A professional historian, author, musician and consultant, Mark has worked with the National Park Service, PBS Television, National Geographic Magazine, the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities, the New Mexico Humanities Council, 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, Journal of the West, and Living History Magazine.  He has written a number of interpretive booklets for National Park Service sites, including Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, and Santa Fe Trail National Historic Trail (click on Mark's Books for more).  Mark recently completed a manuscript on Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett for William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.  Titled To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West, the book is scheduled for a February 2010 release.

In addition to his research and writing, Mark is an award-winning performer of the music of the 19th and early 20th-century American West.  He has entertained audiences 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 Mexico.  Mark currently performs with his friend and fellow music historian Rex Rideout of Conifer, Colorado (www.TimeTravelMusic.com).  Mark and Rex were recently recognized by True West Magazine as the "Best Musical Tour of the West of 2009."  Their popular CD, Frontier Favorites: Old-Time Music of the Wild West, and their award-winning book and CD, Jack Thorp's Songs of the Cowboys, are available for purchase here.

                                        2009-2010 Highlights and Upcoming Events    

May 23-September 7:  Mark's exhibit, The Power of Music: Photographic Portraits of Americans and their Musical Instruments, 1860-1915, is on display at the Grout Museum of History and Science, Waterloo, Iowa.

June 19-20:  Mark and Rex help celebrate the 175th anniversary of the founding of Fort William, a fur trade post at the junction of the Laramie and North Platte rivers.  It later became the site of Fort Laramie.  To order Mark's history of Fort Laramie National Historic Site, click here.

 July 11:  Mark and Rex return to Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site, Colorado Springs, for an evening concert.  Free to the public, but donations are appreciated.

August 21:  Mark performs for the annual meeting of the Oregon-California Trails Association, Loveland, Colorado.

September 19:  Mark performs at the Rockrimmon Branch of the Pikes Peak Library District, Colorado Springs.

October 2-3:  Mark and Rex perform for the Western Heritage Festival, Gunnison, Colorado.  Details to come.

October 23:  Mark and Rex put on a concert of historic cowboy songs in Las Vegas, New Mexico.  Sponsored by the Rough Riders Museum and the New Mexico Humanities Council.  Details to come.

October 24:  Mark and Rex put on a concert of historic cowboy songs in Clovis, New Mexico.  Sponsored by the Clovis-Carver Public Library and the New Mexico Humanities Council.  Details to come.

December 6-January 31, 2010:  Mark's exhibit, The Power of Music: Photographic Portraits of Americans and their Musical Instruments, 1860-1915, is on display at the Arlington Heights Historical Museum, Arlington Heights, Illinois.

January 27-31:  Mark is a featured speaker for an international symposium on horse-drawn vehicles at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.  Titled "Highways and Horses: Travel and Transport by Horse-drawn Vehicles," the symposium is sponsored by the Carriage Association of America and Colonial Williamsburg.

February 21-May 9:  Mark's exhibit, The Power of Music: Photographic Portraits of Americans and their Musical Instruments, 1860-1915, is on display at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

June 5-August 8:  Mark's exhibit, The Power of Music: Photographic Portraits of Americans and their Musical Instruments, 1860-1915, is on display at the Boulder History Museum, Boulder, Colorado.