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A professional historian, musician, and consultant, Mark has worked
with the National Park Service, National Geographic Magazine, PBS
Television, the Colorado Endowment  for the Humanities, and numerous
state and local historic sites and museums. He writes for both popular
and scholarly audiences, having published with several university presses
and periodicals such as New Mexico Magazine and Sports Afield. He
has written seven interpretive booklets for National Park Service sites,
including Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Washita Battlefield
National Historic Site, and Fort Union National Monument (click on the
link below for Mark's books).
In addition to his research and writing, Mark studies and performs the pop-
ular music of the 19th and early 20th-century West. He has entertained au-
diences with his historic music at numerous venues, from the Gateway Arch
in St. Louis, Missouri, to the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mex-
ico. Mark currently performs with musician and "living historian" Rex Rideout
of Conifer, Colorado (TimeTravelMusic.com). Their popular CD, Frontier
Favorites: Old-Time Music of the Wild West, is available for sale here.
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History of the Historian: A native of Missouri, Mark began his career in
Public History in the early 1980s as a seasonal park ranger at Bent's Old Fort
National Historic Site near La Junta, Colorado. He subsequently worked at
Arrow Rock State Historic Site, Missouri, and Harpers Ferry National Histor-
ical Park, West Virginia. In 1985, he was the Mary Moody Northen Fellow
at the Stonewall Jackson House in Lexington, Virginia. From 1987 to 1991,
Mark was employed as the Site Director at the Colorado Historical Society's
Baca and Bloom Houses in Trinidad, Colorado. Mark is a graduate of North-
west Missouri State University, Maryville, Missouri, and obtained his Master of
Arts degree in American Studies from the University of Wyoming.
Mark’s areas of expertise include the Santa Fe Trail; Indian/white conflict on the Great Plains; Bent's Fort on the Arkan-
sas; the buffalo robe trade; 19th-century American popular music; cowboy songs and ballads; the U.S.-Mexican War; 19th-
century American photography; Western freighting; Western film history; the West in popular culture, author Edward Abbey;
19th-century sport hunting; and Western Americana in general. His research has taken him to numerous archives, libraries,
and antiquarian book stores across the country.
2007 Highlights and Upcoming Events
Check Back For Updates to this Calendar
January, 2007: Mark's feature article on cowboy artist and author Will James appeared in the January issue of New Mexico Magazine.
January 12-13, 2007: Mark & Rex performed at the 18th Annual Colorado Cowboy Poetry Gathering, held at the Arvada Center in
Arvada, Colorado.
January 26, 2007: Mark spoke on the journals of Zebulon Pike at the Pike Bicentennial Symposium at Adams State College.
February 2007: The University of New Mexico Press released the paperback edition of The Southwestern Journals of Zebulon Pike,
1806-1807 (ISBN: 0-8263-3389-7), for which Mark wrote an introduction. To order online, click here. Or call 1-800-249-7737.
April 13-15, 2007: Mark & Rex were pleased to return once again as performers at Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads, held at the Buffalo
Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.
May 13, 2007: Mark & Rex presented a special musical program on the music of Billy the Kid for the opening of "Dreamscape Desperado:
Billy the Kid and the Outlaw in America," an exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum. For more info, click here.
May 19, 2007: Mark & Rex returned to the Hiwan Homestead Museum in Evergreen, Colorado, for a command performance.
June 1, 2007: Mark & Rex will conduct a half-day workshop on period music at historic sites and museums for the annual conference of
the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums. This year's conference is in Santa Fe. More info available at the
ALHFAM web site.
June 3, 2007: Mark & Rex perform historic cowboy songs for the annual Spring Festival at El Rancho de las Golondrinas, Santa Fe. If
you haven't been there, Golondrinas is a wonderful living history museum on the site of an historic rancho dating to the early 1700s. After
their performance, Mark & Rex will take part in a book and CD signing with other regional authors. For more info, check out the muse-
um's web site.
June 14-17, 2007: Mark & Rex are the headliner entertainers for the annual rendezvous at Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site,
North Dakota. More info to come.
July 3 & 5, 2007: Mark & Rex will perform headliner concerts at the Stuhr Museum's celebration of 150 years of Hall County history,
Grand Island, Nebraska. For more info, click here.
July 16-August 3, 2007: Mark will teach a class for Colorado College Summer Session. The subject of the class is the Navajo Long Walk.
A week-long field trip will take students to Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, the Navajo
Nation Museum, and the Bosque Redondo Memorial. Class is limited to 12 students. For more info, click here.
August 25, 2007: Mark will MC the Main Stage at the 3rd annual Fiddles, Vittles & Vino, Southern Colorado's Own Bluegrass
and Culinary Festival, held at Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site in Colorado Springs (Rex will be on hand for some sweet pickin').
September 27-30, 2007: Mark will be one of the speakers and Mark & Rex will perform at the 2007 Santa Fe Trail Symposium, held in
Trinidad, Colorado. Check out the Santa Fe Trail Association web site here.
To learn more about Mark and his work, please explore the links below. For bookings and research
and writing inquiries, e-mail Mark using the "Contact Mark" button, or write him at the following address:
Mark L. Gardner
P.O. Box 879
Cascade, Colorado 80809
A "Santa Fe Wagon," from an 1876 engraving in Mark's book Wagons for the Santa
Fe Trade: Wheeled Vehicles and Their Makers, 1822-1880 (Albuquerque: Univer-
sity of New Mexico Press, 2000).
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