Old West history and folklore

Reznik

Hey, I've got a little nugget of an idea in my head for a writing project, so I was wondering if you fine folks could help me out in the research department. I need some good books, or websites that would have complete stories, of folklore and legends relating to the American old west. I'm sort of looking for stuff that has a paranormal quality to it, ghost stories and ghost towns and deals with the devil at the crossroads, that kinda thing. Stories drawing from Mexican and Native American folklore/mythology would be welcome too, since they would obviously have an influence in the area as well.

Also, any kind of 'American history for dummies' book or especially podcast would be really welcome. I'm Canadian, so all my knowledge of American history for that time period comes from watching Deadwood and assorted western movies. So please un-Hollywood my knowledge of cowboys and gold rushes and robbing trains.

Rokimiss

Seeing as how you are a Supernatural fan (me too! Team Cas), I thought some parts of these articles might be interesting. The American Wild West is/was actually much more boring than people make it out to be; but with a good twist of imagination, could make for some good stories.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-old-west
http://www.cracked.com/article_20372_5-ridiculous-myths-everyone-believes-about-wild-west.html
There are quite a few ghost stories around the Old West, so that's always somewhere to start.

As far as the Native American legend-y stuff goes, this seems good to me. I should say that I am very Caucasian, and I only have one Native American (Navajo) friend, so whether it's actually good, IDK.

I live in Phoenix, so I have SOME knowledge of (maybe more modern?) Mexican folklore. Chupacabras are definitely a thing to some people, and I had a coworker that was always made fun of because she was afraid of cucuys. Pronounced "coo-coo-ee".
This seems to have more examples, but it looks like SPN has already found most of these, so I dunno if that would deter you at all.

Hope this helps a little, but it wasn't much more than a couple Google searches.

Scooter

I'm not really sure you can 'un-Hollywood' the Wild West, it was Hollywoodified before Hollywood was even a thing. With the Wild West shows and dime novels, the flash and flair of the whole thing was way bigger than the actual events and people even while they were still in the cowboy days. You could probably wiki the biggest names from the era...James, Earp, Wild Bunch, etc. I actually just finished playing the Call of Juarez: Gunslinger game, and it had little collectibles giving a bit of history of all the various historical figures that show up in it (which was probably most of them).

knitdan

Some of my Native friends used to talk about "stick Indians", which is an Anglicized term for supernatural beings associated with a number of Northwest tribal legends.

Google the term in parentheses for more information.