Hubert E. (Hubert Edwin) Collins

Born in 1872 and died in 1932, Hubert E. Collins wrote in two very different modes. Library and catalog records connect him with early twentieth-century technical books on steam turbines, valve setting, shaft governors, and other mechanical subjects, showing that he had a strong grounding in industrial and engineering topics.

He is also remembered for Western memoir writing. Storm and Stampede on the Chisholm, first published in 1928, looks back on the time he spent as a boy in 1883 at Red Fork Ranch in Indian Territory, near present-day Dover, Oklahoma. Descriptions of the book say those months left a lasting impression on him, and that memory shaped his picture of ranch life, cowboys, and the fading world of the cattle trail.

Another title associated with him, Warpath and Cattle Trail, continues that backward glance at frontier experience. Taken together, Collins's work has an unusual range: practical handbooks for readers who wanted to understand machines, and personal narratives for readers drawn to the American West.