Like many of the people who settled the old west, Hoag lived a full and adventurous life, which would have gone unnoticed had an unpublished manuscript telling his story
not been discovered in an antique store.
Hoag crossed paths with many of the people, whose names we recognize—Calamity Jane,
Annie Oakley, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and a host of lesser known individuals,
each of whom played vital roles in settling the west and creating the nation we
know today.
He
fought alongside the legends of his time—Buffalo Bill, Kit Carson and Bat
Masterson.
Yet,
no one has ever heard of Hoag Franklin—until now.
His
story begins when, as a young man still in his teens, he rides off on his first
buffalo hunt before joining a wagon train as a scout, and eventually heading
off to California in search of gold. For the next fifty years, he did almost
everything a man could do as the nation expanded from the Mississippi to the
Pacific Ocean. He even did things few men ever do.
These
are his adventures, in his own words, written in the seaside town of San Pedro,
California at the turn of the last century, a town he visited regularly during
his Salt Lake City to Los Angeles stage coach run.
My latest novel, The Life, Times & Adventures of Hoag Franklin: Indian Scout, Buffalo Hunter, Lawman & Vaudeville Entertainer, with illustrations by Danielle Grandi.
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