robbery, escaped to change his name and transform himself into an ambitious, hard-working peace officer pursuing felons all over the western frontier for almost half a century. Canton was active in widely separate sections of the country--Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Alaska--during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth. Western historian Robert K. DeArment has tracked down the facts of the mysterious Canton’s early life and misdeeds in Texas; his participation in the Johnson Country War as an agent of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association; his pursuit of the Daltons, Bill Doolin, and other outlaws in Oklahoma Territory; his experiences as a peace officer and gold prospector in Alaska; his career as a bounty hunter; and his ultimate success as adjutant general of the new state of Oklahoma.

Except for western history buffs, almost everyone has forgotten the Texas outlaw John Larn. Yet more than a century after his death in 1878, the mere mention of his name can trigger strong reactions along the Clear Fork of the Brazos River in northern Texas. In Bravo of the Brazos, Robert K. DeArment tells for the first time the complete story of this enigmatic and controversial figure.

Bravo of the Brazos: John Larn of Fort Griffin, Texas

Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday-such are the legendary names that spring to mind when we think of the western gunfighter. But in the American West of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thousands of grassroots gunfighters straddled both sides of the law without hesitation. Deadly Dozen tells the story of twelve infamous gunfighters, feared in their own times but almost forgotten today. Now, noted historian Robert K. DeArment has compiled the stories of these obscure men. DeArment, a life-long student of law and lawlessness in the West, has combed court records, frontier newspapers, and other references to craft twelve complete biographical portraits. The combined stories of Deadly Dozen offer an intensive look into the lives of imposing figures who in their own ways shaped the legendary Old West. More than a collective biography of dangerous gunfighters, Deadly Dozen also functions as a social history of the gunfighter culture of the post-Civil War frontier West. As Walter Noble Burns did for Billy the Kid in 1926 and Stuart N. Lake for Wyatt Earp in 1931, DeArment-himself a talented writer- brings these figures from the Old West to life. John Bull, Pat Desmond, Mart Duggan, Milt Yarberry, Dan Tucker, George Goodell, Bill Standifer, Charley Perry, Barney Riggs, Dan Bogan, Dave Kemp, and Jeff Kidder are the twelve dangerous men that Robert K. DeArment studies in Deadly Dozen: Twelve Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West.

Deadly Dozen: Twelve Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West

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Books by DeArment, Robert K.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by DeArment, Robert K.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend

Knights of the Green Cloth: The Saga of the Frontier Gamblers

Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend

Knights of the Green Cloth: The Saga of the Frontier Gamblers

George Scarborough: The Life and Death of a Lawman on the Closing Frontier

Alias Frank Canton

George Scarborough: The Life and Death of a Lawman on the Closing Frontier

Alias Frank Canton

Bravo of the Brazos: John Larn of Fort Griffin, Texas

Deadly Dozen: Twelve Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West