Mysteries from the Wild West

Four mysteries of the American West.

Roy, what chance do we have?

I want to know if this belonged to Kit Carson himself.

- If this saddle could talk.

- MAN: Oh, yeah.

She did things women just didn't do.

Pulls out his pistol and pulls the trigger.

ELVIS COSTELLO: ♪ Watchin' the detectives ♪ ♪ I get so angry when the teardrops start ♪ ♪ But he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart ♪ ♪ Watchin' the detectives ♪ ♪ It's just like watchin' the detectives ♪ Funding for tonight's presentatiI'm Eduardo Pagan.

Wallace Stegner once wrote, "One cannot be pessimistic about the American West.

It is the native home to hope."

We return to stories again and again about the American West because it is a history that is exciting, unique, and, I believe, filled with hope.

The American West, next on History Detectives.

My name is Charles Burns.

About six years ago, I went to the estate sale of an in-law.

I was scanning through her bookshelf that she had there, and I ran across this publication.

It's The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson.

I bought it for about 10 bucks.

When I was growing up in the '50s, all the kids dressed up with cowboy outfits and cap guns.

Kit Carson to me was a national hero.

He was a frontiersman, an adventurer, a man who really was an icon for his day.

When I first got the book, I started flipping through it.

One of the pages was written in quill pen with a bunch of names on it with old dates.

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was the lineage of the Carson family.

So I want to know if this is Kit Carson's family heirloom.

[ ♪♪♪ ] I'm Tukufu Zuberi, and I don't know much about Kit Carson.

But I'm in the right place to find out.

Charles asked to meet at Carson's grave in Taos, New Mexico.

It's about his life and his adventures.

TUKUFU: I see.

Now, what do you know about Kit Carson?

I know he was an American icon, a frontiersman.

He was a trapper, scout, and Indian fighter.

Reports of his exploits made him one of the first Western heroes.

I grew up in a Western era, and everything seemed to revolve around some of those legends.

Okay, did you read it?

No, I started to, and I thought I didn't want to break the binding down any more.

The book's seen better days.

The front pages are missing, so I can't see how old it is.

Other pages are scribbled on.

Newspaper clippings are tucked throughout.

But when I got to the middle of the book, what I found was some blank pages with the Carson family lineage written in them.

But I don't know who wrote it.

Why do you think somebody would write this in the book?

I think it was important for people back then to keep track of their lineage, like a bible.

The genealogy page begins with the marriage of Carson to Josefa Jaramillo on February 2, 1843.

Eight Carson children are listed, along with their birthdates.

The last entry reads "girl born April 13th, 1868."

That's just 10 days before Josefa died.

And he dies May 23, 1868, just one month later.

Did Kit or Josefa write this?

The fact that the writing stops right before both of their deaths is compelling.

That's the way I saw it.

Do you know if the information here is correct?

I don't.

Okay, what do you want to know?

I want to know if this actually belonged to the Carson family, maybe even Kit Carson himself.

[ ♪♪♪ ] The book looks old; can't deny that.

But is it in fact old enough to have been owned by Kit Carson?

The book was written by DeWitt Peters.

It's oddly silent on Carson's personal life.

There's barely any mention of Josefa.

But it's full of rip-roaring frontier action, including a bear attack.

"And their monstrous fore-arms, hung with sharp, bony claws, ready and anxious to hug his body in a close and most loving embrace."

My office has verified the names and birthdates of the family members to a point.

Some sources say he had seven children by Josefa, some say eight.

But the office was able to verify the names on the inside cover: Jesse Stockton, Judge Isaac Hitt, Savile Book Shop, Washington, D.C.

They may have been previous owners, but none appear to have Carson family connections.

One name is partially obscured by a tear in the page.

It's something like Ms. "blop-blop" Allen, Raton, New Mexico.

This book could've been owned by someone who was fascinated with Kit Carson and wanted to collect in one place all of the information they could about this man's life.

But there's also a tantalizing note next to a newspaper clipping about Carson.

It says simply "my father."

Did one of Carson's children write that?

I mean, I don't really have any clear indication that this was ever in the possession of a member of the Carson family.

I put a call in to my colleague Wes Cowan to see if he could recommend a book dealer.

And he did me one better.

He's in New Mexico for a stopover.

It's been a while.

How are you?

It has, man.

I'm well, I'm well.

Oh, wow, that is fabulous.

Fabulous.

As an auctioneer, Wes has sold the gamut of Old West Americana.

Carson artifacts are especially coveted.

Wes says The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson was first published in 1858.

I can tell you just by looking at the way that the book is decorated and bound and the little decorative touches here and the raised borders on the spine, you know, this looks to me like a book that was published in the 19th century, and I would guess... you know, 1850s, 1860s.

Wes suspects we may have a first edition.

It should have 534 pages.

- TUKUFU: 534 pages.

- Okay.

The plates, or illustrations, also match up.

This is a first edition.

- We got a first edition?

- Yeah.

