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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 women, 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--Unintended Consequences: Molly Goodnight, Orphan Mother of the Plains and Hank Boedeker, Friend of Butch Cassidy. Check here for updates.

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Current Conversations

An icon of a man riding a horse on a white background

Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

I email Bump Boedeker’s bronc image to Sarah. I hope the new discovery peaks her interest in her heritage. Cowboys may not impress her much; after all, she is a Wyoming girl where Steamboat is imprinted on everything except the state flag. (Steamboat is Wyoming’s ubiquitous bucking bronc logo.) And like my son, she attended…

A bump Boedeker black and white photo

Bump Boedeker, Ride “‘Em, Cowboy!”

Taking care of a dying person is draining, but I can fend off depression by concentrating on the Boedeker family. This tack triggers another realization, adding guilt to my panoply of emotions. I realize that I am a voyeur, my mind’s eye loupe is peering into their lives without permission. Should I tell Sarah? I…