Uncle Rick reads Stories of the Great Old West [Audio download]

STORIES OF THE GREAT WEST by Theodore Roosevelt

You may not know that our 26th President was also a historian, but that just shows how little we know about some of our most famous citizens. “Teddy” Roosevelt (the teddy bear was named after him) was also a soldier, an author, a reformer, a big-game hunter, a rancher and the first Chief of Police in New York City. This is one of the books he wrote to introduce his fellow Americans to the Wild West which he so loved. And it’s quite a wild ride.

Starting with the first pioneers to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains into territory that was then known only to the Indians, Teddy describes the adventures of Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark and others who conquered the wilderness for the advancement of the new nation. He tells in colorful realism of the battle at the Alamo, where Crockett, Bowie, and Travis fell in a desperate struggle to hold back the Mexican army until the Texans could assemble an army to win their independence. He guides us in our imagination along the unexplored trail of Lewis and Clark on their quest to reach the Pacific Ocean, describing their scrapes with Indians and grizzly bears along the way. He even draws on his own memories of ranching in the Dakotas as he spins is true stories of roundups, stampedes, blizzards, and bronc busting.

Stories of the Great West will thrill you, challenge you, excite you and maybe scare you just a little. So saddle up and join Teddy on this exciting gallop through the history of the American West.