He explains how Carson gained fame in the 1840s when he was hired by John Fremont to guide his expedition into California and Oregon.

Eventually, he worked as a scout during the Indian Wars.

Although our account of his exploits was based on his dictation to his secretary, Wes says that doesn't mean every story is entirely as it happened.

I'll guarantee you that some of those stories are embellished by Carson himself.

Yes, yes, yes.

What the book doesn't include, Wes tells me, are the details of his scorched earth policy of removing the Navajo from their land in 1863 or their later forced Long Walk to their new reservation that killed hundreds.

Their removal from their traditional homeland is one of the dark pictures of the history of the Southwest.

We can condemn what Carson did with the Navajo, but he was a man of his times.

I show Wes the writing.

Let's see how much it's bleeding through the back of the page here.

Yeah, see, it's actually eating into the paper.

The deep staining is a hallmark of the acids found in iron gall ink used during the 1800s.

All right, but what we could have here is Kit Carson writing the genealogy of his children, bam!

Not exactly, Wes explains.

Carson never learned to read or write.

He couldn't have written the genealogy, but it is possible Carson or a family member owned it.

If this is the book that sat on Kit Carson's bookshelf, how much is this book worth?

Well, the first thing I'd do is I'd take it away from you and I'd run out the door with it.

But seriously, thousands.

I'm kind of jealous that you got the lead on this, man.

Yeah, that's the way it happens sometimes, Wes.

If Kit Carson didn't record the genealogy, who did?

Author David Remley spent seven years researching the Carson family for his book.

David says that while Carson was sold to the public in dime store novels as an heroic Indian fighter, he was famously private about his personal life.

And that in itself makes it difficult to write a biography of him, because most of what is known comes from what other people said about him.

And he hated it, he was very unhappy about it.

Why?

Because that wasn't the real Kit Carson.

Okay, if he was so private, why did he dictate his biography?

Well, my guess is that he'd been reading these fictions, these dime-novel fictions.

He wanted to clear the record.

But David says even with Carson's input, The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson is still a partial account, especially of his personal life.

His two earlier marriages are mentioned only in passing, and the book is silent on the tragic death of a young daughter.

The only Christian marriage he had was in the church with Josefa.

By most accounts, his final marriage to a teenaged Josefa when he was 33 was happy.

The things that happened during his life he considered personal, things never to be talked about to anyone.

Simple things like how many children he had are hard to verify.

David says that's what makes our book, if it's truly from a Carson family member, a unique window to his personal life.

David's not sure who wrote this, but he knows someone who might be able to help.

I think John Carson is the most likely candidate for that, because he's spent his life studying his great-grandfather.

John Carson is the family historian.

If this came through the family, this would be one of the very few things that come through the family.

John says after Kit and Josefa died, the family's possessions were sold to support their children.

I ask if the genealogy is accurate.

That's Kit and Josefa's kids.

He recognizes one name.

Charles.

- That's your grandfather.

- That's Grandpa.

But John is more excited to see another entry.

Hmm, now the first Charles, he died in infancy, and there's always been a question about how long he lived.

He was born in '50, May, we know that.

Now, this one has him passing away April 30th of '52.

Most of the things that I've found is that he was about a year old.

With this information, maybe he was 2 years old.

So was this new information written by someone who knew the truth?

Now, I know Kit Carson didn't write this.

Was it Kit Carson's wife?

Josefa, as far as I know, she could write in Spanish but not very much in English.

All right, could one of these children have written this genealogy?

John says it's possible.

Unlike their father, the children all learned to read and write.

Do you have samples of their writing?

I've got samples of three.

John knows of only three Carson children whose letters survive: Charles, Kit Jr, and Teresina.

We'll start with Charles.

If we put those Cs next to each other, those Cs do not match.

All right, let's try the next one.

Kit Carson Jr is even less of a match.

Last up is Teresina.

So we have the C here and the C here.

Teresina is the closest match of the three.

What was her story?

Teresina came back to Boggsville up in Colorado and married a gentleman by the name of DeWitt Fulton Allen.

- Allen?

- Allen.

- And then they -- - Wait a minute.

His name was Allen?

I ask Charles to meet me at the Carson Museum back in Taos.

How does it make you feel to be sitting here - in Kit Carson's home?

- It's a thrill.

I tell Charles that his copy of the Carson biography is a first edition.

So we know it's an old book.

But we couldn't determine whether this was in the Carson household until we found Kit's great-grandson.

TUKUFU: We have Mrs. -- and I don't know what's missing, but it does end in Allen.

And Raton, New Mexico.

Because that's where they moved to after they were married.

That's got to be from Teresina.

I'll be dang!

That's great.

While we can't be sure that Teresina wrote the genealogy, John is convinced that this book belonged to her and possibly to Kit himself.

That's phenomenal.

I could never have even hoped for anything like that, to have run across something like this at an estate sale.

It's -- it's amazing.

I've learned a lot about the Carson family, and it's all because of you guys.

After his death, the legend of Kit Carson only grew.

