Front cover image for Old West swindlers

Old West swindlers

Drawing attention to the role of America's bunco artists in the making of the American West, this well-documented history features a collection of sham transactions and fraudulent practices that would have made Charles Ponzi and Bernard "Bernie" Madoff blush
Print Book, English, ©2011
Pelican Pub. Co., Gretna, La., ©2011
Case studies
303 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
9781589808638, 1589808630
659769803
Prologue: slick cons and smooth grifters
Doc Baggs and some kindred spirits
Elmer Mead: master of the magic wallet
Relentless: the odyssey of J. Frank Norfleet
Soapy Smith: the soap man cometh
Lou Blonger: the king of Denver
Dr. John Romulus Brinkley: the rejuvenator
Patrick Henry: the Yazoo land grabber
P.T. Barnum: godfather of the frontier swindlers
James Addison Reavis: perchance to dream
Philip Arnold: the diamond king and other mining grifters
Dr. Richard C. Flower: a scandal at Spenazuma
Albert Fall: the art of the bribe