Holding his famed hunting rifle while dressed in a buckskin suit, Theodore Roosevelt is a world away from the White House.
But now America’s 26th President has been brought to life in colour in a new book showing the spirit of the Wild West.
Fascinating images of America’s Wild West have been colourised for the first time in this new book.
More than 200 historical pictures have been brought into the 21st-century showing how cowboys, hunters and outlaws including Buffalo Bill lived.
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One image showed female outlaw, Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, better known as Belle Starr on her horse in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1886 after she had been arrested for her suspected involvement in a robbery.
Starr was known to associate with the James-Younger Gang and was fatally shot in 1889 in a case that is still unsolved.
Another picture showed gutsy frontierswoman Augusta “Gusty” Higgins Farnham standing with a shotgun next to a deer she shot dead.
Another image that has been brought to life in colour showed Native Americans from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show standing in formation.
And another shot shows a large group of people from Sioux City, Iowa, riding on a stagecoach taking them to an enormous interior hot-water swimming pool in the Hot Springs, Dakota Territory, in 1889.
The incredible images feature in the new book, The Wild West in Color: A Photographic Account of our Nation's Westward Expansion by John C. Guntzelman.
The book, which is published by Crestline Books includes over 200 images that have been colourised – bringing the history of the American West into the present day.
“The lure and lore of the frontier Wild West has been a driving force in the American experience,” writes Guntzelman in the book’s introduction.
“Originally the stuff of dreams and aspirations, dime novels and Wild West shows, the ever-expanding western horizon was of universal appeal and served as the prime mover for a generation of searchers seeking a sizably better life.
“The fascination continued in classic motion pictures such as The Great Train Robbery, the body of work from director John Ford and John Wayne, High Noon, the so-called spaghetti westerns of Clint Eastwood, The Magnificent Seven, and hundreds more films.
“An incredible number of television shows, such as Hopalong Cassidy, Wagon Train, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Lonesome Dove, and thousands of books by authors such as Zane Grey, Bret Harte, and James Fenimore Cooper shaped the perspective of generations and still keep the American West very much alive today.
“While the American West is a geographic location, the 'Wild West' is more a state of mind burned into our collective consciousness, and is strictly American.
“Whether it’s the appeal of wide-open spaces, the desire to control our own destiny, a homestead to call our own, or just the hope for a better life, the Wild West, then as now, strikes a chord that resonates within us as both an era and a spirit of self-reliance that is known and appreciated worldwide.
“Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, there was expansion.
"The newly reunited nation was bursting at the seams, ready to grow — and grow it did.”
Published by Crestline Books, The Wild West in Color: A Photographic Account of our Nation's Westward Expansion by John C. Guntzelman is available to buy from Amazon for RRP £14.43.