The Adventures of Kit Carson ran on TV from 1951 to 1955.

And multiple Hollywood movies feature his swashbuckling character from the silents up until today.

WES: Coming up, a mystery behind one of the Wild West's most famous cowboy songs.

♪ Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds ♪ And later, a discovery about an unsung heroine of the Indian Wars.

But first, an encore presentation.

Come on, get in your saddle.

We've got to go tell the chief.

Meet Terry Garber from McCall, Idaho.

Terry collects Western memorabilia and thinks he may have stumbled across an artifact from a special part of cowboy history.

I heard a story about a saddle hanging in a bar that supposedly belonged to Yakima Canutt, who was a famous rodeo cowboy and also a stunt man in Hollywood, California.

I'm Wes Cowan, and I first met Terry in 2011.

Oh, wow, let me help you there.

I got it out of a barn in Weiser, Idaho.

Now, are you a saddle collector?

Do you collect Western memorabilia?

Yeah, I do; I collect lots of Western memorabilia.

So what attracted you about this saddle?

I bought it because of the name on the cantle.

So, "Canutt," and then there's a "Y-A-K" in the middle.

"Yak Canutt," who's Yak Canutt?

Yakima was a world-champion rodeo-er.

I heard he moved to Hollywood and did stunt work.

Terry's done some digging, and he believes Yakima Canutt was a stunt man in Hollywood movies.

But I have to admit, I've never heard of him.

So you think this was Yakima Canutt's saddle, then?

- I hope so.

- Cool.

- But you're not sure.

- No, I'm not sure.

So did you ever consider that the saddle might be a fake?

Oh, sure.

In this collection field, there's a lot of fakes out there.

Okay, well, it's a great saddle, and I see it's got a brand here from the maker.

Yeah, that's Hamley's brand, Hamley out of Pendleton, Oregon.

All right, Terry, so what do you want me to help you with?

Well, Wes, I'd like to know if it's actually Yakima Canutt's.

I'm going to have to take it with me; is that all right?

- Okay.

- Terrific.

Well, let's take a look at this.

You know, the first thing I want to tell you is that I'm not an expert on saddles.

I mean, I know enough to be dangerous.

It's probably a late 19th-, early 20th-century model, but whether it's from 1890 or 1920, I don't know.

So I'm going to have to find someone that can help me date the saddle.

Somebody's really ridden this saddle and ridden it pretty hard.

See the basket weave stamping and how it's worn off here?

I mean, this saddle was well-used.

It's frankly worn out.

Look at this: the saddle is stamped "special," and then there's sets of numbers on either side, so those numbers have to mean something.

I want to find out more about this guy, Yakima Canutt.

[ ♪♪♪ ] Born 1895, died 1986.

American rodeo rider, actor, stunt man, and action director.

Stagecoach, Old Yeller, Ben-Hur, Cat Ballou, A Man Called Horse.

This guy was in practically every famous Western movie that you can imagine.

Ha, take a look at this.

Yak getting on a bucking bronc.

And take a look at the saddle.

The saddle horn looks a little different, but this guy probably had more than one saddle.

Bingo: the Autry Museum has one of Yak Canutt's saddles.

Looks like I'm heading to Los Angeles.

The Autry National Center in Hollywood's Griffith Park is a museum about the American West.

Jeffrey Richardson is one of their curators.

So here is our Yakima Canutt saddle.

This is so spectacular.

It doesn't look anything like the saddle I brought in.

Is this the kind of saddle that he would've used as a stunt man, then?

No, this particular saddle was presented to him in 1923 when he won his fourth and final all-around championship at the Pendleton Round-Up.

Beginning in 1910, the Pendleton Round-Up was one of the great rodeo events of the West, attracting elite riders and cowboys.

RICHARDSON: Rodeo was one of the most popular spectator sports in the first half of the 20th century, and this was across America.

You had rodeos in New York City, you had rodeos out west in Pendleton, and everywhere in between.

WES: So when I look at this World Trophy saddle, I have to think of it on par with, like, the World Series trophy.

Right.

And from the rodeo, where he became very, very successful, he made the transition to Hollywood.

Rodeo and the Hollywood industry were very connected at this time, and as a result of that, he came to know a lot of the early Western stars, such as Tom Mix, John Wayne.

Jeffrey explains that Yak wasn't exactly a Hollywood celebrity.

His contribution was as an anonymous stunt man for the stars.

He really perfected a lot of the techniques that are still used in the motion picture industry today.

Yak even doubled for John Wayne in the era's greatest Western, Stagecoach.

And we're not only talking about Westerns; we're talking about a variety of films in the first half of the 20th century.

That was Yak Canutt, not Clark Gable, who drove Scarlett O'Hara through a burning Atlanta.

Over decades of doing stunts, Yak injured his diaphragm, a kidney, and his intestines, and he broke his shoulder blade, his nose, his ribs, and both ankles.

He became an advocate for safer working conditions.

