PODCAST · education
Wild West Podcast
by Michael King/Brad Smalley
Welcome to the Wild West Podcast, winner of the 2026 Best of Western Podcast award, where fact and legend merge. We present the true accounts of individuals who settled in towns built out of hunger for money, regulated by fast guns, who walked on both sides of the law, patrolling, investing in, and regulating the brothels, saloons, and gambling houses. These are stories of the men who made the history of the Old West come alive - bringing with them the birth of legends, brought to order by a six-gun and laid to rest with their boots on. Join us as we take you back in history to the legends of the Wild West. You can support our show by subscribing to Exclusive access to premium content at Wild West Podcast + https://www.buzzsprout.com/64094/subscribe or just buy us a cup of coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/wildwestpodcast
Episodes
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Luke McGlue and the Keely Cure: A Halloween Story
Send us Fan Mail Get ready for a chilling walk down memory lane as we take you on a ghostly journey through Dodge City with our mischievous guide, Luke McGlue. Picture this: it's Halloween night, and the usually bustling streets are eerily silent. Luke has a mission - to administer the infamous...
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Beyond the Legend: The True History of the Frontier
Send us Fan Mail In November 2026, The Wild West Podcast will launch a new month-long series, Beyond the Legend: The True History of the Frontier, that deconstructs popular Hollywood myths about the 19th-century American West. Drawing on primary sources, court records, and historical archives…
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The Curse of Outlaw Yantis
Send us Fan Mail Halloween night in Spearville, Kansas, arrived with a blizzard so dense it erased the horizon and pressed the cold into the marrow of every bone. The wind rattled the windows of the Ford County Bank, carrying with it the scent of scorched kerosene and the faint, metallic tang of...
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The Secret of the Sackett Tapes
Send us Fan Mail The script tells the chilling story of a 1958 archival discovery at Fort Hays State University, where a graduate assistant listening to a reel-to-reel tape recorded by local resident Mary C. Highland uncovers a dark, hidden secret from the Kansas frontier. Prompted by a cryptic...
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"The Phantom of the Prairie Ditch"
Send us Fan Mail This special Halloween episode of the Wild West Podcast, narrated by Brad Smalley, explores the dark history and haunting of Soule's Eureka Canal in Cimarron, Kansas. The story centers on Asa T. Soule, a wealthy New York tycoon who made his fortune selling Hop Bitters and sought…
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The Cholera Ghost of Fort Dodge!
Send us Fan Mail In the summer of 1867, a terrifying cholera epidemic swept through Fort Dodge, Kansas, striking down healthy men by dusk and leaving a young eastern private named Walter "Walt" Hall among the fallen. Amidst a raging prairie thunderstorm, soldiers heard frantic scratching coming...
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Shadows on the Deadline: The Search for Ed Masterson's Graveside
Send us Fan Mail The wind that sweeps across the Kansas plains in early April is sharp enough to peel paint from the clapboard facades of Dodge City’s Front Street, and it carries with it the names of men who once kept order with a Colt and a badge. On the morning Ed Masterson walked his final...
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The Secret of the Stone House: Ghost Stories
Send us Fan Mail On the edge of the prairie, where the wind could strip paint from a fence post and the sun baked the grass to brittle straw, a limestone mansion rose in defiance. Its walls, quarried by hand and mortared with ambition, promised permanence in a land that devoured dreams. Inside,...
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"Voices of the Western Trail: The Days That Tried Men's Souls,
Send us Fan Mail This episode of the Wild West Podcast, titled "Voices of the Western Trail: The Days That Tried Men's Souls," pairs spoken poetry with musical verse to strip away romanticized dime-novel myths and capture the brutal realities of trailing longhorns north from Texas. Drawn from the...
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Blood, Dust, and Defiance: The Wagon Ring of Fire
Send us Fan Mail In this gripping final episode of our Wild West Podcast series, the sun-scorched plains of the Texas Panhandle erupt into a brutal struggle for survival during the late summer of 1874. When a sprawling government supply train led by Captain Willis Lyman approaches the treacherous...
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Nelson Miles's 1874 Southern Plains Campaign
Send us Fan Mail In August 1874, Colonel Nelson Miles launched an expedition from Fort Dodge into the Texas Panhandle to force hostile tribes onto reservations during the Red River War. His force—comprising eight cavalry companies, four infantry companies, and 37 scouts, including notable figures...
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Ambush on the Prairie: The German Family Tragedy and Rescue
Send us Fan Mail On September 11, 1874, the John German family was journeying westward toward Colorado along the Smoky Hill River route in Kansas when they were violently ambushed by a band of 17 Cheyenne Dog Soldiers led by Medicine Water. In the surprise attack, John German, his wife Lydia, and...
