The Old Trails West

by Ralph Moody

Promontory Press
Date of 1963
hardcover
Unknown Edition
Very Good
Western American History. Illustrations and maps. A very nice, clean and unmarked copy. No DJ. 318 pp.

318 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Ralph Moody was an American author who wrote 17 novels and autobiographies about the American West. He was born in East Rochester, New Hampshire, in 1898 but moved to Colorado with his family when he was eight in the hopes that a dry climate would improve his father Charles's tuberculosis. Moody detailed his experiences in Colorado in the first book of the Little Britches series, Father and I Were Ranchers.

After his father died, eleven-year-old Moody assumed the duties of the "man of the house." He and his sister Grace combined ingenuity with hard work in a variety of odd jobs to help their mother provide for their large family. The Moody clan returned to the East Coast some time after Charles's death, but Moody had difficulty readjusting. Following more than one ill-timed run-in with local law enforcement, he left the family home near Boston to live on his grandfather's farm in Maine. His later Little Britches books cover his time in Maine and subsequent travels through Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Kansas—including stints as a bust sculptor and a horse rider doing "horse falls" for motion pictures—as he worked his way back toward Colorado while continuing to support his family financially.

Moody's formal education was limited, but he had a lifelong interest in learning and self-education. At age 50, he enrolled in a writing class, which eventually led to the publication of Father and I Were Ranchers. In addition to the Little Britches series, Moody wrote a number of books detailing the development of the American West. His books have been described as crude in the language of the times but are highly praised by Moody's readership and have been in continuous publication since 1950.

After a period as livestock business owner in rural Kansas, Moody sent to Massachusetts for his former sweetheart, Edna. They married and moved to Kansas City. They had three children.—Source

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Details the various trails used across the western US, beginning with the Spanish missions in the southwest, spreading up the Pacific coast, and ending with the trails used for the California gold rush and Mormon migration. I would have liked better maps, but for a free library cast off printed in the 1960s, it was a decent history. The author didn’t shy away from recording reasons for natives hatred for the explorers.

[Katie Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice description of the history behind some of America's most famous trails. It would have been nice to have more/better maps.