The Employee Handbook, which features a woodgrain background, and the "Old Timer" with a white beard, black hat, check shirt, black vest, brown pants, and black boots, waving, and holding a pick ax. A donkey stands next to him.

The Legend of Whittles, Knott’s Berry Farm’s Forgotten Icon

April 9, 2020, 3 Comments

As part of being a Knott’s Berry Farm Ambassador, I am tasked with writing posts for the Knott’s Berry Blog. Last week my first blog post for them was published, which was an overall history of the Farm. While you can read the whole post here, today I wanted to take a moment to expand…

The Moulin Rouge on a postcard from the period. A low roof building features towering script that reads "Moulin Rouge." A tall tower on the left also reads "Moulin Rouge" in neon, and also features a massive neon version fo the Eiffel Tower. Script across reads "Greetings from the Moulin Rouge"

The Fleeting Life of America’s First Integrated Casino, the Moulin Rouge

February 4, 2020, 4 Comments

“In Vegas for 20 minutes, our skin had no color. Then the second we stepped off stage, we were colored again. The other acts could gamble or sit in the lounge and have a drink, but we had to leave through the kitchen with the garbage.” That is how Sammy Davis Jr. described performing in…

Screencap: Men take a body out of the orange and blue Laff in the Dark building, covered in a white sheet.

Tracing the Journey of Mummified Outlaw Elmer McCurdy to the Long Beach Pike

June 26, 2019, 3 Comments

Last week I talked about the history of Long Beach’s infamous Pike, including the location being used in an episode of Charlie’s Angels and The Six Million Dollar Man. What I didn’t mention was that in the Charlie’s Angels episode, “To Kill an Angel,” a man’s body is found within the Pike’s Laff in the…

Myself standing in front of the old west medicine wagon sits in the middle of the parking lot. It is red and reads "Gower Gulch Medicinal Ointment" and has an image of an Indian wearing a headdress, wearing a black peasant top, and a green skirt with western images on it.

The Forgotten History of Gower Gulch, Hollywood’s Western Strip Mall

May 1, 2019, 6 Comments

Gower Gulch. Sounds like a small town in the deserts of Arizona, right? But you’d be wrong. It’s in fact a western themed small strip mall that sits at the corner of Gower and Sunset in the middle of Hollywood. But why a western theme? And just how did this corner get its name? The…

The Buffalo Soldiers: Multi-Talented Defenders of Westward Expansion

February 28, 2019, 3 Comments

On September 21, 1866, a brand new regiment was formed. The 10th Calvary Regiment was comprised of Black men, and was given the nickname, The Buffalo Soldiers. The nickname was given to them by the Native Americans, due to their hair reminding them of the top of a buffalos head. The regiment served in the…

Bass Reeves: US Marshall and the Lone Ranger?

February 21, 2019, 1 Comment

Bass Reeves was born into slavery in 1838 in Crawford County, Arkansas. During the Civil War, he beat up his slave master to get out of slavery, and fled into Indian Territory. There he lived with the Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee Indians learning their languages, until he was freed by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.…

Bill Pickett: The Rodeo Innovator that History Forgot

February 15, 2019, Leave a Comment on Bill Pickett: The Rodeo Innovator that History Forgot

Bill Pickett was born the second of thirteen children on December 5th, 1870 in Williamson County, Texas. Pickett’s bloodline was of Cherokee and Black. In the 5th grade, he left school to be a ranch-hand, and he learned all there was to know about being a cowboy. He invented the technique known as Bulldogging, which…

Nat Love: The Real Life Deadwood Dick

February 7, 2019, 4 Comments

Nat (pronounced Nate) Love was born into slavery around 1854 in Tennessee. He learned to read and write with help from his father, despite the statutes which outlawed Black literacy. When slavery was overturned, his family stayed on the plantation as sharecroppers with 20 acres of land. After his father died, he took on another…

Mary Fields: The Forgotten Badass of the US Postal Service

February 1, 2019, 6 Comments

Hello all! I’m Carla, and I blog over at Tiny.Angry.Crafts. This month I will be showcasing a Black Person of the week from The Wild West. As a young child, I was very fortunate to have my grandmother teach me something new; her being a schoolteacher and all, she would give me a double dose…

Introducing Black Heroes of the Wild West Series

January 30, 2019, 3 Comments

February is Black History Month, and this year I decided to honor it with a unique collaboration with fellow blogger Carla of Tiny Angry Crafter to produce a series. While I love the mid-twentieth century, I also love the history of the American West, and Carla thought it would be a good idea to shine…