DWD's Reviews

Originally printed in 1966 As you can tell by the title, Jim Beckwourth: Negro Mountain Man  has a hopelessly out-of-date title. When it was written in 1966, the term "negro" was still considered to be acceptable, of course. Jim Beckwourth Jim Beckwourth (1798-1866) was born in Virginia and moved out to the frontier, roughly in the St. Louis area, before he moved out on his own. He apprenticed as a blacksmith but didn't really pursue that career. Instead, he set off as part of larger expeditions and quickly earned a reputation for being tough, fair and honest. And, perhaps most important, he was considered to be dependable in an environment where almost nothing was dependable. Beckwourth's skin color did not seem to hurt him any as he trapped beaver, scouted for military expeditions and explored the American West. He even served in the Second Seminole War in Florida. It seems that real talent was valued a lot more than a man's race. But, the bulk of t...

Read by Charles Hinckley Duration: 4 hours, 15 minutes Unabridged A lot of people don't know that the end of the classic Cowboy era was the beginning of a dinosaur rush. Paleontologists went out West and found all sorts of skeletons and shipped them back East to be installed in museums. Reputations were made based on who could find the biggest and most exotic fossils. Edward Cope with a fossil Two scientists,    Edward Cope and O.C. Marsh tried their best to outdo one another as their teams explore the American West. Sometimes they just compete, sometimes they actually try to hurt the other guy's operations.  The book is told from the point of view of an old Western guide/stagecoach robber who joined with one of the scientists and helped him navigate the landscape and local politics and is now telling the story to a reporter. This story was adapted from a movie script. It listens like a "movie of the week"-type fun western. Nothing too serious, but yo...