Mexican-American playwright Karen Zacarías estimates that half of Old West cowboys after the Civil War were Black or Hispanic ...

Most westerns are set in the ‘Old ... native to the US; the first tumbleweed only arrived in South Dakota around 1873, most likely in a shipment of flaxseed from Russia, and reached the far west ...

but before West Virginia was even a state, it was the home of various Native American tribes, some of whom still hold a presence in the area. Paleo-Indians were the first to occupy the Mountain ...

As white explorers and settlers entered Western territory, they disrupted a centuries-old culture ... and Native American tribes had lost it, leaving the world of the West forever changed.