Clarence Edward Mulford

Born in Streator, Illinois, on February 3, 1883, Clarence Edward Mulford became one of the key early writers of American Western fiction. He is most closely linked with Hopalong Cassidy, the cowboy hero he introduced in 1904 and then developed across a long-running series of stories and novels.

Mulford wrote 28 Hopalong Cassidy books, and the character later spread far beyond the page into radio, film, television, and comics. Even though those screen versions often softened or changed Hopalong, Mulford's original books built the foundation for the legend and helped fix the Western hero in popular culture.

He lived for many years in Fryeburg, Maine, where he continued writing and researching his work. Accounts of his life regularly note how seriously he took accuracy, from studying Western history to working out practical details for scenes in his fiction. He died in Portland, Maine, on May 10, 1956.