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Beyond the Ambush: Retelling the German Family Captivity Featuring Scott Dean
Send us Fan Mail This podcast episode explores the September 11, 1874 German family ambush near Fort Wallace, Kansas, during the Red River War, told from the perspective of guest Scott, the great-grandson of survivor Julia German. After years of post–Civil War poverty and arduous travel from...
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Audiobook CHAPTER 7: Life in the Lodges
Send us Fan Mail Arriving at the sprawling Cheyenne encampment amidst the horrors of their family’s murder, Catherine and Sophia are immediately torn apart to endure harsh captivity in separate lodges. While twelve-year-old Sophia faces grueling physical labor in Grey Beard’s camp—bearing heavy...
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Audiobook CHAPTER 6: The Rescue at McClellan Creek
Send us Fan Mail Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin led a ferocious, five-hour cavalry and infantry assault against a Cheyenne camp at McClellan Creek, sending the encampment into chaos as warriors mounted a desperate rearguard defense. Amid the gunfire and smoke, soldiers shot a warrior just before he...
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Audiobook CHAPTER 5 Abandoned on McClellan Creek
Send us Fan Mail In late September 1874, as General Miles’s cavalry closes in, a fleeing Cheyenne raiding party abruptly abandons young Julia and Adelaide German in the high grass of the Texas Panhandle, forcing their older sisters to ride on and assume they are dead. Driven by sheer survival...
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Audiobook CHAPTER 4 Into the Staked Plains
Send us Fan Mail Following the violent destruction of their family's homestead in Kansas, the German sisters—Catherine, Sophia, Julia, and Adelaide—are taken captive by a Cheyenne raiding party and driven relentlessly south. Traveling primarily under the cover of night to evade the pursuing U.S....
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Audiobook CHAPTER 3: Dawn on the Smoky Hill
Send us Fan Mail On the cold, frosty morning of September 11, 1874, the German family's journey across the windswept flats of Logan County, Kansas, was violently cut short. As John and Lydia led their canvas-topped wagon toward Fort Wallace alongside their older children, a raiding party of...
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Audiobook CHAPTER 2 The Prairie Trail
Send us Fan Mail On a sweltering September afternoon in 1874, the exhausted German family trudges along the abandoned Smoky Hill stage road in western Kansas, their livestock near collapse and water rations nearly depleted. Relief arrives when two passing buffalo hunters inform patriarch John...
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A Voice from the Kansas Frontier
Send us Fan Mail Step beyond official military dispatches to uncover the harrowing, forgotten world of the 19th-century frontier wife. In late 1866, Isadore Bowman Douglass journeyed 240 freezing miles across the plains to Fort Dodge with three young children, weathering the brutal winter inside…
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Chapter One: The Shadow of the Blue Ridge
Send us Fan Mail A Legacy of Hardship and Hope In the spring of 1870, the impoverished German family—led by Civil War veteran John German and his wife, Lydia—prepares to flee the ruined soil and lingering trauma of Fannin County, Georgia. Struggling with a severe battle injury, John faces the...
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Echoes of the High Plains:
Send us Fan Mail Step into the brutal reality of the 1874 High Plains with the debut episode of The German Sisters: A Story of Survival, a gripping new audiobook series from Books on Tape, expertly brought to life through ElevenLabs narration. Drawing directly from preserved 1928 Kansas State...
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Unraveling the True Frontier: The Hidden Legacy of the Texas Longhorn
Send us Fan Mail Step into the captivating world of the American frontier, where history, grit, and surprising truths converge to reshape everything you thought you knew about the Old West. In this engaging address, our speaker Dr. Frank Sharp peels back the layers of myth to reveal a astonishing...
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Five Thousand Strong: Caught in the Stampede
Send us Fan Mail Imagine standing atop Pawnee Rock in May of 1872, looking out over the vast, windswept plains of Kansas. As far as the eye can see, the earth itself seems to move—a living, breathing ocean of dark fur and thunder. Welcome to The Wild West Podcast. Today, we invite you to travel...
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"Whiskey, Wagons, and Warning Shots: The Birth of Buffalo City”
Send us Fan Mail Journey into the raw, untamed frontier of June 1872 with former buffalo hunter turned saloon owner George W. Brown. In this gripping episode, Brown details the chaotic birth of Buffalo City—a bustling boomtown sparked when a strict military ban on alcohol at Fort Dodge sent…
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Buffalo Days: The Prairie Dog Business
Send us Fan Mail Step back in time to the summer of 1872 and experience the raw, untamed spirit of the American frontier. Narrated through the vivid recollections of George W. Brown, this episode transports listeners directly onto the sun-drenched plains of Kansas, following the massive buffalo...
