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Walter Noble Burns

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Walter Noble Burns
Born(1866-10-24)October 24, 1866
DiedApril 15, 1932(1932-04-15) (aged 65)
Occupations
  • Historian
  • Author
  • Researcher
  • Journalist
Years active1900–1932

Walter Noble Burns (1866–1932) was a writer of Western history and a Western fiction author. He was notable for his book, The Saga of Billy the Kid (1926).[1]

Family

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Burns was born on October 24, 1866,[2] in Lebanon, Kentucky. He was the son of Thomas E. Burns (1837–1908), a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Walter's mother, Mary Crisella Noble (1847–1871), died when he was four years old.[1] He and his father, Thomas E. Burns, were recorded as resident with his mother's parents, Lorenzo H. Noble (1819–1899) and Alice Ann Noble (1823–1899), during the 1870 and 1880 Federal Censuses in Marion Co., Kentucky. Noble was an attorney from Maine, who had migrated to Kentucky, and became a prominent attorney & judge.[3] Walter married Rose Marie Hoke on 10 November 1902.[1]

Career

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Walter Noble Burns served with the 1st Kentucky Infantry during the Spanish–American War in 1898. In 1900, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, and began a career as a journalist, literary critic and crime reporter. After World War I, Burns retired as a reporter, then concentrated his writing about Western American legends.[4]

Publications

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Filmography

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Biography

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Mark J. Dworkin (1946–2012) compiled a biography about Walter Noble Burns, entitled American Mythmaker: Walter Noble Burns and the Legends of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and Joaquín Murrieta. Dworkin died in 2012, prior to the completion of this book, which was published in 2015 by the University of Oklahoma Press.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Dworkin, Mark (2015). American Mythmaker: Walter Noble Burns and the Legends of Billy the Kid. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806149011.
  2. ^ Chicago, Illinois, death certificate, Walter Noble Burns.
  3. ^ 1860, 1870, 1880 Federal Census, Marion Co., KY, L. H. Noble household. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
  4. ^ Dworkin, Mark. "Walter Noble Burns, The Wild West's Premier Mythmaker". History.net.
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