Harry Bigelow—Louis knew him in Ventura. He had a picture taken with Louis’s mother, Emily LaMoore, at a place named Berkeley Springs around 1929. Louis may have known him at the Katherine Mine, near Kingman, AZ, or in Oregon.
Tommy Pinto—Boxer from Portland; got Louis a job at Portland Manufacturing.
Nancy Carroll—An actress as of 1933. Louis knew her from the chorus of a show at the Winter Garden in New York and a cabaret in New Jersey where she and her sister danced occasionally, probably during the mid- to late 1920s.
Judith Wood—Actress. Louis knew her in Hollywood in the late 1920s.
Stanley George—The George family relocated from Kingman, AZ, to Ventura, CA, possibly in the late 1920s.
Francis Lederer*—Actor that Louis knew in late 1920s Los Angeles. I’m looking for anyone who knew him in Hollywood between 1926 and 1931.
Lt. Rix—Who served in the 3622 Quartermaster Truck Co. in Europe in 1944–45.
Pablo De Gantes*—Ex-soldier of fortune who occasionally wrote magazine articles for Lands of Romance in the 1930s. This man used several names and I believe he was actually a Belgian. He lived in Mexico at one time.
Lt. King—Who traveled all the way from Camp Beale, California, through Camp Reynolds, Pennsylvania, and on to England with Louis when he was shipped overseas in early 1944.
K. C. Gibson or his two nephews—Louis met them when they picked him up hitchhiking in October of 1924. They were crossing New Mexico and Arizona bound for Brawly, CA.
Wilma Anderson—A friend of Louis’s from Oklahoma who worked in the Key campaign headquarters in 1938.
Johnny Annette—A boxer Louis fought a bout with in Woodward, Oklahoma (or Kansas) in the 1930s.
Harry Bell—A boxing promoter Louis worked with in Oklahoma City in the 1930s.
Joe Bickerstaff*—Also an occasional boxing promoter who knew Louis in Klamath Falls in the late 1920s.
Pat Chaney—Friend of Louis’s from Choctaw, OK, in the late 1930s.
Mr. Lettsinger*—An older man Louis knew in Klamath Falls, OR, in the late 1920s. I think that he was from the Midwest or South.
Tommy Danforth*—A boxing promoter from Prescott, AZ, in the mid-1920s. Was using the VA hospital at Fort Whipple.
Ned DeWitt*—Knew Louis in Oklahoma in the 1930s, also a friend of Jim Thompson.
Austin Fullerton—Who sold tickets for athletic events in Oklahoma City in the late 1930s.
Martha Nell Hitchock—A friend from Edmond, OK, in the 1930s.
Tommy Tucker*—Boss Stoker on British Blue Funnel ships in the mid-1920s to mid-1930s period.
Dynamite Jackson*—An African-American fighter Louis helped promote in Oklahoma in the 1930s.
Orry Kelly—Designer in Hollywood; Louis knew him in the late 1940s.
Dorothy Kilgallen—A newspaper columnist who worked in LA in the 1950s. We have several good accounts of her death and so are looking for someone who actually knew her.
Henry Li—Whom Louis knew from 1943 when he was at Camp Robinson, AR.
Savoie Lottinville*—Of the University of Oklahoma.
Julio Lopez—Whom Louis worked for very briefly in Phoenix in the mid-1920s.
Joe May—A rancher Louis boxed with in Fort Summer, NM, in the 1920s.
Ann Mehaffey—Friend of Louis’s from the time he spent at Camp Robinson, AR.
Sam Merwin or Sam Mines*—Who once worked with Leo Margulies at Standard Magazines/Better Publications.
Jack Natteford—Screenwriter who worked with Louis in the 1950s.
Joe Paskvan—Once of the Oklahoma Writer’s Project, whom Louis knew in the late 1930s.
Billy Prince—Who went to sea in the late 1930s on the Wallace E. Pratt, a Standard tanker.
Countess Dulong de Rosney (Toni Morgan)*—Whom Louis knew from France in the mid-1940s.
Dot and Truitt Ross—Brother and sister Louis knew in Oklahoma in the 1930s.
Mary Jane Stevenson—A friend of Louis’s from LA in the late 1940s.
