Return to the thrilling days of yesteryear, when the Western was the backbone of American movies. When names like Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and Lash LaRue stood alongside a Gable or Garbo in popularity charts. This special traces the Western from the early Thomas Edison Studios through the B-Westerns to the TV aftermath and today's sad festival of bursting blood bags. Features rare clips and interviews with Bruce Dern, Carroll Baker, Ernest Borgnine, John Ritter, Ricardo Montalban, and Tom Selleck.

The notorious Tom Horn, hanged for the murder of a 14-year-old boy in 1903, is a pivotal figure in the taming of the Old West. A cowboy-turned-range-detective for big ranchers, he built a fearsome reputation as a professional hit man. Was he a cold-hearted assassin or a framed innocent man?

At the dawn of the cowboy era, a mysterious disease threatens to derail the dreams of Texas cattlemen and their cowboys. One man vows to find a cure--and get fabulously rich at the same time. In a bold gamble, Joe McCoy builds a city in the middle of nowhere: Abilene--the first "cow town"--whose legacy would reshape the West.

This is the true story behind one of the most notorious names from the Golden Age of the Wild West. Who was "Billy the Kid"? A cold-blooded killer who murdered 21 men? Or an orphaned teenager driven to avenge the death of the only man who offered him a place to belong? Welcome to gang warfare--Wild West style.

The fabled Wyatt Earp, credited with spreading law and order in the Wild West, was in reality a complex character who straddled both sides of the law. Throughout most of his career he rarely used a pistol to kill a man, but when his little brother is shot, he snaps and embarks on a bloody vendetta. This action seals his place in history... but obscures the real man behind the myth.

Two cattle partners set off to blaze a trail to reach new markets. Only one returns. The epic adventure of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving defines the spirit of the American cowboy and the brutal reality of the West in the wake of the Civil War.

In 1889, Wyoming erupts in the West's most brutal range war--a campaign of terror pitting the wealthy cattle barons against the homesteaders, and "the powerful" against "the people." From barn burnings to lynchings to gangland slayings, the barons will stop at nothing to defend their claim to thousands of acres of government land.