Bøger udgivet af Doc45 Publishing

The story of a 160-year old building, its people, and its place. The building sits on a lot next to the plaza. The lot is a "terreno de solar," a grant to a Mexican citizen by the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, on which to build a house. By the terms of the grant, the grantee is obliged to own a horse and a gun. Within a year or so the grantee - and his lot - are no longer in Mexico - they are both in the United States. A merchant buys the home, and opens a store. He sells to a partner, who opens Samuel Bean & Co. The Civil War begins and the town is occupied by Confederates. The Confederates are driven out by the Union. Bean is denounced as a "Johnny Reb," and a U. S. Marshal confiscates his store. It is sold for almost nothing on the town plaza. After a fast series of buyers make quick profits, Lola Bennett buys it and builds her dream home. She trades it to John Davis, who establishes the most famous hotel in New Mexico Territory, the Corn Exchange. Davis dies. His widow runs the Corn Exchange as long as she is able. She dies and the church inherits it. The church sells it to the town priest. The priest sells to George Griggs, the impresario of the Billy the Kid Museum. Griggs sells to "Katy" Griggs for $1, who opens the most famous eating place in southern New Mexico - La Posta. The Corn Exchange hosts guest from as far away as London and Hong Kong, and cities like San Francisco, Denver, St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and Washington D. C. Ulysses Simpson Grant, Jr., son of the president, stays at the Exchange. As does John S. Chisum, "Cattle King of the West," just two days after being robbed of $100 and a gold watch in a Silver City stage holdup. Virtually all of the significant people in Billy the Kid's life stay at the Exchange: Sheriff Harvey H. Whitehill, who arrests Billy for his first crime; "Doc" Scurlock, Charles Bowdre, and Richard Brewer, Billy's best friends; Attorneys Albert J. Fountain and John D. Bail, who defend Billy in his trial for murder; William Rynerson, the District Attorney who relentlessly pursues Billy; Simon Newcomb, the prosecuting DA in Billy's trial; and Judge Warren Bristol, who sentences Billy to "be hanged by the neck until his body be dead." Even Billy's implacable enemies James Dolan and John Riley stay at the Exchange. Did Billy stay at the Exchange? Someone signed his name. Was it he?

In this book, Thomas recounts growing up on a ranch in Idaho during the Great Depression, playing baseball with Jackie and Mack Robinson, joining the Navy after Pearl Harbor, and serving as a TBM Torpedo Bomber pilot on aircraft carriers in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Thomas, in the only combat account of World War II Torpedo Bomber pilot ever published, relates his 25 months of service with Torpedo Squadron 4 (VT-4) on the USS RANGER, USS BUNKER HILL, and USS ESSEX. Thomas served in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters, and in some of the most important World War II battles. While on the RANGER, he participated in OPERATION LEADER, the most significant attack on Northern Europe by a US carrier during the war. During LEADER, while attacking a freight barge carrying 40 tons of ammunition, Thomas' plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. Surprisingly, in spite of the considerable engine damage, the plane made it back to the RANGER, where Thomas crash-landed. That landing was his 13th official carrier landing. In the Pacific, Thomas participated in the numerous actions against Japanese targets in the Philippines, including strikes on Ormoc Bay, Cavite, Manilla, Santa Cruz, San Fernando, Lingayen, Mindoro, Clark Field and Aparri. Following these actions, Thomas' squadron made strikes on Formosa, French Indo-China, Saigon, Pescadores, Hainan, Amami O Shima, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Japan. The attack on Japan was the first attack on Japan from an aircraft carrier since the "Doolittle Raid." While on the ESSEX, just after Thomas had returned from a strike on Santa Cruz, the ship was hit by a Kamikaze piloted by Yoshinori Yamaguchi, Yoshino Special Attack Corps. Yamaguchi was flying a Yokosuba D4Y3 dive bomber. The Kamikaze attack killed 16 crewman and wounded 44. Returning from a strike on Hainan, off the Chinese coast, Thomas' plane ran out of fuel. After a harrowing water landing, Thomas and squadron photographer Montague succeeded in inflating and launching one rubber boat and his crewman Gress another. After a long day in pre-Typhoon weather with 40 foot swells, the three were rescued by the USS SULLIVANS. In recounting the events in this book, Thomas draws upon his daily journal, his letters home, and extensive interviews and research conducted over 40 years with fellow pilots and crewman. The book cites 20 interviews and 5 combat journals, and contains 209 photos documenting the ships, planes, men, and combat actions of Torpedo Squadron 4. Many of the photographs were collected by Thomas during the war and include gun photo shots, recon photos, and, remarkably, a picture of the tail of Thomas' Torpedo plane as it sinks in the China Sea following his water crash landing.

