Rotgut Rustlers: Whiskey, Women, And Wild Times In The West - Softcover

A compilation of true stories about the West's wild outlaws and wild towns during Prohibition--including tales of couples who emulated Bonnie and Clyde, or secret rendezvous, and of cops on the take. Original.

Rotgut Rustlers takes us on a fascinating tour of an often overlooked era of the West, a span of more than half a century from the late 1800s to the 1940s—from a period when vast reaches of the frontier were still lawless, into and beyond the Prohibition years, which were a boon not only to Chicago mobsters but to bootleggers from the Mississippi to the Pacific. It brings together twenty-five true stories about the wild outlaws and wild towns of the West during these years—stories about bank and stagecoach robbers, cattle rustlers, smugglers, counterfeiters, gamblers, racketeers, bootleggers, and crooked politicians.

You’ll meet:

Ned Christie, the proud Cherokee who resisted arrest in Oklahoma by holing up in his makeshift log fortress

Lawrence Kelly, who smuggled everything from illegal immigrants to opium into Washington State

Lou Blonger, the elegant Coloradoan swindler who made a huge fortune off poor suckers

Stelle and Bennie Dickson, who did their best to become South Dakota’s very own Bonnie and Clyde
|Rotgut Rustlers takes us on a fascinating tour of an often overlooked era of the West, a span of more than half a century from the late 1800s to the 1940s—from a period when vast reaches of the frontier were still lawless, into and beyond the Prohibition years, which were a boon not only to Chicago mobsters but to bootleggers from the Mississippi to the Pacific. It brings together twenty-five true stories about the wild outlaws and wild towns of the West during these years—stories about bank and stagecoach robbers, cattle rustlers, smugglers, counterfeiters, gamblers, racketeers, bootleggers, and crooked politicians.

You’ll meet:

Ned Christie, the proud Cherokee who resisted arrest in Oklahoma by holing up in his makeshift log fortress

Lawrence Kelly, who smuggled everything from illegal immigrants to opium into Washington State

Lou Blonger, the elegant Coloradoan swindler who made a huge fortune off poor suckers

Stelle and Bennie Dickson, who did their best to become South Dakota’s very own Bonnie and Clyde