Orchid Tatu—Who lived in Sparta, Wisconsin, in the mid-1940s.
Florence Wagner—Wife of Rob Wagner of Rob Wagner’s Script.
Doris Weil—A roomer in the flat where Louis lived in the late 1940s.
Anyone who served on S.S. Steel Worker between 1925 and 1930. In particular Captain C. C. Boase, 2nd Mate Ralph Jones, 3d Mate Raymond Cousins, Radio Operator Stanley Turbervil, Carpenter George Mearly, Bo’sun H. Allendorf, Chief Engineer C. B. Dahlberg, 1st Asst Eng. O. E. Morgan, 2nd Asst Eng. W. Haynes, 3d Asst Engineers George G. Folberth & William Stewart, Oilers A. Chagnon & A. Kratochbil, Firemen William Hohroien, J. Perez, Manfrido Gonzales, John Fennelly, & E. G. Burnay, Wipers A. Sanchez, J. J. Dalmasse, & F. Clifford, Steward J. Shiel, Messmen Dean Bender, William Harvey, & J. H. Blomstedt, Able-bodied Seamen Ernest Martin, Chris Moore, Karl Erickson, Steve Schmotzer, Michael Llorca, Louis Armand, Joseph Morris, Herbert Lieflander, William Reichart, & H. F. Waite.
Anyone familiar with Singapore in the late 1920s, the old Straits Hotel, and the Maypole Bar.
Anyone who is very knowledgeable in the military history and/or politics in western (Shansi, Kansu, and Sinkiang provinces) China in 1928–36.
I am also looking for seamen who served on the following ships: the Catherine G. Sudden between 1925 and 1936. The Yellowstone between 1925 and 1936. The S.S. Steadfast, between 1924 and 1930. The Annandale, a four-masted bark, between 1920 and 1926. The Randsberg, a German freighter, between 1925 and 1937.
Anyone who knows anything about an old square-rigged sailing vessel called the Indiana that was used in movies in the 1920s and ’30s. This ship was docked at San Pedro.
Anyone who knows anything about the following boxers: Johnny “Kid” Stopper, Jack Horan, “Kid” Yates, Butch Vierthaler (Bill Thaler), Ira O’Neil, Jimmy Roberts, Jimmy Russo, Jack McGraf, or Jackie Jones—Guys Louis met in Phoenix in October of 1924. None of these men was born after 1909.
Anyone who knows anything about a fight (I assume with small arms) between two trading schooners that was stopped by a British warship near Pinaki in the South Pacific. This would have been between 1926 and 1932.
Anyone from the family or group that Louis guided around Egypt sometime between 1926 and 1937. Although he very much looked the part, Louis finally admitted that he wasn’t a real guide and that he’d been using a tour book from a library to learn about where he was taking them. They may have been staying at Shepherd’s. Some or all of the party were Americans, and there may have been as many as twelve of them.
Anyone who might know about a flight that Louis took across Africa with a French officer with stops at Taudeni and Timbuktu. This would have been between the mid-1920s and late 1930s.
Anyone familiar with an island in the Spratly group called Itu Aba.
Anyone who knows anything about a very shortlived magazine published in Oklahoma City in 1936 called Uptown Magazine.
Anyone who knows if Norman Foster and Rex Bel (George Francis Beldam) ever went to sea during the 1920s or early 1930s.
Anyone who knows where the personal and business papers of B. P. Schulberg (not Budd) and Sam Katz are archived. Both of these men worked at Paramount Publix Pictures. The period that I am interested in is the late 1920s to the early 1930s.
Anyone familiar with the Royal Government Experimental Hospital in Calcutta, India.
I would like to hear from men who served in the following military units: the 3622 Quartermaster Truck Company between June of 1944 and December of 1945. The 3595 Quartermaster Truck Company after October 1945 and before January 1946. The 67th Tank Destroyer Battalion in 1943 at Camp Hood, Texas. The 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion at Camp Phillips, Kansas, in 1943.
