I’ll be chairing a great panel on Saturday morning, April 12, at this year’s Arizona History Convention, to\u00a0be held at the Prescott Resort and Conference Center.\u00a0 The panel title is “Turning Lives into Legends: Wyatt Earp, Pearl Hart, and Curly Bill.” Each of our speakers will examine how it is that three memorable Arizona residents–one\u00a0lawman and two criminals–did or did not pass\u00a0from their allotted fifteen minutes of\u00a0fame or notoriety to legendary or even iconic status. Our speakers (and their topics) are:<\/p>\n
* Anne Collier: “Stuart Lake’s Wyatt Earp”<\/p>\n
* Jean E. Smith: “Pearl Hart: A Legend in Her Own Time”<\/p>\n
* Paul Cool: “Curly Bill: Arizona’s All-in-One Robin Hood, Black Knight, and Byronic Hero”<\/p>\n
Was Curly Bill Brocius an “outlaw hero”? I’ll be looking into how\u00a0his contemporaries and Old West mythmakers\u00a0drew upon\u00a0legendary, mythical, and\u00a0literary characters and character types to describe his personality and his brief but memorable time in Arizona Territory. Can only touch the high points in 20 minutes, but I hope the talk will induce you to grab me during the conference for more leisurely chats about this fascinating bad man.<\/p>\n