Go West!

Locations in the Westerns Genre

by William Blackburn

Westerns: the genre's name itself signifies location. Most westerns are set in the North American frontier west of the Mississippi River in the latter half of the 19th century, generally after the American Civil War in 1865 until the turn of the 20th century. This isn't a hard rule either chronologically or geographically, as some stories classified as westerns are set in Colonial America in what was then considered to be the frontier; and some are set south of the border in Mexico, South America, or even Australia, into the early 1900s and later. What these stories have in common is that they take place somewhere isolated or just on the edge of civilization.


Monument Valley. Photo © elbalsamo

Sometimes the landscape is as much of a challenge as any villain could be. Homesteaders fight the elements as they attempt to build new lives. Native Americans struggle to maintain their traditional bond with the land while they fend off the encroachment of "the white man" and his newfangled ways. Frontier towns boom or bust, depending on the success of nearby mining operations.

Pan Historia's western novels present a diverse set of locations geographically spanning the American West of the mid to late 19th century. Their names all reference particular Western locations that serve as backdrops for the adventures and derring-do of many colorful characters.

  • Deadwood is set in South Dakota when the town was not much more than a mining camp in the late 1870s. Ambitious fortune hunters bent on their own agendas nevertheless manage to bring a sense of community to the fledgling city while grappling with frontier politics.

  • Wild as the West Texas Wind takes place in El Paso, Texas, located near the Mexican border. It's 1882, and ever since the arrival of the railroad a year earlier, El Paso has grown from a sleepy border town to a busy city.

  • Tombstone is named for the town in the Arizona Territory of 1881 where the infamous Gunfight at the OK Corral took place. The novel focuses on events occurring before and leading up to the legendary showdown, and recently re-enacted the confrontation and its aftereffects.

  • The Western Trail gets its name from one of the great cattle drive trails that ran from San Antonio, Texas, through the Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma, to Dodge City, Kansas, and beyond.

  • Barbary Coast takes us to the westernmost edge of the Wild West in California, to the city of San Francisco at the height of its notoriety just a couple of decades before the Great Quake of 1906.


Deadwood, where gunfights are still re-enacted daily. Photo © Kathleen Marie
The Old West was an exciting place to be in America's history. Like any new frontier, it promised opportunity and fortune to anyone willing to face and conquer its challenges. The spirit of the people who rose to meet those challenges continues to capture the imaginations of people today. Although westerns aren't as popular as they once were, we still see the mythic qualities of the western in the stories of other genres. The settings are different, but the tales are familiar.

Here at Pan Historia, the western is alive and well. Visit the novels in our Westerns Genre, experience the adventure and romance of this unique historical era as envisioned by Pan's westerns genre writers, and maybe you'll ride off into the sunset with some new favorite reads to take home.

William Blackburn writes in Wild as the West Texas Wind, where he is a MoB. He is also the Westerns Genie.