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PODCAST

Wild West Podcast

Michael King/Brad Smalley

Welcome to the Wild West Podcast, winner of the 2026 Best of Western Podcast award, where fact and legend merge. We present the true accounts of individuals who settled in towns built out of hunger for money, regulated by fast guns, who walked on both sides of the law, patrolling, investing in, and regulating the brothels, saloons, and gambling houses. These are stories of the men who made the history of the Old West come alive - bringing with them the birth of legends, brought to order by a six-gun

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All Episodes

14:26

The Secret of the Sackett Tapes

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/10/05

Send us Fan Mail The script tells the chilling story of a 1958 archival discovery at Fort Hays State University, where a graduate assistant listening to a reel-to-reel tape recorded by local resident Mary C. Highland uncovers a dark, hidden secret from the Kansas frontier. Prompted by a cryptic note left in the tape box, the narrative flashes back to 1888 Bucklin, Kansas, where investigator Jack Sterling looks into the legend of the "Sod-House Spectre". He learns that the haunting ghost is El...

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35:55

"The Phantom of the Prairie Ditch"

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/10/03

Send us Fan Mail This special Halloween episode of the Wild West Podcast, narrated by Brad Smalley, explores the dark history and haunting of Soule's Eureka Canal in Cimarron, Kansas. The story centers on Asa T. Soule, a wealthy New York tycoon who made his fortune selling Hop Bitters and sought to carve a massive irrigation ditch across the plains to build an agricultural empire. The venture ultimately failed due to unpredictable river flows and porous soil, earning it the bitter local monik...

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18:44

The Cholera Ghost of Fort Dodge!

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/10/03

Send us Fan Mail In the summer of 1867, a terrifying cholera epidemic swept through Fort Dodge, Kansas, striking down healthy men by dusk and leaving a young eastern private named Walter "Walt" Hall among the fallen. Amidst a raging prairie thunderstorm, soldiers heard frantic scratching coming from the stone "Dead House," but the exhausted post surgeon dismissed the terrifying sounds as the wind. Decades later, in the spring of 1890, a hardened U.S. Cavalry veteran named Sergeant Elias Thorn...

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28:21

Shadows on the Deadline: The Search for Ed...

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/09/30

Send us Fan Mail The wind that sweeps across the Kansas plains in early April is sharp enough to peel paint from the clapboard facades of Dodge City’s Front Street, and it carries with it the names of men who once kept order with a Colt and a badge. On the morning Ed Masterson walked his final patrol, the temperature hovered just above freezing, the kind of chill that seeps into the bones and makes a man’s hand slow on the draw. We follow the faint, crumbling trail of his remains, from the mi...

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35:23

The Secret of the Stone House: Ghost Stories

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/09/25

Send us Fan Mail On the edge of the prairie, where the wind could strip paint from a fence post and the sun baked the grass to brittle straw, a limestone mansion rose in defiance. Its walls, quarried by hand and mortared with ambition, promised permanence in a land that devoured dreams. Inside, John Mueller’s fortunes climbed with each black walnut step, the staircase polished by boots that tracked in the dust of cattle drives and the scent of imported cigars. But the winter of 1886, the Whit...

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28:15

Blood, Dust, and Defiance: The Wagon Ring of Fire

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/09/05

Send us Fan Mail In this gripping final episode of our Wild West Podcast series, the sun-scorched plains of the Texas Panhandle erupt into a brutal struggle for survival during the late summer of 1874. When a sprawling government supply train led by Captain Willis Lyman approaches the treacherous Washita River, it is suddenly engulfed by a massive war party of Kiowa and Comanche warriors. What begins as a chaotic morning ambush orchestrated by fierce chiefs like Lone Wolf, Mamanti, and Satant...

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23:33

Nelson Miles's 1874 Southern Plains Campaign

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/09/01

Send us Fan Mail In August 1874, Colonel Nelson Miles launched an expedition from Fort Dodge into the Texas Panhandle to force hostile tribes onto reservations during the Red River War. His force—comprising eight cavalry companies, four infantry companies, and 37 scouts, including notable figures Bat Masterson and Billy Dixon—moved south across the Arkansas River. An advance detachment led by Lieutenant Frank Baldwin split off to scout toward Adobe Walls, where the scouts quickly engaged in s...

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12:30

Ambush on the Prairie: The German Family Tragedy and...

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/31

Send us Fan Mail On September 11, 1874, the John German family was journeying westward toward Colorado along the Smoky Hill River route in Kansas when they were violently ambushed by a band of 17 Cheyenne Dog Soldiers led by Medicine Water. In the surprise attack, John German, his wife Lydia, and three of their children—Rebecca Jane, Stephen, and Joanna—were killed and mutilated, while their wagon was set ablaze. Four surviving daughters—Catherine (17), Sophia (12), Julia (7), and Adelaide (5...

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29:06

Beyond the Ambush: Retelling the German Family...

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/27

Send us Fan Mail This podcast episode explores the September 11, 1874 German family ambush near Fort Wallace, Kansas, during the Red River War, told from the perspective of guest Scott, the great-grandson of survivor Julia German. After years of post–Civil War poverty and arduous travel from Georgia in search of a better life in Colorado, the German family was attacked by a band of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers led by Medicine Water and Mochi. The parents and three older children were killed, while t...

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7:39

Audiobook CHAPTER 7: Life in the Lodges

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/27

Send us Fan Mail Arriving at the sprawling Cheyenne encampment amidst the horrors of their family’s murder, Catherine and Sophia are immediately torn apart to endure harsh captivity in separate lodges. While twelve-year-old Sophia faces grueling physical labor in Grey Beard’s camp—bearing heavy burdens in absolute, defiant silence—Catherine is subjected to the cruelty of her captor’s wife, Wasita. Catherine quickly adapts by mastering the Cheyenne language, expertly working hides, and ultim...