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Uncover the Truth of the Trail: The Wild West Podcast Takes You Inside Dodge City’s Longhorn Legacy!
Send us Fan Mail Saddle up and tune in to this thrilling episode of the Wild West Podcast, hosted by Brad Smalley! The show shines a spotlight on an upcoming doubleheader event in Dodge City, Kansas, featuring Dr. Frank Sharp—an educator, author, cattleman, and lead educator for the State of…
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Part 6: Blood, Mud, and Wasted Hides
Send us Fan Mail In episode 6 of Buffalo Days, the narrative opens with a sudden and intense prairie storm that triggers a massive buffalo stampede. As lightning strikes and kills a bull in the herd, the animals scatter in panic, threatening to crush the hunters and their heavily loaded supply...
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Part 5: The Sharpshooter's Stand
Send us Fan Mail Before sunrise, Josiah Wright Mooar sets out with Jim White to learn the technique of buffalo hunting from a stand. Moving six miles out, they locate a massive herd, utilizing the cover of sandhills and a riverbank to approach the animals while the skinners wait with a freight...
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Part 4: Echoes of the Saline: Buffalo Soldiers, Indian Fight and Jim White's Confession
Send us Fan Mail Part Four of Buffalo Days details the intense encounters between the U.S. Army and 400 Native Americans and a regiment of "Buffalo Soldiers"—and the resilient Indigenous warriors of the Great Plains. The section also features a memorable account from Jim White, who shared a...
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Part 3: The Buffalo Rig Deal: A Bargain at Fort Hays
Send us Fan Mail Part Three of Buffalo Days details Josiah Wright Mooar's transition into the life of a buffalo hunter on the American Great Plains during the 1870s. Mooar recounts the arduous process of outfitting an expedition, highlighting the logistical challenges of securing reliable teams,...
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Part 2: A New Enterprise on the Western Frontier
Send us Fan Mail Josiah Wright Moore, a young New Englander who traveled to Fort Hays, Kansas, in 1870 to make his fortune, recounts his initial struggles and a pivotal meeting with an experienced buffalo hunter named Jim White. After deciding to transition from hauling wood to buffalo hunting,...
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Part 1: The Shifting Plains: Buffalo and the Frontier Economy
Send us Fan Mail The Seline River Valley in Kansas was once home to immense migrating herds of shaggy buffalo that darkened the plains as far as the eye could see. These animals grazed on succulent buffalo and grama grass, drank from the local creeks and rivers, and wallowed in the hard-packed...
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The Masher’s Mockery: How Luke McGlue Framed the Dodge City Lady-Killer
Send us Fan Mail This historical yarn recounts the classic frontier hazing of "Herb," a boastful Dodge City resident who claimed to be an irresistible lady-killer but instead fell hook, line, and sinker for a mail-order prank. Orchestrated by local tricksters, the scheme buried the gullible...
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Part 2 SWEDISH BUFFALO HUNTER Audiobook
Send us Fan Mail Seeking adventure, Carl Ludvig Hendricks leaves Dodge City with a team of hunters to track buffalo across the untamed Kansas plains. Over the course of a year, the group braves harsh winter weather, navigates treacherous terrain, and constructs makeshift sod cabins for shelter....
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Part 1 SWEDISH BUFFALO HUNTER Audiobook
Send us Fan Mail The story opens in the waning light of 1872, as Carl Ludvig Hendricks boards a steamship in Liverpool, the salt air thick with anticipation and the sharp tang of coal smoke. The decks soon fill with a raucous knot of Irish travelers, their laughter rising above the groan of the...
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A Promise Across The Plains
Send us Fan Mail A man rides east through New Mexico with a coffin in his wagon, charcoal packed tight to fight decay, because his dying friend asked for one last mercy: don’t bury me in a foreign place. That single promise opens the door to the full, complicated life of Charles Goodnight, one of...
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Fanning The Hammer Is A Great Way To Lose
Send us Fan Mail The Wild West didn’t run on courage alone. It ran on nerve, repetition, and a cold understanding that “the law” often arrived as a Colt revolver, not a badge. We take you into the real world behind the legends of Old West gunfighters, using sharp stories and historical color…
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A Punitive March Turns Into A Saber Charge On The Kansas Frontier
Send us Fan Mail A river can look calm and still be a trap. We drop into the Solomon River valley in 1857, where the U.S. Army launches what many consider the first true campaign against the Plains Indians in this series: the Cheyenne Campaign of 1857, better known as the Battle of Solomon Fork…
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"Jeb" Stuart's Letter About The Battle of Solomon’s Fork
Send us Fan Mail A 17-day march ends with a shock of movement on the open Plains: roughly 300 Cheyenne warriors in line of battle and the US cavalry scrambling to form up before the infantry can even arrive. That’s the doorstep of the Battle of Solomon Fork, the 1857 Cheyenne Campaign, and the...
