Ernest Haycox

Born in Portland, Oregon, on October 1, 1899, he grew up in Oregon and Washington, later served with the U.S. Army on the Mexican border, and studied journalism at the University of Oregon. He began publishing while still a student and went on to build a remarkably productive writing career.

He became one of the most important Western writers of the 1930s and 1940s, publishing roughly two dozen novels and hundreds of short stories and serials. Readers and critics alike noted the way his fiction moved beyond pulp formulas, using clean, vivid prose and a stronger sense of history, character, and place.

Several of his stories reached an even wider audience through film, most famously the story that became Stagecoach. He died in Portland on October 13, 1950, but his work remains a touchstone in the history of the Western.