Who’s The Master Of Fringe Folkore Of The Old West?

When historian John LeMay looks back on the legends of the Old West, he often revisits familiar figures such as Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and Geronimo. But his journeys into the past also bring up subjects that some people do not associate with the Old West history — UFOs, dinosaur sightings, hideous monsters, marauding mummies, and bloodthirsty vampires.

A native of Roswell, New Mexico, LeMay has over 50 books to his credit; his most recent, Apacheria Gold: In the Land of Adams, about the wild legends surrounding an alleged lost gold mine, was released in July 2024.

Typical of LeMay’s mixing of Old West history with spooky legends is his Apacheria Gold chapter regarding the “phantom mountain.” The story involved prospectors John Hix and Lemuel “Jackass” Dodson, who were joined by Dodson’s American Indian lover Shining Flower in a trek across the desert on a search for gold. The men came upon a mountain in the desert and quickly discovered gold nuggets, but Shining Flower insisted that she spotted a hairy wild man with “long whiskers and hair down his back” guarding the area. Their party would later hear a “strange and mournful sound from the hillside above camp” during their nights at the prospecting site. At one point in their expedition, their pack animals and water bags disappeared. Dodson went to look for them, but he also vanished. Hix and Shining Flower barely made it back to her village without water. Dodson was later found dead in the desert with two bullets in his back. Hix would later attempt to retrace their journey, but the mountain where they camped was nowhere to be found.

Old West stories like this enthrall LeMay. “I just loved to read when I was a kid. I should clarify. I did not like what they forced us to read in school. But I loved to pick out my own books from the library — a lot of paranormal, ghosts, mysterious animals like Bigfoot, books like that.”

LeMay, now 39, followed his fascination into writing and started publishing when he was 22. His history books present 19^th- and early 20^th-century landscapes populated with a surplus of legends — some disturbing, some bizarre, all compelling. Typical of his output is the book Cowboys & Saurians: Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Beasts as Seen by the Pioneers, which cites Brigham Young’s alleged encounter with Utah’s Bear Lake monster and claims by covered wagon occupants of flying creatures that resembled pterodactyls.

“You won't find it on the History Channel or in schools, and that’s because I like to do books on subjects that are forgotten or barely ever covered,” LeMay says.

LeMay’s Cowboys & Saurians and The Real Cowboys & Aliens series — plus titles such as Settlers & Serpents, Cowboys & Vampires, and Cowboys & Monsters — provide an alternative history lesson that may raise eyebrows and doubts, though he insists his works are thoroughly researched.

“My sources are typically old newspaper articles or old documents and historical archives,” he says. “[Because] I'm dealing more so in folklore than actual fact, I don’t have to fight to prove that these stories happened or not — it doesn’t matter, they’re just folklore. For instance, in the chapter [in Apacheria Gold] on the medicine man casting the golden bullets, I don’t really go to great lengths to argue, Oh, did this happen or not? I just state that this newspaper on this date broke the story — and being over 100 years old, there’s no way to prove it or disprove it.”

LeMay’s passion for offbeat history was incorporated into his recent forays into fiction. His debut novel, The Noted Desperado Pancho Dumez, involved Billy the Kid’s legendary stolen headstone and the Lost Adams gold mine, while his follow-up, Once Upon a Time in Fort Sumner, included the legends of the Navajo Skinwalkers and an aged man claiming to be Billy the Kid.

Outside of his colorful history books, LeMay has also been a prolific author of books related to film history — mostly horror and science-fiction titles but also an occasional anomalous detour such as his history of the Pink Panther films. However, LeMay is now squarely focused on the Old West.

“[Writing about film] was really fun for a while and very profitable, too,” he says, but lately, I’m back in the Southwestern history, because it’s the land where I live and where I was born.”

In addition to writing, LeMay serves double duty as his own publisher under the brand Bicep Books.

“When Amazon first asked me about my publishing name, I thought my friends would think it was funny if I called it Bicep Books because when I was younger, I had notoriously big arms. My friends would always tease me about how big my arms were. I don’t know whether I regret naming my publishing company that now or not, because it is kind of confusing — there’s probably is a fitness publisher who wants that name, and they’re like, ‘That dang dirty John LeMay already took it.’”

Looking ahead, LeMay is spinning off a new publishing imprint called Dead Horse History. “My idea is not to beat the same dead horses, hence, Dead Horse History,” he explains. He is also completing a book on La Llorona, the legendary wailing woman of the Southwest and Latin America and he is seeking out more long-forgotten but highly entertaining corners of the region’s past.

“I’m not one of those historians who have to prove it happened,” he says. “I’m just basically telling you a cool story.”

PHOTO OF JOHN LEMAY: Courtesy of John LeMay
HEADER IMAGE: Marshal Wyatt Earp, Courtesy of Tubi