Books by "Mark G. Boyer"
3 books found
A colorful and groundbreaking account of the most storied friendship of the American West: the bond between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday: Legendary gunfighters and friends who gained immortality because of a thirty-second shootout near a livery stable called the O.K. Corral. Their friendship actually began three years before that iconic 1881 gunfight, in the rollicking cattle town of Dodge City. Wyatt, an assistant city marshal, was surrounded by armed, belligerent cowboys. Doc saw Wyatt’s predicament from a monte table in the Long Branch saloon and burst out the door with two leveled revolvers shouting, “Throw up your hands!” The startled cowboys did, and Wyatt and Doc led them off to jail. Wyatt credited Doc with saving his life, and thus began their lasting—and curious—friendship. In this illuminating dual biography, the first about Earp and Holliday, the lives of these two men, one a sometime lawman and the other a sometime dentist, are chronicled in a swirling tableau of saloons, brothels, gambling dens, stage holdups, arrests, manhunts, and revenge killings. And while there’s plenty of gunsmoke in this saga, hero-worshipping won’t be found. Wyatt and Doc, just like anyone else then and now, had their flaws and failings, and the unsavory parts of their lives are here, too. In Brothers of the Gun, Old West authority Mark Lee Gardner reveals fresh information about Wyatt’s and Doc’s early lives, their famous friendship, the O.K. Corral gunfight, and Wyatt’s controversial “vendetta ride” following the assassination of his brother Morgan. Drawing upon new research into diaries, letters, court records, and contemporary newspaper reports, as well as firsthand observation at several historic sites, this is the definitive book on Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and their enduring bond. Brothers of the Gun is edge-of-your-saddle nonfiction storytelling at its best.
Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakes is the most thorough and factual study of the Great Lakes shipping industry written this century. Author Mark L. Thompson tells the fascinating story of the world's most efficient bulk transportation system, describing the Great Lakes freighters, the cargoes of the great ships, and the men and women who have served as crew. He documents the dramatic changes that have taken place in the industry and looks at the critical role that Great Lakes shipping plays in the economic well-being of the U.S. and Canada, despite the fact that the size of the fleet and the amount of cargo carried have declined dramatically in recent years.