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Welcome to Jane Little Botkin

Welcome to Jane Little Botkin

Having scoured the West for firsthand sources in family, library, and museum collections, award-winning author Jane Little Botkin melds personal narratives of American families with compelling stories of labor radicals, miners, lawmen, and outlaws in settings rich with a history that transitions into the New West.

Welcome to Jane Little Botkin

Having scoured the West for firsthand sources in family, library, and museum collections, award-winning author Jane Little Botkin melds personal narratives of American families with compelling stories of western women, labor radicals, miners, lawmen, and outlaws in settings rich with a history that transitions into the New West.

Jane is currently researching for her new biographies on Molly Goodnight, Orphan Mother of the Plains and Hank Boedeker, Friend of Butch Cassidy. Check here for updates.

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Jane Little Botkin

Researching Wyoming’s Boedekers, Truth or Legend?

A famous quote best describes the written lore of Lawman Hank Boedeker: “When confronted with the truth or the legend, print the legend.” Though not much is in print about Henry E. Boedeker, during the 1950s, campfire stories embellished tales of well-known past residents including Marshal Boedeker to impress visiting dudes at ranches across western…

Jane Little Botkin

3-7-77, On the Anniversary of Frank Little’s Murder

3-7-77. The only clue attached to Frank Little’s corpse swinging on a hemp rope from a Milwaukee Railroad trestle in Butte, Montana, on August 1, 1917. A Bureau of Intelligence agent in charge noted that the pasteboard placard warned the dimensions of a grave: 3-feet wide, 7-feet deep, and 77-inches long. If so, the warning pinned…

Jane Little Botkin

The Bisbee Deportation: An Ugly History That Has Not Been Rewritten

Tomorrow, July 12, is the 102nd anniversary of the infamous Bisbee Deportation. This horrendous action of Americans taking illegal action against other Americans will be memorialized in Bisbee, Arizona, with a host of speakers. Historians will try to explain the illogical hatred and misplaced patriotism of individuals responsible for the deportation, locals will bring to life the…