March 3, 2010
We are getting ready for our first annual True West photo contest. Winners will get a chance to be published in True West magazine. Here are the four categories we will be awarding first-place prizes:

• Historic Spot

• Landscape

• Re-enactment

• Ghost Town

Each category winner will receive $200, while the grand prize winner will receive $500!

Here's the link for the contest.

Speaking of good photos, we have talked on this site about stagecoaches and how crowded were they. Well, here are two photos and the two basic types: the Concord and the mud-wagon. Here is a good photo of a very crowded Concord style stage:



And here's a crowded mud wagon:



Notice how the design of the coach is flatter and squats lower on the wheels. This is for traction on bad roads, thus "mud wagon." This photo is allegedly of the last Deadwood stage in 1888, I believe it is.

"The past is inescapable, though it can be reinvented, reinterpreted, into something entirely your own."
—Old Vaquero Saying