This book is about David Rudabaugh, a man whose life is both obscure and wildly mythologized.One myth about Rudabaugh is that he was a "nasty, treacherous bully" who "stole and killed and brutalized people... Dirty Dave would try anything, as long as it was crooked." Not true. Another fictitious accusation is that Rudabaugh shot a jailer in cold blood. The true account of jailer Antonio Lino Valdez's fatal shooting is presented for the first time in this book, based on the never-before-published trial transcript. The unquestionable trial evidence shows that it was another man who shot the ill-fated jailer, not Rudabaugh.Following the jailer's killing, Rudabaugh fled. Now a wanted man, Rudabaugh teamed up with Billy the Kid and participated prominently in Billy's final gun battles with authorities. Famously, Rudabaugh was captured along with Billy at Stinking Springs by Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett and his posse.After his capture, Rudabaugh was tried for Valdez's killing and sentenced to death by hanging. He escaped jail and went to Mexico.On February 18, 1886, Rudabaugh was killed by a Winchester rifle shot to the chest in Parral, Mexico, by a grocery man named José. Following his killing, Rudabaugh was decapitated by José. His head was placed on a pole and paraded around the Parral plaza. Present at Rudabaugh's beheading was Albert W. Lohn, a nineteen-year-old photographer.Lohn took four photographs of Rudabaugh's decapitated head. The two negatives he printed were confiscated by Mexican authorities. The other two negatives remained in Lohn's files for 57 years, entirely forgotten by him. The story of how these two negatives were acquired by an avid collector of Western memorabilia is given in the book.Rudabaugh's life story is mesmerizing. It is as adventurous as that of any Wild West figure. The events of his life include being both a wanted man and a lawman. They include a failed train robbery and two successful stage hold-ups. They include saying nothing when three innocent men were convicted of one of his stage robberies. They include the aforementioned accusation of murder and being sentenced to death by hanging. They include a successful; ingenious jail escape and numerous attempted escapees. They include an eight month association with Billy the Kid, an association that made him almost as famous in Wild West outlaw history as Billy.