During the 1920s and 1930s, there was a peak period when about 10 people a year were dying as a result of doing stunts for the motion picture industry.

One of the things that he really tried to make sure was that the stunts were safe not only for the stunt men but also for the animals.

It became a modern industry as the result of someone like Canutt.

Well, here it is.

This is the saddle I was telling you about.

It's quite beautiful.

Now, is this the kind of saddle that he would've used as a stunt man, then?

Well, the saddles that he would've used in the motion picture industry were all specifically designed for a variety of different tricks.

This would not have been something that he would've used in the motion picture industry.

This would've been a working saddle.

This would've been something that he would have used during his time in the rodeo.

Looks like my next stop is cowboy country.

I'm stopping by the Pendleton Round-Up arena, where Yakima won four world championships.

- Hello, Wes.

- Hey!

I'm Randy Severe; I'm president of the Pendleton Round-Up.

Hi, Randy.

Thank you very much for meeting me out here.

Boy, who's your buddy here?

Well, this is Dex; this is my favorite mount.

Randy, here's the saddle I was telling you about.

Oh, that's a beauty, isn't it?

Oh, a great saddle.

You can tell a lot by a saddle: the way it was made, when it was made.

This saddle is pre-1920, that's for sure.

Randy explains before 1920, there were no standards or requirements for saddles when a cowboy entered a rodeo.

If you entered the bronc ride and you showed up and rode what you owned, and some saddles gave you a better advantage over another guy.

This is called the swells of the saddle.

Randy says a rider could tuck his legs under the swells and stay on the horse longer, but in 1920, the rodeo decided to even the playing field.

Randy thinks Terry's saddle, with the larger swells, is a pre-association saddle, so earlier than 1920.

And if this was Yak's saddle, he can narrow the time frame even further.

This great name on the back, Yakima got his name in 1914, so we know that it was after that.

And how'd he get his name?

That happened right here in this arena.

Yakima attended the Round-Up that year in the company of some -- a couple of good friends from Yakima, Washington.

And the common joke around the local folks was that them Yakima boys, they can't ride nothing.

They called him Yak from then on.

His real name was Enos Edward.

How would you like to hang that on your shingle?

Yeah, I agree.

Enos Edward is not a real cowboy name.

You got that right.

Well, Randy, is that common for a bronc rider to wear a saddle out like that?

Randy explains how, in Yak's day, a horse and saddle were used more like a cowboy's pickup truck is used today: they were his primary transportation and the main tool of his livelihood.

I'll tell you what, if you've got time to see it, I'd just love to show you how these saddles are really used.

Oh, yeah!

These are the BMCC college rodeo team.

They're a nationally ranked team, and good kids, every one of them.

So the Round-Up today, how different is it from when Yak Canutt was participating?

Well, there were some differences.

One of the biggest changes is these chutes you see are now housed where the individual animal is in there by himself; that's a great assistance to the cowboy.

Whew.

In Yak's day, the horse was led out -- they didn't have them chutes.

Two horses would sandwich the bronc in between, and he had to saddle and get on that way with no artificial -- Oh, my God, you're kidding me!

No artificial restrictions, and it made quite a challenge.

I'll bet it was!

Not a lot of people understand the abuse and the stress on the saddle.

[ cowboys hooting ] Well, I'll tell you, after watching these kids do this, I can understand why a saddle would get worn out.

[ chuckles ] Randy doesn't know if we have Yak's saddle or where it was used, but I think I may have found someone who does.

Parley Pearce is Hamley & Company's co-owner.

- Wes, welcome.

- Here's that saddle.

Oh, let's look at that thing.

Take a look at the back.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, boy.

Do you have any records at all that Yakima Canutt bought this saddle?

Unfortunately, we had a basement fire around 1919 and lost the records.

So you have no records for it.

No records.

But Parley explains how the numbers on the back of the saddle can help.

That's an 1850 number; Hamley's numbered every saddle that came out of the shop.

Pretty much all the saddles between the number 1600 and 2100 were built during 1917.

That's going to put an 1850 number at about May of 1917.

So that's just a few months before September, when the Pendleton Round-Up is held.

That's correct.

And that means that that saddle could be the saddle that Yakima Canutt won the bronco riding championship on.

That's correct.

Terry, I've got to tell you, if this saddle could talk, it could tell a lot of stories.

I tell Terry about Yak's days as a groundbreaking stunt man but explain that his saddle is most likely not from that Hollywood era.

Oh, well.

Now, you know, there's more.

Wes, I've got something else to show you.

Knowing you guys were coming, I did a little homework.

Alrighty.

I have in front of me the 1919 Hamley catalog.

The script says, "The 'Canutt' Special, "on which Yakima Canutt won the Bucking Contest at the 1917 Pendleton Round-Up."

So this was the prototype for the Hamley saddle that was called the Canutt saddle.

It is the prototype for it.

I think it's a great saddle.

We would love to put that saddle on display.

Wow, that's amazing.

[ laughs ] I can't believe it.

