October 5, 1871. In what some call the wildest town in the Wild West, bad blood has been building for a long time. Wild Bill Hickok, the sheriff of Abilene, Kansas, is facing down Phil Coe, a saloon owner with a history of antagonizing the law. Then, the guns come out. This kind of shootout isn’t uncommon in the Old West, but it’s a lot more complicated than ... Show More
Oct 12
Audubon’s Birds Come Home to Roost
October 12, 1820. John James Audubon—a failed shopkeeper, grist miller, and steamboat investor—sets off from Cincinnati on a flatboat down the Ohio River. He is bankrupt. The bank has taken everything except his clothes, his gun, and a portfolio of 62 bird drawings. His plan is t ... Show More
33m 7s
Aug 2024
Tore C. Olsson, "Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past" (St. Martin's Press, 2024)
Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II, set in 1911 and 1899, are the most-played American history video games since The Oregon Trail. Beloved by millions, they’ve been widely acclaimed for their realism and attention to detail. But how do they fare as re-creations of his ... Show More
1h 9m
Oct 2025
Shootout at the O.K. Corral | The Road to Tombstone | 1
In the 1880s the booming silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona was home to one of the most famous gunfights in American history. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Wyatt's brothers try to bring law and order to a small town, but they clash with a gang of outlaw cowboys, leading a l ... Show More
38m 13s
Mar 2023
EP 72 - Ghosts of Gunslingers | Deadwood, SD
Close your eyes and picture a rowdy wild west town. Now was that town in the state of South Dakota? Probably not, but maybe it should be. Deadwood was one of the biggest hubs for outlaws, gamblers, and prospectors of the times. Some of the more famous names like Wyatt Earp and Ca ... Show More
1h 13m
Feb 2018
The Wild West Was Actually Pretty Chill
<p>If you're like most people, the phrase ''Wild West'' conjures images of brutal gunfights in dusty, tumbleweed-ridden streets, visions of criminals slinking into the shadows of dimly-lit saloons and the vast stretch of lawless, unforgiving frontier. But how much of that image i ... Show More
31m 49s
Sep 2021
Introducing: Wild Wild West
In this special collection of Parcast episodes, we’re revisiting the lore and tackling the tallest of tales from an era that’s endlessly mythologized in American pop culture — the Wild West. From bloody feuds to gunslinging bandits, unsolved murders to centuries-old mysteries, sa ... Show More
15m 54s