Description
Book Synopsis2021 Publication Award in Biography from the Wyoming State Historical Society
Westerners International Co-Founders Book Award, second place
George W. T. Beck, an influential rancher and entrepreneur in the American West, collaborated with William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody to establish the town of Cody, Wyoming, in the 1890s. He advanced his financial investments in Wyoming through his numerous personal and professional contacts with various eastern investors and politicians in Washington DC. Beck’s family—his father a Kentucky senator and his mother a grandniece of George Washington—and his adventures in the American West resulted in personal associates who ranged from western legends Buffalo Bill, Jesse James, and Calamity Jane to wealthy American elites such as George and Phoebe Hearst and Theodore Roosevelt.
This definitive edition of Beck’s memoir provides a glimpse of early life in Wyoming, offering readers a rare pers
Trade Review"This book is a delightful armchair visit to the old American West provided by a true Wyoming entrepreneur. His varied experiences, extensive travels, vivid stories, and nonstop adventures make this great reading."—Ann Chambers Noble,
Pacific Northwest Quarterly"Beck's memoirs from childhood to old age make good reading."—Sandra K. Sagala,
Roundup MagazineTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Foreword
Alan K. Simpson and Peter K. Simpson
Series Editors’ Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Lynn J. Houze and Jeremy M. Johnston
Beckoning Frontiers: The Memoir of George Washington Thornton Beck
Preface
1. Family and Boyhood in Kentucky and Washington DC, 1856–1865
2. Post Civil War, 1865–1874
3. A Student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1874–1876
4. Prospecting in Colorado, 1877–1879
5. Working on the Northern Pacific Railroad, 1879–1880
6. Homesteading in Wyoming, 1880–1886
7. Sheepherding and Crow Indians
8. Return to the East
9. Trips to the South and to Cuba
10. Wyoming Territorial Legislator, 1889–1890
11. Another Trip Back East and to California
12. Beckton, Wyoming
13. The Johnson County War, 1892
14. Wyoming Politics
15. The Shoshone Irrigation Company and Cody, Wyoming
16. Developing the Town of Cody and Hunting Trips
17. Finishing the Cody Canal, Marriage, and Family Life in Cody
18. The Leiter Ball, the Frederic Remington Visit, and a Bank Robbery
19. Another Ute Uprising and Famous Guests
20. The Shoshone Reclamation Project and the Cody Power Plant
Afterword
Betty Jane Gerber
Appendix 1: Select Letters from William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody to George Beck regarding the Cody Canal Project
Appendix 2: Speech by George Beck at the Laying of the Cornerstone for a New City Hall, Cody, Wyoming
Appendix 3: Summary of a Talk Delivered by Thornton “Tee” Beck about the Beck Family
Notes
Bibliography
Index