That's really neat.

I'm glad there's a lot of historical significance to it, too; that's neat.

Terry's Yak Canutt saddle is now on display at Hamley's.

Since the story first aired in 2011, Parley estimates a few hundred people have come to the store just to see it.

And now our American West hour continues.

I'm Gene Newberry, and I just love everything Western.

I love everything Western so much that I've created my own little town.

I have a stage stop, a mercantile store, the cattle company, and my favorite is the Longhorn Saloon.

I got this up in the Gold Rush country.

The reason I bought it was because it is "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and has to do with the Sons of the Pioneers.

Cowboy music just fit right in with me.

They just don't do songs like that anymore.

The inscription says, "To Fred -- This was the second song that I wrote in 1932.

It has been both bad and good to me.

Bob Nolan."

What I would like to know about it, what's puzzled me, is why it says it was good and bad for Bob Nolan.

When I was a teen, I used to work at a ranch, so I'm really looking forward to getting back into some familiar surroundings.

Hey, there goes a tumbleweed!

Watch out!

Gene tells me that "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" was written by Bob Nolan in 1932 and first recorded by the Sons of the Pioneers in 1934.

♪ Drifting along with the tumbling... ♪ It's been sung by everyone from Elvis to The Supremes.

Nolan's song was Gene's favorite while growing up in Oklahoma.

So there it is.

Well, what can you tell me about that?

When did you get that?

Well, I got that at a store that was going out of business up in the foothills of Placerville.

Gene spotted it at a secondhand store, and as a fan of "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," he just had to have it, regardless of whether it was worth anything.

There was no label, but he says inside the frame appears to be a sheet music cover and a 45 of the classic song.

It's is my prized possession.

It says, "To Fred."

Do you have any idea who Fred was?

Well, the only thing I can think is it might have been Fred Rose, because he's from Nashville and he had a lot to do with music.

Gene says Fred Rose was a music producer and songwriter.

"To Fred -- This was the second song I wrote in 1932.

It has been both bad and good to me."

Signed by Bob Nolan.

What do you think he meant by "both bad and good to me"?

I don't know, because that record sold so many copies, so many people recorded it.

And Bob had to make a lot of money off of it.

So if we could find out why it was bad for him, I would like to know.

The Canadian-born Nolan was no cowboy.

When he wrote "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," he was bouncing around jobs, which included being a California lifeguard and a golf caddy.

But his gentle melodies and majestic lyricism captured the spirit of the West for a growing number of fans.

During the deepest part of the Depression, he came together with another guy by the name of Leonard Slye.

He's better known by his stage name, Roy Rogers.

Roy, what chance do we have?

He said we were good enough for the radio, didn't he?

Along with musician Tim Spencer, they became the Sons of the Pioneers in 1933 and hit it big on radio and in Hollywood.

♪ I know when night has gone ♪ ♪ That a new world's born at dawn... ♪ Their inverted harmonies and poetic approach to Western music broke new ground.

"Tumbling Tumbleweeds" was the Sons' first big hit.

It launched them.

I'm not finding any clues in here about any downside of this iconic song.

So what we really need to do is we really need to find people who knew Bob that might be able to give us some more insight into his character.

Let me see what I can find.

Gene's hunch was that Fred, who the note is addressed to, was producer Fred Rose.

He wrote an early song for the Sons of the Pioneers.

Looks like Fred Rose died in 1954.

The University of North Carolina seems to have a Bob Nolan lyric archive, but it's restricted.

The History Detectives office is checking out the archive and trying to get in touch with Bob Nolan's family.

In the meantime, they've tracked down Rusty Richards.

Rusty joined the band after Bob retired.

♪ Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds ♪♪ Fantastic, fantastic.

He says, "This song has been both bad and good to me."

What do you think he meant by that?

I have no idea what he meant by being bad for him, because the song was so good for him.

Billboard magazine called it one of the 50 most successful songs in American history.

So it made a lot of money for Bob; that's good.

The bad part is a little harder to answer.

That's kind of up to Bob.

My best guess is that Bob really didn't enjoy the limelight that much.

He liked to be a private guy where nobody knew him, out in the mountains.

Maybe that's what Bob thought, was that it kept me from living the quiet life that I always wanted to live.

Rusty says Bob Nolan's lyrics were influenced by his philosophical side and earned him the nickname "Poet Laureate of the West."

You know, I talked to him sometimes about religion and philosophy and stuff like that.

He called himself a song poet.

Bob's most famous song began as a poem.

He wrote it originally as "Tumbling Leaves."

And if you think about the lyrics, the opening lines, "See them tumbling down, pledging their love to the ground."

That's right, yeah.

He's talking about leaves falling and the recycling of life and all that kind of thing.

An early publisher actually changed a verse to make it more commercial.

Maybe that was the bad.

Rusty isn't sure, but one look at the inscription and he knows that Fred wasn't Fred Rose.

I think it's probably Fred Goodwin.

Fred is a historian on the Sons of the Pioneers.