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A Handful Of Men Mark The Gateway West
Send us Fan Mail Mud, rain, and a riverbank so soft every step sinks, that’s where Fort Dodge begins. We rewind to April 10, 1865, and follow Captain Henry Pearce and a tired group of soldiers as they plant a military post on the Arkansas River while most of the country’s attention is fixed on…
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The Killing Of Ed: April 9, 1878
Send us Fan Mail Dodge City doesn’t just welcome the cattle drives; it feeds on them. When the herds arrive, so do the wages, the whiskey, the gambling, and the dance halls, and the town’s “wide open” side of the tracks turns into a nightly test of nerve for anyone wearing a badge. We tell the...
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What Does It Take To Turn Chaos Into Law
Send us Fan Mail A county doesn’t feel “real” until paperwork can beat chaos, and Ford County’s origin story proves it. We head back to April 5, 1873, when Kansas Governor Thomas Osborne signs the proclamation that creates Ford County and forces Dodge City to start acting like a place with a...
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Andrew Russell: Ford’s Founding Day
Send us Fan Mail A town doesn’t start with a skyline. Sometimes it starts with frost-stiff grass, a quiet riverbank, and a man deciding the future should live right here. We’re looking back at Tuesday, April 8, 1884, the day that marks the birth of Ford, Kansas, and the moment Ford County’s…
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We’ve got some big news from the frontier!
Send us Fan Mail We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Wild West Podcast has been ranked #3 on PodRanker’s list of the Top 15 Best Western Podcasts of 2026! A huge thank you to our incredible listeners for riding along with us every week. Whether we’re diving into the legends of outlaws…
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Iron Deadline
Send us Fan Mail A railroad can feel inevitable when you see it on a map. Up close, it’s a gamble with a hard deadline, exhausted men, and miles of empty country that refuse to cooperate. We pick up the Santa Fe’s high-stakes race across the Arkansas Valley, where March 3, 1873 hangs over every...
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April 1, 1939 Turns Dodge City Into Hollywood
Send us Fan Mail April 1 in the Great Plains isn’t just a punchline. We start with the kind of frontier humor that could make or break you: trail-boss tricks like sending a newcomer for a bucket of steam, and Dodge City stunts so convincing they leave bystanders sure they’ve witnessed a killing....
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Boot Hill Unmasked: The Real People Behind Dodge City’s Deadliest Year
Send us Fan Mail Boot Hill gets talked about like a legend, but legends get lazy. We wanted the names, the dates, and the ugly little details that show how Dodge City earned its reputation before the “classic” era of Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson even settles in. We walk through the earliest Boot...
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Iron Trail Across Kansas
Send us Fan Mail A railroad with no rails, no spikes, and barely any money somehow convinces a frontier to bet on its future. We tell the origin story of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe as Cyrus Kurtz Holliday tries to turn Kansas from a bruised battleground into a connected, growing state,...
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The Day Dodge City Declared War
Send us Fan Mail A town can look calm on a map and still be one bad decision away from open conflict. We step onto Front Street in Dodge City on March 19, 1883, where the air feels heavy with coal smoke, cheap whiskey, and the kind of tension you can taste. What follows isn’t a shootout at first....
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Welcome to the Wild West Podcast, winner of the 2026 Best of Western Podcast award, where fact and legend merge. We present the true accounts of individuals who settled in towns built out of hunger for money, regulated by fast guns, who walked on both sides of the law, patrolling, investing in, and regulating the brothels, saloons, and gambling houses. These are stories of the men who made the history of the Old West come alive - bringing with them the birth of legends, brought to order by a six-gun and laid to rest with their boots on. Join us as we take you back in history to the legends of the Wild West. You can support our show by subscribing to Exclusive access to premium content at Wild West Podcast + https://www.buzzsprout.com/64094/subscribe or just buy us a cup of coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/wildwestpodcast
HOSTED BY
Michael King/Brad Smalley
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Wild West Podcast have?
Wild West Podcast currently has 306 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Wild West Podcast about?
Welcome to the Wild West Podcast, winner of the 2026 Best of Western Podcast award, where fact and legend merge. We present the true accounts of individuals who settled in towns built out of hunger for money, regulated by fast guns, who walked on both sides of the law, patrolling, investing in, and...
How often does Wild West Podcast release new episodes?
Wild West Podcast publishes regularly with 306 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Wild West Podcast?
You can listen to Wild West Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Wild West Podcast?
Wild West Podcast is created and hosted by Michael King/Brad Smalley.
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