Synopses & Reviews
Grace McClure has created an even-handed account of the Bassets. Drawing on interviews with surviving family, friends and enemies, on memoirs, and on oral and written records from local libraries, newspapers, and archives she presents believable, life-size characters who respond realistically to the demands of pioneer life. The Bassett Women is one of the few creditable accounts of early settlers on Colorado's western slope, one of the last strongholds of the Old West.
Synopsis
"The Bassett home gave refuge to a veritable who's who of western outlaws...What makes the book so delectable are the lovingly detailed scandals involving Brown's Park pioneers". -- True West
Synopsis
In the late nineteenth century, Elizabeth and Herb Bassett settled in Brown's Park, a secluded valley straddling the border of Utah and Colorado. It was a troubled land of deadly conflict among large cattle barons, outlaws, rustlers, and the small ranchers who were often called rustlers by men greedy for their land. Elizabeth Bassett, a gentlewoman homesteader in 1878, was soon branded a rustler and cohort of outlaws. Her daughter Ann became known as "queen of the cattle rustlers." Another daughter, Josie, before the age of forty had married and discarded five husbands, sometimes, it is said, by violent methods.
After the West was "tamed," the Bassett sisters lived on through droughts, the Great Depression, and two world wards. Ann eventually became a writer, striving to counteract the flurry of sensationalism which had distorted the Brown's Park she remembered. Josie established her own homestead near Vernal, Utah, on land now belonging to Dinosaur National Monument, where her cabin still stands. She lived there for almost fifty years, applying her unorthodox set of pioneer ethics to a mechanized worlds, and becoming a local legend for her resourcefulness, steadfastness, and pure audacity.
Grace McClure has tracked down and untangled the man legends of Brown's Park, one of the way-stations of the fabled "Outlaw Trail." From a variety of stories about the Hoy brothers, the Meeker Massacre, Elza Lay, Harry Tracy, Matt Warner, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Bender Gang and their "outlaws' Thanksgiving dinner" of 1895, and the shooting of Isom Dart and Matt Rash by stock detective Tom Horn, she has created an even handed account of the Bassetts. Drawing on interviews with surviving family, friends and enemies, on memoirs, and on oral and written records from local libraries, newspapers, and archives she presents believable, life-size characters who respond realistically to the demands of pioneer life. The Bassett Women is one of the few credible accounts of early settlers on Colorado's western slope, one of the last strongholds of the Old West.
Synopsis
In the late nineteenth century, Brown's Park, a secluded valley astride the Utah-Colorado border, was a troubled land of deadly conflict among cattle barons, outlaws, rustlers, and small ranchers. Homesteader Elizabeth Bassett gained a tough reputation of her own, and her daughters followed suit, going on to become members of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch's inner circle. Ann--who counted Cassidy among her lovers--became known as "queen of the cattle rustlers." Both sisters proved themselves shrewd businesswomen as they fended off hostile takeovers of the family ranch. Through the following decades, the sisters became the stuff of legend, women who embodied the West's fearsome reputation, yet whose lived experiences were far more nuanced. Ann became a writer. Josie, whose cabin still stands at present-day Dinosaur National Monument, applied her pioneer ethics to a mechanized world and became renowned for her resourcefulness, steadfastness, and audacity.
For The Bassett Women, Grace McClure tracked down and untangled the legends of Brown's Park, one of the way stations of the fabled "Outlaw Trail," while creating an evenhanded and indelible portrait of the Bassetts. Based on interviews, written records, newspapers, and archives, The Bassett Women is one of the few credible accounts of early settlers on Colorado's western slope, one of the last strongholds of the Old West.