"Water in a Thirsty Land" is a chronicle of Dr. Taylor Filmore Ealy's 1874 to 1881 sojourn as a medical missionary in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and New Mexico Territory, compiled by his daughter Ruth R. Ealy, and privately issued in a limited edition of 40 copies.The sources of Ruth's account are her father's extensive, contemporaneous diaries and his recollections and correspondence.Dr. Ealy's first assignment was Fort Arbuckle, Chickasaw Reservation, Oklahoma Territory. His second was Lincoln, New Mexico Territory. His final assignment was Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico Territory.Dr. Ealy's faithful accounts of his struggles and challenges at these -- at the time -- exotic locations make for fascinating reading. His daily records of eye-witnessed events in Lincoln are of exceptional historical value. He arrived in Lincoln on February 19, 1878, the day after John Henry Tunstall was murdered. The unprovoked, sadistic murder of Tunstall kicked off the bloody Lincoln County War. Dr. Ealy was present at Tunstall's funeral, the killing of Lincoln County Sheriff Brady and Deputy Hindman, and the five-day shootout that ended with the firing of Alexander McSween's home and the heinous slaughtering of McSween and four others as they frantically fled the blazing conflagration.There are many details about the Lincoln County War in Dr. Ealy's account that are not recorded in other sources. Here are examples:Tunstall's funeral was held at 3 pm. His bullet-holed, bloody clothes were lying on the dirty ground in McSween's back yard during the service.The Lincoln county jail when Sheriff Brady was shot was "a hole in the ground with a watch-tower over it."Sheriff Brady had handcuffs in his pocket when he was shot.The book provides many details about Tunstall's store: "The floors were good ones and the windows were large." One room was "12 feet high, 18 feet long, and 18 feet wide, with a huge window and a door with a large glass in it." That room was "large enough to hold three hundred people." The store lot was five acres in size and fully fenced.Two of McSween's front windows were shot out on the second day of the 5-day shootout in Lincoln.When the McSween house was fired during that 5-day shootout, one of Elizabeth Shield's children stepped in the coal oil used to ignite the fire.Among the items in McSween's house destroyed by the fire were an elegant piano, a Brussels carpet, costly furniture, rich curtains, and fine paintings.McSween was buried wrapped in a sheet supplied by Mary Ealy.After the Ealys fled Lincoln for Fort Stanton, they were ordered by the Fort Commander, Colonel Dudley, to not talk about the events they witnessed in Lincoln.After Taylor testified at the Dudley Court of Inquiry, he was warned by anonymous note that he would be killed before he got back to his home in Zuni (a "coffin note").From Lincoln, Dr. Ealy went to Zuni Pueblo. There, he entered a long-isolated, deeply ethnocentric world that had not changed for hundreds of years. His keen observations are one of the primary, early sources of halcyon life in Zuni in 1878.Dr. Ealy was in Zuni when the first James Stevenson anthropological expedition arrived in New Mexico. He knew well pioneer ethnologists such as Frank Hamilton Cushing, Matilda Coxe Stevenson, and Alfred Kroeber. He was present when John Karl Hillers took his famous photographs of Zuni Pueblo.The Editor has added an extensive introduction, contextual notes, footnotes, appendices, and an index to the text of this extremely rare book.Supplementing the text are 45 photos, including many photos never published before.

"In the matter of the cause and circumstances of the death of John H. Tunstall a British subject to the honorable Charles Devens, Attorney General...."So begins the single most important contemporary document recounting the origins of the Lincoln County War. That document is the "Report of Special Agent Frank Warner Angel on the Death of John Henry Tunstall," known today to historians as the "Angel Report."The 395-page, hand-written Report that Angel submitted on October 3, 1878, on the "cause and circumstances" of Tunstall's unprovoked, sadistic killing is published for the first time in this book.The Report documents the events leading to Tunstall's killing - the testimony of the men present at the brutal killing - including Billy the Kid's eye-witness account - and the violent consequences that followed.Supplementing the Report are an extensive introduction, notes, contemporary documents, associated letters, biographical details, and a timeline.The book also reveals the brazen attempt by two powerful politicians - Thomas Catron and Steven Elikins - to destroy the Report, depriving history of its invaluable contribution.

This book is about Billy the Kid's trial for murder, and the events leading to that trial. And yet Billy's trial is the least written about, and until this book, the least known event of Billy's adult life.

"Quien es?"The answer to this incautious question - "Who is it?" - was a bullet to the heart.That bullet -- fired by Lincoln County Sheriff Patrick F. Garrett from a .40-44 caliber single action Colt pistol -- ended the life of Billy the Kid, real name William Henry McCarty.But death - ordinarily so final - only fueled the public's fascination with Billy the Kid. What events led to Billy's killing? Was it inevitable? Was a woman involved? If so, who was she? Why has Billy's gravestone become the most famous - and most visited - Western death marker? Is Billy really buried in his grave? Is the grave in the right location? Is it true that Pat Garrett's first wife is buried in the same cemetery? Is Billy's girlfriend buried there also? The Fort Sumner cemetery where Billy's grave is located was once plowed for cultivation. Why? What town, seeking a profitable tourist attraction, tried to move Billy's body, using a phony relative to justify the action?These questions -- and many others - are answered in this book.Over 60 photos, including many historical photos never previously published.