author
Walt Coburn
1889–1971
Raised on a Montana cattle ranch and seasoned by life as a cowboy, surveyor, and World War I serviceman, he brought unusual firsthand grit to his Western fiction. His long career produced a huge body of stories and novels that helped shape the popular Western for decades.
3 Audiobooks
About the author
Walter John Coburn was born on October 23, 1889, in White Sulphur Springs, Montana Territory. He was the son of pioneer cattleman Robert Coburn Sr., founder of the Circle C Ranch south of Malta, and his early ranch experience became the bedrock of both his fiction and nonfiction.
After serving in the Army aviation corps during the World War I era, he also worked as a cowboy and a surveyor before turning to writing full time in the 1920s. He became known as a prolific Western writer whose stories drew on places, people, and working ranch life he knew firsthand.
Coburn wrote Western novels, short fiction, and nonfiction, including work connected to the history of the Circle C Ranch. He died in May 1971, leaving behind a reputation as one of the most productive writers in the Western tradition.