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6:41

Audiobook CHAPTER 6: The Rescue at McClellan Creek

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/26

Send us Fan Mail Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin led a ferocious, five-hour cavalry and infantry assault against a Cheyenne camp at McClellan Creek, sending the encampment into chaos as warriors mounted a desperate rearguard defense. Amid the gunfire and smoke, soldiers shot a warrior just before he could kill seven-year-old captive Julia German, discovering her hiding beneath a buffalo robe while her five-year-old sister, Adelaide, was found unharmed in a nearby dry wash. Hardened troopers were ...

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7:48

Audiobook CHAPTER 5 Abandoned on McClellan Creek

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/26

Send us Fan Mail In late September 1874, as General Miles’s cavalry closes in, a fleeing Cheyenne raiding party abruptly abandons young Julia and Adelaide German in the high grass of the Texas Panhandle, forcing their older sisters to ride on and assume they are dead. Driven by sheer survival instinct, seven-year-old Julia leads five-year-old Adelaide along wagon ruts to a deserted army camp on McClellan Creek. For nearly three weeks, the two girls endure freezing nights burrowed in leaves, s...

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8:46

Audiobook CHAPTER 4 Into the Staked Plains

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/25

Send us Fan Mail Following the violent destruction of their family's homestead in Kansas, the German sisters—Catherine, Sophia, Julia, and Adelaide—are taken captive by a Cheyenne raiding party and driven relentlessly south. Traveling primarily under the cover of night to evade the pursuing U.S. Cavalry, the band endures severe plains rainstorms and survives on meager rations. Along the way, the raiders strike a Santa Fe trading store near Pierceville, staying well ahead of responding infantr...

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12:45

Audiobook CHAPTER 3: Dawn on the Smoky Hill

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/24

Send us Fan Mail On the cold, frosty morning of September 11, 1874, the German family's journey across the windswept flats of Logan County, Kansas, was violently cut short. As John and Lydia led their canvas-topped wagon toward Fort Wallace alongside their older children, a raiding party of seventeen Cheyenne warriors from Grey Beard’s band suddenly descended upon them from a nearby ravine. The attack unfolded with brutal speed, leaving John, Lydia, Stephen, Jane, and Joanna dead and scalped ...

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14:04

Audio Book CHAPTER 2 The Prairie Trail

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/23

Send us Fan Mail On a sweltering September afternoon in 1874, the exhausted German family trudges along the abandoned Smoky Hill stage road in western Kansas, their livestock near collapse and water rations nearly depleted. Relief arrives when two passing buffalo hunters inform patriarch John German that Fort Wallace is merely thirty-five miles away, promising safety, supplies, and shelter within a day and a half. Although the hunters offer a fleeting warning about keeping low fires due to ro...

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2:43

A Voice from the Kansas Frontier

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/16

Send us Fan Mail Step beyond official military dispatches to uncover the harrowing, forgotten world of the 19th-century frontier wife. In late 1866, Isadore Bowman Douglass journeyed 240 freezing miles across the plains to Fort Dodge with three young children, weathering the brutal winter inside a damp sod dugout carved into the Arkansas River bank. Drawing directly from author Michael D. King's groundbreaking release, Isadore Douglas: A Voice from the Kansas Frontier, this episode illuminate...

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15:57

Chapter One: The Shadow of the Blue Ridge

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/10

Send us Fan Mail A Legacy of Hardship and Hope In the spring of 1870, the impoverished German family—led by Civil War veteran John German and his wife, Lydia—prepares to flee the ruined soil and lingering trauma of Fannin County, Georgia. Struggling with a severe battle injury, John faces the daunting task of raising seven children in a devastated region picked clean by wartime guerrillas. The primary catalyst for their departure is their seventeen-year-old daughter, Catherine, whose delicate...

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9:06

Echoes of the High Plains:

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/09

Send us Fan Mail Step into the brutal reality of the 1874 High Plains with the debut episode of The German Sisters: A Story of Survival, a gripping new audiobook series from Books on Tape, expertly brought to life through ElevenLabs narration. Drawing directly from preserved 1928 Kansas State Historical Society records, military dispatches, and primary memoirs, author Michael King strips away a century of cheap dime-novel exaggeration to uncover the raw, heart-wrenching truth behind the Germa...

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55:37

Unraveling the True Frontier: The Hidden Legacy of...

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/08/03

Send us Fan Mail Step into the captivating world of the American frontier, where history, grit, and surprising truths converge to reshape everything you thought you knew about the Old West. In this engaging address, our speaker Dr. Frank Sharp peels back the layers of myth to reveal a astonishing reality: post-Civil War Texas was pulled from deep economic depression not just by hard-working cowboys, but by the legendary Texas Longhorn itself—a drive that infused what would be billions of doll...

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22:44

Five Thousand Strong: Caught in the Stampede

Wild West Podcast ·

2026/07/29

Send us Fan Mail Imagine standing atop Pawnee Rock in May of 1872, looking out over the vast, windswept plains of Kansas. As far as the eye can see, the earth itself seems to move—a living, breathing ocean of dark fur and thunder. Welcome to The Wild West Podcast. Today, we invite you to travel alongside Colonel Richard Irving Dodge: soldier, keen naturalist, and eyewitness to the final, awe-inspiring days of the American frontier. In this episode, written and produced by Mike King and narrat...

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