Stanley Vestal (August 15, 1887 – December 25, 1957) was an American

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

, and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

, perhaps best known for his books on the

American Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

, including ''Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux''.

Biography

Vestal was born Walter Stanley Vestal to Walter Mallory Vestal and the former Isabella "Daisy" Wood near Severy in

Greenwood County Greenwood County is the name of two counties in the United States: * Greenwood County, Kansas Greenwood County (county code GW) is a county located in the southeast portion of the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the county populat ...

in southeastern

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

. Vestal's father died when he was young. His mother remarried, and Vestal took the legal surname Campbell from his stepfather, James Robert Campbell. About 1889, the Campbell family relocated to Guthrie in the newly established

Oklahoma Territory The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as th ...

, where he learned Native American customs from his boyhood playmates, knowledge which would later be useful in his writing career. In 1903, Vestal graduated from the new institution,

Southwestern Oklahoma State University Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) is a public university in Weatherford and Sayre, Oklahoma. It is one of six Regional University System of Oklahoma members. History SWOSU was first established through an act of the Oklahoma Ter ...

in Weatherford. His stepfather was the first president of the college. Vestal was Oklahoma's first

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

. He earned a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

and a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in England. Vestal taught for three years at the prestigious Male High School in

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

, before he became a professor of English at the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

, where he became known for his courses in creative writing. He temporarily left the university on three occasions, as a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

in an artillery regiment during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, as a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

from 1930 to 1931, and under a

Rockefeller Fellowship The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carn ...

in 1946. Between 1927 and his death on Christmas Day 1957 from a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

, Vestal wrote more than twenty books, some

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

s, and as many as one hundred articles about the Old West. He is interred as Walter S. Campbell at the

Custer National Cemetery George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, b ...

in Big Horn County,

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

Partial bibliography

*''Fandango: Ballads of the Old West'',

Houghton Mifflin Company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Boston Financ ...

, Boston, 1927 *''Mountain Men, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1927 *"Happy Hunting Grounds"' Lyons and Carnahan, Chicago, IL, 1928 *''Kit Carson, the Happy Warrior of the West'', Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1928 *''Dobe Walls a Story of Kit Carson's Southwest'', Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1929 *''Sitting Bull-Champion of the Sioux-a Biography'', Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1932 *''New Sources of Indian History 1850–1891. The Ghost Dance. The Prairie Sioux . A Miscellany.

University of Oklahoma Press The University of Oklahoma Press (OU Press) is the publishing arm of the University of Oklahoma. Founded in 1929 by the fifth president of the University of Oklahoma, William Bennett Bizzell, it was the first university press to be established i ...

, Norman, 1934 *''The Wine Room Murder'', Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1935 *''Revolt On The Border'', Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1938 *''The Old Santa Fe Trail'', Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1939 *''King of the Fur Traders: The Deeds and Deviltry of Pierre Esprit Radisson'', Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1940 *''Big Foot Wallace, A Biography, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1942 *''Jim Bridger Mountain Man'', William Morrow, New York, 1946 *''Joe Meek, The Merry Mountain Man'', Caxton,

Caldwell Caldwell may refer to: People * Caldwell (surname) * Caldwell (given name) * Caldwell First Nation, a federally recognized Indian band in southern Ontario, Canada Places Great Britain * Caldwell, Derbyshire, a hamlet * Caldwell, East ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

, 1952 *''Short Grass Country,

Duell, Sloan and Pearce Duell, Sloan and Pearce was a publishing company located in New York City. It was founded in 1939 by C. Halliwell Duell, Samuel Sloan and Charles A. Pearce. It initially published general fiction and non-fiction, but not westerns, light romances ...

, New York City, 1941 *''The Missouri'',

Farrar & Rinehart Farrar & Rinehart (1929–1946) was a United States book publishing company founded in New York. Farrar & Rinehart enjoyed success with both nonfiction and novels, notably, the landmark Rivers of America Series and the first ten books in the Nero ...

, New York, 1945 (Volume 26 of the

Rivers of America Series The Rivers of America Series is a landmark series of books on American rivers, for the most part written by literary figures rather than historians. The series spanned three publishers and thirty-seven years. History The Rivers of America Series ...

) *"Wagons Southwest: Story of Old Trail to Santa Fe," American Pioneer trails Association, New York, 1946 *''Warpath and Council Fire: The Plains Indians' Struggle for Survival in War and in Diplomacy, 1851–1891'',

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, New York, 1948 *''Dodge City, Queen of Cowtowns: "The wickedest little city in America", 1872–1886'',

Harper Brothers Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

, New York, 1952 *''The Book Lover's Southwest: A guide to good reading'',

, Norman, 1955 *''The Indian Tipi: Its History, Construction, and Use'', (with

Reginald Laubin Reginald Laubin (December 4, 1903 – April 5, 2000) was an American writer, dancer, and expert on Native American culture and customs. With his wife, Gladys Laubin, he performed theatrical interpretations of Plains Indian dances. A white man, L ...

& Gladys Laubin), University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1957 *''Warpath: The True Story of the Fighting Sioux Told in a Biography of Chief White Bull",

University of Nebraska Press The University of Nebraska Press, also known as UNP, was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the Univer ...

, Lincoln, 1984 (copyrighted 1934 as Walter Stanley Campbell)

References

American Book Exchange
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vestal, Stanley 1887 births 1957 deaths People from Greenwood County, Kansas People from Guthrie, Oklahoma People from Weatherford, Oklahoma 20th-century American historians Historians of the United States Southwestern Oklahoma State University alumni Writers from Louisville, Kentucky University of Oklahoma faculty 20th-century American novelists People from Norman, Oklahoma 20th-century American poets American male novelists American male poets 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Kentucky Novelists from Oklahoma American male non-fiction writers Alumni of Merton College, Oxford