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The Wild West Extravaganza

The Wild West Extravaganza

By: The Wild West Extravaganza
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Summary
 The Wild West Extravaganza is a weekly history podcast that explores the real-life people and events from the Old West. Each episode brings to life the legendary outlaws, gunfighters, lawmen, cowboys, and Native Americans who shaped the frontier. From iconic figures like Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and Doc Holliday to overlooked tales of shootouts, cattle drives, and rowdy towns like Deadwood, there's no shortage of stories to tell. So saddle up, dust off your boots, and let's hit the trail!©2026 World
Episodes
  • Sixteen Scalps: The Legend of Jerry Potts

    Sixteen Scalps: The Legend of Jerry Potts
    Oct 15 2026
    In the fall of 1874, about three hundred men of Canada's newly formed North West Mounted Police were lost on the prairie, watching their horses die and searching for a whiskey fort they couldn't find. Their rescue came in the form of a short, bow-legged horse trader named Jerry Potts. The son of a Scottish fur trader and a Blood woman named Crooked Back, Potts lost his father to a bullet meant for someone else and was raised among traders and his mother's Blackfoot people. By adulthood, he had earned a fearsome reputation, taking sixteen scalps at the Battle of Belly River in 1870 and working as a hunter for the whiskey men at Fort Whoop-Up until the murder of his own mother turned him against the trade. Hired by the Mounties at Fort Benton, he would spend the next twenty-two years as their guide and interpreter. But separating the man from the legend means sorting through tales of Lakota war parties, a snow-blind ride through a blizzard, a council with Sitting Bull, and a child’s chamber pot. Wild West Quiz - https://wildwestquiz.com/ Check out the website! https://www.wildwestextra.com/ Email me! https://www.wildwestextra.com/contact/ Free Newsletter! https://wildwestjosh.substack.com/ Buy Me A Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/wildwest Join Patreon for ad-free bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/wildwestextra Merch! https://wildwestextramerch.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    35 mins
  • Slavery or States Rights? What Really Caused the Civil War

    Slavery or States Rights? What Really Caused the Civil War
    Oct 1 2026
    Was the Civil War fought over slavery or states' rights? Today we’ll examine the primary sources: the secession declarations of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas, the ordinances of the other Confederate states, Alexander Stephens's Cornerstone Speech, Jefferson Davis's own words to the Confederate Congress in 1861, and Lincoln's letters on slavery and the Union. We'll also discuss the Corwin Amendment, the Crittenden Compromise, the tariff argument, why poor Southern farmers enlisted, the truth about Black Confederates and the Louisiana Native Guard, Black slave owners, Union atrocities, and how the Lost Cause myth spread from Edward Pollard's 1866 book through the United Daughters of the Confederacy and into Southern history textbooks, including the ones I used growing up in Texas. Wild West Quiz - https://wildwestquiz.com/ Check out the website! https://www.wildwestextra.com/ Email me! https://www.wildwestextra.com/contact/ Free Newsletter! https://wildwestjosh.substack.com/ Buy Me A Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/wildwest Join Patreon for ad-free bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/wildwestextra Merch! https://wildwestextramerch.com/ South Carolina Declaration of Causes, December 24, 1860: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24, 1832: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp Mississippi Declaration of Causes, January 9, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp Texas Declaration of Causes, February 2, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_texsec.asp Georgia Declaration of Causes, January 29, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861. Henry Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, in Public and Private (1866), pp. 717 to 728: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-corner-stone-speech/ Stephens's disavowal and "Slavery was without doubt the occasion of secession": Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens, ed. Myrta Lockett Avary (1910), diary entry June 5, 1865. Secession ordinances of all eleven states, including Alabama and Virginia: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/secession-acts-thirteen-confederate-states Also Dwight T. Pitcaithley, ed., The U.S. Constitution and Secession (University Press of Kansas, 2018). Virginia Ordinance of Secession, April 17, 1861: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/virginia-ordinance-of-secession-april-17-1861/ Secession commissioners, including George Williamson of Louisiana to the Texas convention: Charles B. Dew, Apostles of Disunion (University of Virginia Press, 2001). Arkansas convention, March 1861 resolutions, and May 6 secession: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/secession-convention-6304/ James M. Woods, Rebellion and Realignment (University of Arkansas Press, 1987). Florida's unadopted draft Declaration of Causes: State Archives of Florida, Series 577; reprinted in Pitcaithley (2018). Washington Peace Conference, February 1861: Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates (UNC Press, 1989). Lincoln's call for 75,000 militia, April 15, 1861, and the secessions of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina: James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (Oxford University Press, 1988), chapter 9. Constitution of the Confederate States, March 11, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp Jefferson Davis, message to the Confederate Congress, April 29, 1861: James D. Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Confederacy (1905), vol. 1. Jefferson Davis, Senate farewell, January 21, 1861: https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-farewell-address Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881), vol. 1. Edward A. Pollard, The Lost Cause (1866). General reading: McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom. David W. Blight, Race and Reunion (Harvard University Press, 2001). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    58 mins
  • Billy Bastards: Did Billy the Kid Have Children?

    Billy Bastards: Did Billy the Kid Have Children?
    Oct 8 2026
    In July of 1881, Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Pat Garrett in a darkened bedroom at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. He was just twenty-one years old, possibly younger, and had spent the better part of three years among the young women of Fort Sumner, earning a reputation as something of a ladies' man. That same year, rumors swirled that Paulita Maxwell, the teenage sister of the man in whose bedroom Billy died, was carrying the Kid's child. More than a century later, a book by Elbert Garcia would claim that Billy fathered a son with Fort Sumner resident Abrana Garcia. But the records tell a different story, and the search for Billy's children leads instead to the women who mourned him, a would-be brother-in-law who may have helped set him up, and a photograph that bears a stark resemblance. Wild West Quiz - https://wildwestquiz.com/ Check out the website! https://www.wildwestextra.com/ Email me! https://www.wildwestextra.com/contact/ Free Newsletter! https://wildwestjosh.substack.com/ Buy Me A Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/wildwest Join Patreon for ad-free bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/wildwestextra Merch! https://wildwestextramerch.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    16 mins
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All stars
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There are some great wild west podcasts out there but for me, this tops the list. Josh is a brilliant host and has a great pitch and tone to his voice and is pretty damn funny at times! His research is great and the subject matter is varied and wide ranging from well known wild west heroes and villains to some more obscure ones. Do yourself a favour and have a listen, there is some bad language so if you're offended by that don't listen. If however you want a fun, educational and different podcast about the wild west...then give it a go!

Brilliant!

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this is my favourite podcast ever!!! I love wild west stories and josh delivers perfectly every time x marvelous thankyou 🥰

fabulous

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