He's done a lot of research work on it.

Rusty tells me Fred Goodwin also sells the Sons of the Pioneers collectibles.

Which means I know just who to call.

My colleague Elyse Luray appraises entertainment memorabilia.

I'm here in Denver, and I'm going to a Western show.

I'm meeting a man who I think might've made Gene's piece.

- Fred.

- Elyse!

- Nice to meet you.

- All right.

Let me show you my photo.

So this is you, right?

- You're the true Fred?

- That's me.

That's me.

ELYSE: Fred explains he made a dozen of the framed collectibles to sell as reproductions and has one here.

This is our piece.

Exactly like that.

Fred says he has the original sheet music at home.

And this is something that Bob Nolan autographed for me.

So I went to see him out in California in December 1979.

And I got to spend about two weeks with him off and on for two weeks, and he would tell me all these stories about different things.

You know, the inscription says "the good and the bad."

Fred says in the middle of the Great Depression, Bob and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" helped enshrine the myth of the romantic American West.

You can sit down on your sofa and listen to Sons of the Pioneers.

[ "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" plays ] It's beautiful.

You can just fantasize yourself being a cowboy out on the range, herding cattle.

All you have to do is just listen to the Sons of the Pioneers' music and just doze off.

♪ Nowhere to go but I'll find ♪ ♪ Just where the trail will wind ♪ ♪ Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds ♪♪ But Fred says he does remember Bob talking about the bad.

He lost money on it.

He was not paid right by the publisher back then.

They didn't pay him.

EDUARDO: Just how much did Nolan lose on his most famous song?

And exactly how did it happen?

The office didn't have luck finding a family member to speak with, but they found perhaps the next best thing: Bob's friend Lawrence Zwisohn.

- You must be Lawrence.

- Call me Larry.

Nice to meet you, Eduardo.

How are you?

Let's have a seat.

I want to show you what I've been carrying around.

Oh, look at that.

And what an interesting comment he's written there.

Yeah.

The song was an enormously successful song almost from the day it was first heard on radio.

Unfortunately, not all that Bob was entitled to financially actually came his way.

Well, how did this happen?

Larry tells me that soon after recording "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," Bob sold the publishing rights to Sunset Music.

It was a standard practice at the time.

But as the song became more popular, the rights continued to change hands.

In 1946, a new company entered the picture.

Williamson Music, which was the company owned by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.

- Whoa!

- Yes.

One thing that they were known for to many people was their integrity.

Unfortunately, when it came to their company paying out the royalties to Bob Nolan, some of that integrity somehow didn't transfer to the people making the payments.

Eventually, Bob took Williamson Music to court to recover the money he was owed and to win back the rights to his song.

This is the transcript from the court case that Bob had to bring in the 1960s.

He won; the publisher appealed the case.

They lost once again.

The lost soundly each time.

They didn't have a leg to stand on; he had been underpaid.

But even then, the law only allowed Bob to recover seven years' worth of lost income.

He was owed much more.

A good 20, 25 years of lost revenue.

- Easily.

Easily.

- Yeah.

Well, give me a sense of the scale then of what we're talking about.

It would be in the six figures.

Not only that, he could not get back his song.

Williamson kept "Tumbling Tumbleweeds."

But then Larry tells me something I didn't expect.

Gene, I've got to tell you, it's been a fun investigation.

And it's been a very different kind of investigation, too.

I tell Gene about Bob Nolan going to court.

This document is where he was trying to sue for his royalties.

Yes, for his royalties, yeah.

For those 30 years that he didn't get it.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

And in fact, when he died, he didn't even own the rights to his own song.

But then things took one final twist.

So in 1990, Bob's first song, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," was coming up for its renewal, for its extension.

Larry says copyright laws had changed since Bob's 1960s court case.

Ever since Bob had passed on, I had stayed in touch with his widow.

And I kept encouraging her to get the song back, so she decided she was going to take her song back, which she did, and Bob's grandson is now the holder of the copyrights.

It sounds like you were a very good friend to Bob Nolan even after his passing.

Eduardo, that's nice of you to say that.

I have such enormous regard for Bob.

His music has meant so much to me.

It was the least I could do.

And all this time I was saying how much money he made off of that song, but he didn't then.

- Here's to Bob.

- Here's to Bob.

- Ahh.

- Ahh.

- Smooth.

- Oh!

Good, whew!

WES: Finally, our American West hour concludes with a classic from season eight.

Cherie Cloudt is an anthropologist who studies early homesteading on the New Mexico frontier.

She believes she has a basket that may hold a clue about the character and life of a 19th-century Modoc Indian heroine.

Toby Riddle was an amazing woman, and I wonder if this basket can be part of her story.

As an appraiser and auctioneer, I have a special interest in American Indian items.

I first met Cherie in 2010.

- Wes Cowan.

- It's nice to meet you.

- How are you?

- Come on in.

Great little basket.

What do you know about it?

I think it's Modoc.

And what makes you think it's Modoc?