Soldiers or Officers who: took basic training at Camp Robinson, Arkansas, between September 1942 and January 1943. Took winter training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, and near Land o’Lakes and Watersmeet in the Northern Michigan peninsula between October 1943 and February 1944. Remembers Louis in early 1944 when he was staying at the St. Franc
is Hotel and the Belleview in San Francisco. During this time he worked at the Oakland Air Base and Fort Mason, CA. Later he was at Camp Beale, CA.
Anyone who worked with the Oklahoma WPA Writer’s Project.
Any recordings that anyone knows about of any of Louis’s speeches.
About Louis L’Amour
* * *
“I think of myself in the oral tradition—
as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man
in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way
I’d like to be remembered as a storyteller.
A good storyteller.”
IT IS DOUBTFUL that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L’Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L’Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.
Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L’Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, “always on the frontier.” As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family’s frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.
Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L’Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner, and an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.
Mr. L’Amour “wanted to write almost from the time I could talk.” After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L’Amour published his first full-length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are nearly 270 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the best-selling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.
His hardcover bestsellers include The Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum (his twelfth-century historical novel), May There Be a Road, Last of the Breed, and The Haunted Mesa. His memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, was a leading bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of many L’Amour stories are available on cassette tapes from Bantam Audio publishing.
The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr. L’Amour became the first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life’s work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.
Louis L’Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L’Amour publishing tradition forward.
Bantam Books by Louis L’Amour
NOVELS
Bendigo Shafter
Borden Chantry
Brionne
The Broken Gun
The Burning Hills
The Californios
Callaghen
Catlow
Chancy
The Cherokee Trail
Comstock Lode
Conagher
Crossfire Trail
Dark Canyon
Down the Long Hills
The Empty Land
Fair Blows the Wind
Fallon
The Ferguson Rifle
The First Fast Draw
Flint
Guns of the Timberlands
Hanging Woman Creek
The Haunted Mesa
Heller with a Gun
The High Graders
High Lonesome
Hondo
How the West Was Won
The Iron Marshal
The Key-Lock Man
Kid Rodelo
Kilkenny
Killoe
Kilrone
Kiowa Trail
Last of the Breed
Last Stand at Papago Wells
The Lonesome Gods
The Man Called Noon
The Man from Skibbereen
The Man from the Broken Hills
Matagorda
Milo Talon
The Mountain Valley War
North to the Rails
Over on the Dry Side
Passin’ Through
The Proving Trail
The Quick and the Dead
Radigan
Reilly’s Luck
The Rider of Lost Creek
Rivers West
The Shadow Riders
Shalako
Showdown at Yellow Butte
Silver Canyon
Sitka
Son of a Wanted Man
Taggart
The Tall Stranger
To Tame a Land
Tucker
Under the Sweetwater Rim
Utah Blaine
The Walking Drum
Westward the Tide
Where the Long Grass Blows
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Beyond the Great Snow Mountains
Bowdrie
Bowdrie’s Law
Buckskin Run
Dutchman’s Flat
End of the Drive
From the Listening Hills
The Hills of Homicide
Law of the Desert Born
Long Ride Home
Lonigan
May There Be a Road
Monument Rock
Night over the Solomons
Off the Mangrove Coast
The Outlaws of Mesquite
The Rider of the Ruby Hills
Riding for the Brand
The Strong Shall Live
The Trail to Crazy Man
Valley of the Sun
War Party
West from Singapore
West of Dodge
With These Hands
Yondering
SACKETT TITLES
Sackett’s Land
To the Far Blue Mountains
The Warrior’s Path
Jubal Sackett
Ride the River
The Daybreakers
Sackett
Lando
Mojave Crossing
Mustang Man
The Lonely Men
Galloway
Treasure Mountain
Lonely on the Mountain
Ride the Dark Trail
The Sackett Brand
The Sky-Liners
THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS
The Riders of the High Rock
The Rustlers of West Fork
The Trail to Seven Pines
Trouble Shooter
NONFICTION
Education of a Wandering Man
Frontier
The Sackett Companion: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels
A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L’Amour, compiled by Angelique L’Amour
POETRY
Smoke from This Altar
MAY THERE BE A ROAD
A Bantam Book / April 2005
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition / May 2001
Bantam paperback edition / May 2002
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2001 by Louis and Katherine L’Amour Trust
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