Seeking Pleasure in the Old West

Pioneering Americans of the nineteenth century did not merely rush for gold lust for land and thrust aside the West’s original inhabitants. These mountain men cowboys homesteaders and cavalry troopers played nearly as hard as they worked exploiting to the hilt what little leisure they could steal from their labors. Nor did they only carouse—drink gamble and womanize—as the West’s fiction might suggest. They were spectators at bull and bear fights in California; actors in amateur theatricals in Army garrisons; and participants in communal barn raisings and quilting bees on the prairie. This is a delightful look at a very neglected aspect of the story of westering Americans.—Richard H. Dillon author of Meriwether Lewis Fool’s Gold and The Legend of Grizzly AdamsAs David Dary proves in this pleasurable book the Old West was not all trouble and toil. Much is to be learned here—from mountain men and Indians to cowboys and homesteaders—about how to have fun no matter the circumstances.—Dee Brown author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee