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.