Well, if you'll turn the basket around, you will see a name.

T-O-B-Y.

Who's Toby?

I think it's Toby Riddle.

She was a Modoc woman, and she was a heroine of the Modoc War.

Cherie knows that the 1872-73 Modoc War took place in northern California and southern Oregon.

The government was trying to move the Modocs to a reservation, and Toby was actually a mediator and interpreter between the Modocs and the U.S. government.

Where did you get this basket?

Well, it came from an old family friend in Arizona.

Cherie explains that her friend believed that Toby Riddle had given the basket to another family member back in the early 1900s.

What do you think I can help you with?

Well, I'd like to know if it's actually a Modoc basket and if Toby Riddle actually made this basket.

The Modoc were one of a number of tribes whose land straddled what is now the Oregon-California border.

Well, Cherie thinks it's Modoc.

I would have to agree with her that it's Modoc or Klamath.

It's certainly from northern California or southern Oregon, just judging by the design motifs.

This is all done by hand.

And it looks aged enough to be from the early 1900s, but I can't be certain.

What's really unusual about this basket is the name "Toby."

Very seldom do you see any baskets from this part of the world with a name stitched into the basket itself.

I don't know a great deal about the Modoc Wars, and I certainly can't tell if this basket was made by Toby Riddle.

The Shaw Historical Library at the Oregon Institute of Technology is located on traditional Modoc land in Klamath Falls and has a large collection on the Modoc and the war.

Toby Riddle was born about 1850 as a member of the Modoc tribe, and she was an eyewitness to this wave of white immigrants who came into northern California.

Settlers, gold miners, farmers, ranchers, soldiers all came into this area that already had people living here: the Modoc, the Klamath, the Hupa, the Yurok.

It was during this period of incredible upheaval that Toby met Frank Riddle.

Riddle was a Kentuckian who'd come west to seek his fortune in the Gold Rush.

He soon became Toby's husband.

And they had to straddle two culturally different worlds, white and Modoc.

As European immigrants like Frank Riddle settled on Modoc land, the native people responded by demanding rent and occasionally rustling cattle.

The real flashpoint, though, occurred when the U.S. government told the Modocs, "Hey, look, we're hearing all these bad things about you from the settlers, and you have to give up your traditional homeland and go live with the Klamath."

Well, the Klamath were their traditional enemies.

The guerrilla fighting between bands of Modoc, Klamath, and U.S. soldiers in 1873 was fierce.

Many of these engravings were done directly from photographs that were taken on the spot by Eadweard Muybridge and Louis Heller, and they show the absolute captivation that America had with the Modoc War.

Toby Riddle is written about as a heroine of the Modoc Wars, but before I delve into that, is this even a Modoc basket?

I'm in Portland, Oregon, to see my old friend Natalie Linn.

She's an expert on Native American baskets and often consults with museums and private collectors.

Now, the owner of this basket thinks that it's Modoc.

What do you think?

Well, I think it is definitely a Modoc basket, and we know that because of the materials that were used.

Natalie explains the traditional material for Modoc basketry was tule, a type of reed that grows along the rivers and marshes of northern California.

Now, what do you think of the age of that basket?

I think 1890s to 1910 maybe at the latest.

Okay.

And by the way, a few years makes a lot of difference.

There's a certain patina that is added.

The reeds here have had a chance to fade, and we don't get as vibrant a basket.

Let me just show you one more thing that I think is pretty interesting about this.

There's the name woven into it: Toby.

Supposedly that name refers to Toby Riddle, the heroine of the 1872 Modoc War.

Have you heard of Toby Riddle before?

Oh, yes, she was a very historic woman.

Is there any documentation that says that Toby Riddle wove this basket?

No, it's only word of mouth, only oral tradition.

I see.

Well, it is very rare to have the name of a weaver on the basket.

If they were very proud of their work, oftentimes they would use a maker's mark, and a maker's mark was usually a couple stitches that do not belong to the original design.

It was never a signature per se.

Natalie says this is because traditionally the tribe didn't have a written language.

What do you think the likelihood is that Toby actually made this basket?

You know, Wes, I cannot say for sure.

[ hawk screams ] I'm in northern California to see author Peter Cozzens, who's written about the Modoc War.

We meet at the Lava Beds, a place of historic importance to the Modoc.

My investigation involves this basket.

I tell Peter that Cherie thinks that Toby Riddle may have made it.

As you can see, it has woven into the side of the basket "Toby."

So what do you think?

Well, given its age, it's very possible that this basket, the name here could refer to Toby Riddle.

She became famous for what happened here and what she did here.

Peter explains how in the winter of 1872, the U.S. Army had tried to force a band of Modoc off their ancestral land and onto a reservation.

Many refused.

Led by their chief, Captain Jack, they retreated to these lava beds.

Looking around at this tortured terrain, I immediately know why they called it Captain Jack's stronghold.

It's an incredible natural fortress.

I ask Peter to tell me about the battle which made Toby famous.

