This book traces the career of the late Western Museum Director Dean Krakel from his early years at the Thomas Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa to his transformation of The Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City into a great museum of western art. The collection of Remmington, Russell, Shrevogel, Frasier, Moran, Bodmer, Bierstadt and many others was truly an adventure in aquisition. From the renouned art critics and dealers in New York to the Bienekie collection at Yale. The mentor relationship of the great collector Thomas Gilcrease to Krakel is worth reading the book alone. This book is a must for anyone interested in Western Art and the tough world of wheeling and dealing. There is also a number of colorful characters like Joel McCrea and Jasper Ackerman who helped aquire many paintings and provide financial support in a big way. The author gave me my copy and said he would not sign it until I wrote a review. Here is my review, a little late for the great man.

I have read more western history than many and while the book is good as far as it goes, it overlooks most of who and what Tom Horn was. He hailed from Texas of German stock and had a very Wild West life - mining, Indian Scout, spoke the Apache language, worked with the legendary Al Sieber and was in on at least one capture of Geronimo. The Apache Chief in whose camp he learned their language called him Talking Boy, his Apache Name (used to describe one's character or most salient trait), and the one that proved his undoing. I believe Tom Horn was a great frontiersman and, like so many, used by the government, discarded without so much as a by-your-leave to either discard all the government had set his life to, or else be brought down. I believe many a Viet Nam Veteran will know whereof I speak on this. What is missing from this book is Horn's early experience, which is nowhere documented properly in print. He, Mickey Free, Al Sieber and a handful of other white and Apache scouts won the Apache Wars. And they were all dropped like hot rocks so soon as the war was over, with lesser men garnering glory and acclaim for what others in fact did. Tom Horn's story, here, shows what happens when a man out-lives his time, when a soldier used to truly vicious conditions plies his trade for his own purpose, and in service of the way of life he thought he was defending. I rate this at 3 stars only because I wanted to more know about Tom Horn from this book, and less about the penny-ante locals. The book's evidence shows pretty clearly, to my mind, that Tom Horn was railroaded to top it all off.

This is a 'must read', for anyone interested in the 'Old West' and 'cattle country'. Mr. Krakel, dis-spells rumor and conjecture about Tom Horn. Through newspaper articles and interviews with the people who were 'around' at the time, Mr. Krakel, unfolds a story of mystery surrounding the killing of a 14-yr. old boy. With actual court transcripts, he relates the trial of a Wyoming 'Stock Detective'and his eventual hanging. This is about as close to the truth as we may ever get on the subject of Tom Horn. This review is in regard to the 'un-expurgated' edition.

The Saga of Tom Horn is a very good book on the trial of Tom Horn.It recreates the trial that found Tom guilty,and hanged him for the death of a 14 year old boy. A crime a lot of people including me belives he did not do. The book is very detailed on the trial, and about Tom Horn himself. A must read for all western history buffs.