ALSO KNOWN AS (aka):
I started out as an
actor and singer on several community stages in
1982.
By 1983 I was participating with the Civil War Association
(CWA) as a Confederate soldier with the 14th Tennessee Infantry,
Company B. Soon the CWA became the
National Civil War Association
(NCWA) and during the years 1989 to 1999 I was with the
1st United States Sharpshooters
(see this great website for details about the unit),
Company C playing Truman "California Joe" Head.
I was president of this non-profit corporation from
1993 through 1996 (41 months!).
In 1984 Don Aubrey, Charles Hughes and I created
the Old West reenactors group,
Shadows of the Past (SOTP).
In 1994 SOTP, Inc. became a non-profit public benefit
corporation.
History has always been the draw and once I hit the late 1880's there was no place to go but further back! I began searching out the earlier history of California and soon was part of the 1840's and then I discovered an opening in Columbia, where it will be 1850 to 1870 every day!
I have been a photographer since I was 5 years old and most of the pictures in this WebSite were taken by me, (unless otherwise noted). The artwork in most cases is also mine.
I was almost 12 years old when a "gunfighter" in front of the Golden Horseshoe Saloon (Disneyland) gave me a used blank brass cartridge (5in1) after his shootout. That was the spark that created my passion for our old west history. Well, and of course, all the Television Westerns I grew up watching!
One of the many factors to my childhood "ambition" to be a "real" pistoleer, came from the wonderful inspiration of comics and TV's rerunning all the films with Saturday Matinee Idols. The children of today don't get the same "training" in the respect for the law where the goodguy wins and the badguy lost.
So Why "The Legend"?
Read all about
Mr. Boles
See this
Badguy Gallery page!
History has always been a passion with me and the combination of acting, dressing in period clothing, "living" in a bygone era and then photographing the experience allows me to escape reality for a weekend.
(The above image and other "tintypes" on this web site were actually created using the wet plate collodion process of the 19th century by artist Wm. Dunniway & Co. Bart is actually holding a S&W that was used at the battle of the Little Big Horn and was recently on loan with the S&W museum. The other is a shawed off mule ear shotgun!)
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Write to: Black Bart the Legend at
