This Week in the West: Daily Summaries Delivered

This Week in the West: Congressman & Rodeo Announcer Clem McSpadden - Broncs and the Beltway

This Week in the West: The Sure-Shot Story of Annie Oakley

This Week in the West: How the Shootout at the O.K. Corral Shook the West

This Week in the West: Bat Masterson Writes His Story

This Week in the West: Why the West Likes Ike

This Week in the West: James Earle Fraser and End of the Trail

This Week in the West: 100 Episodes!

Howdy folks, it’s the 28th of September 2026, and welcome to the 100th episode of This Week in The West. I’m Seth Spillman, broadcasting from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Like any great journey into the American West, when we set out to make this podcast, we knew where we were going, but we didn’t know all the discoveries that lay ahead. The goal on our horizon? Crack open more than 70 years of our Museum’s history and celebrate the subject matter we preserve and share. Like we say every week: We share stories of the people and events that shaped the history, art and culture of the American West—and those still shaping it today. So what have we learned? Well, the first lesson came pretty quick, on our very first episode: Oklahoma’s favorite son, Will Rogers, has said a lot of interesting and quotable remarks. But not everything attributed to Will in the history books and on the Internet was truly said by him, as confirmed by our friends at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum. That was duly noted and helped us to dive even deeper into trusted sources, many of them right here in our Dickinson Research Center. Another lesson was much more visceral: Life in the West, especially in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, was tough. Just surviving was a challenge worth celebrating. Author Mari Sandoz was a child when she permanently lost vision in one eye to snow blindness after spending a day digging her family’s cattle out of a snowdrift. Naturalist John Muir was working in a factory when he pierced his right cornea. His left eye then sank into “sympathetic” blindness. Cotton Rosser, a burgeoning rodeo star, broke both of his legs in a horrible post hole auger accident. And no one ever wants to hear the phrase “horrible post hole auger accident.” But what’s amazing about these tales is what happened next. Mari Sandoz became an acclaimed Western author, telling the stories of her family’s roots in the Great Plains and later earning induction into our Hall of Great Westerners. Muir left factory life and headed West, becoming one of the nation’s most influential advocates for preserving its natural beauty and helping build the conservation movement that shaped America’s national parks. And Rosser left rodeo competition behind but transformed the sport forever as a promoter, producer and member of our National Rodeo Hall of Fame. Now, of course, we could spend the whole rest of this episode recounting all the rodeo cowboys and cowgirls who overcame the hardships of injuries - Tad Lucas’ crushed arm, Jim Shoulders’ concussions and Casey Tibbs, who was told by doctors to stay in bed in the hospital for six weeks, but escaped after nine days. Rodeo, especially in its early years, is a whole different world, but one we can’t get enough of here at The Cowboy. We shared the stories of Hollywood stars - like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry - and the lesser-known performers like stuntman Yakima Canutt and Broncho Billy Anderson, who was part of “The Great Train Robbery,” the landmark 1903 film that helped establish the Western as a movie genre. We told the story of another Hollywood cowboy, Audie Murphy, who gained fame as a decorated hero of World War II before returning to his Texas roots to become a bona fide Western star. Murphy had a hard time adjusting to civilian and celebrity life and died tragically in a plane crash. He wasn’t the only one of our stories that ended too abruptly. We also shared stories about Western art legend Frederic Remington, who passed at age 48 and the death of bull rider Lane Frost, who died at 25. But that’s our job as a Museum, to be a good steward of the stories, good and bad, tragic and triumphant. We’re privileged to be able to walk our halls and see Remington masterpieces and mementos of Frost’s epic battles in the rodeo arena. All that’s housed here at The Cowboy - the National Rodeo Hall of Fame, PBR’s Heroes & Legends, the Hall of Great Western Performers, the Hall of Great Westerners - gives us fertile ground from which to grow this podcast. From the stories we’ve uncovered, we have seen how the American West touches the world, capturing the attention of German Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, sparking the love story of Texas Jack Omohundro and Italian ballerina Giuseppina Morlacchi and drawing in immigrant artists like Albert Bierstadt, Karl Bodmer and Olaf Wieghorst, who came to America knowing just three words of English and died a master of Western Art. We’ve been able to shine a light on the stories of Native peoples, dispelling myths surrounding Sacagawea, celebrating the rodeo he

This Week in the West: Chief Joseph and His People