There are 57 Modoc warriors fighting in through here.

They live in caves in the area here of the stronghold with their children and their wives and their elderly, about 160 Modocs in all.

There are 650 soldiers ready to attack: Army to the west, Army to the east.

So the Modocs are -- they're basically stuck here.

Basically, yes.

Well, what does Toby Riddle have to do with all of this?

Peter explains how in February 1873 Army general Edward Canby proposes peace negotiations with Captain Jack.

Toby goes to the stronghold on the Army's behalf, but Jack tells her he cannot surrender.

So then Toby leaves the stronghold, and a warrior steps out from behind the rocks and asks her to warn Canby that if the commissioners meet with Jack again, that Jack and his warriors will kill them.

So Toby Riddle leaves here knowing that if the meeting takes place, a disaster awaits.

She begs the commissioners not to go, but Canby can't conceive that the Modocs would be so foolish as to attack the commissioners with so many soldiers around.

The meeting takes place on this open ground.

They met here on Good Friday.

Captain Jack was here with seven of his warriors.

Joining General Canby was Alfred B. Meacham, who had served as superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon, and two other peace commissioners.

Now, they talked and they talked, but Canby could not relent and give the Modocs even the little piece of land they wanted.

So Jack gets up, turns around, pulls out his pistol, points it at Canby, and pulls the trigger.

The pistol misfires.

And while Canby stands there in shock, Jack cocks, fires again, and shoots Canby in the face.

The other warriors start shooting.

One commissioner falls dead.

Toby tries to protect Meacham, but he's shot several times.

One of the warriors bends down and tries to scalp Meacham.

Toby grabs his arm, but he shoves her away.

Then she cries, "The soldiers are coming, the soldiers are coming!"

Well, no soldiers are, but the Modocs don't wait around to find out, and they immediately run toward the stronghold.

Peter says that Meacham is badly wounded, but because of Toby, alive.

Captain Jack's band slipped out of the stronghold to the south, into the lava beds.

And over the next few weeks, the Army tracked down Jack and his band.

Captain Jack and his lieutenants were tried and convicted of war crimes and hanged.

But Peter says Toby emerged from the Modoc War as a hero.

She went on a lecture tour with Alfred Meacham.

Was the basket woven in honor of Toby or made by Toby herself, as Cherie suspects?

Have you heard of any other examples of baskets or anything with her name being associated with it?

No, I haven't.

I'm a little bit stumped at this point.

Toby has several descendants, and I understand that some of them still live in this area, so that's where I'd go.

My office has put me in touch with Deborah Herrera, Toby Riddle's great-great-granddaughter.

She never met Toby but is the Riddle family genealogist and consults with various museums about Modoc history.

I know her as Toby Riddle.

What was her Modoc name?

Her Modoc name was Nonooktowa.

And what did that mean?

It meant "strange child."

Why "strange child"?

She was born with red hair.

She did a lot of things that most women her age didn't do, let alone boys, like she would go on the hunting parties and go gather horses in other people's camps.

Another one, a bear was going to attack her husband, and she came to the rescue and made her skirt rustle like a blanket or something, lifting it up, and shooed the bear away from attacking her husband.

So she did things that normally in traditional Modoc society women just didn't do.

Right.

So after the war was over -- She traveled back east, and she was just trying to educate the people back east why the war took place and probably how it could have been prevented.

But she pretty much lived here in Klamath County.

Then I showed Deborah what I'm investigating.

Have you seen any other baskets with the name "Toby" woven into the basket?

Well, I have something I'd like to show you, I think you'd like to see.

You know, I really didn't know a lot about the Modoc War, so this gave me the chance to really dig into this, and I think that I'm able to answer all of your questions.

I visited the basketry expert, who has seen hundreds, thousands of American Indian baskets, and she was able to identify this basket conclusively as a Modoc basket.

Then I tell Cherie that I found Toby's great-great-granddaughter.

Oh, wow.

When I showed her this basket, though, her eyes lit up, and she said, "I've got something to show you."

Oh, wow.

So traditionally your family has understood that Toby made that basket.

Right.

When we compare the names, the lettering is almost identical.

Wow.

- But there's more.

- Okay.

She turned it around the other side.

Oh, my gosh, a date.

1916, four years before she died.

I tell Cherie that while we can't say for sure that her basket was made by Toby, the provenance and circumstances certainly make it a strong possibility.

I'm honored because she was such an unconventional person, a woman, to do what she did in that time period.

I'm glad that you found another basket with her name on it, because I had always thought that this was the only one.

And it's great that the family has it.

www.LNScaptioning.com To learn more about History Detectives, visit us on the web at pbs.org/historydetectives, where you can find behind-the-scenes material, exclusive web-only videos, and information on investigative techniques.

ANNOUNCER: This season of History Detectives is available on DVD.

To order, visit shopPBS.org or call us at 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

ELVIS COSTELLO: ♪ Watching' the detectives ♪ ♪ It's just like watchin' the detectives ♪