Since the library has moved into the new building, it has seen a large increase in the circulation of library materials, but one collection has seen a decline - the western. Is it possible that this classic, iconic American genre is riding off into the sunset?

It seems so. Publishers indicate a steady decline in the readership of westerns since the 1960s when the genre peaked with a high readership of books, magazines and viewership of TV shows like "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza." Big budget movies by John Ford and Howard Hawks featuring the likes of John Wayne, Glenn Ford and Jimmy Stewart filled the theaters. Now fewer western books are printed each year, many titles have gone out of print and very few western movies are released.

The western novel genre started while the west was still wild, in the 1860s, in the American form known as the Dime Novel. (In England western stories appeared in the popular Penny Dreadfuls.) Early heroes included Deadwood Dick and the fictionalized Buffalo Bill. Some of the earliest motion pictures ever filmed were westerns, including the Broncho Billy oaters filmed at Essanay Studios in Niles (now part of Fremont in the East Bay.) Zane Grey mastered the genre in the early 20th century and was matched in talent and prolific output by Louis L'Amour and Max Brand by midcentury. In the 1940s and 1950s, B-movie studios cranked out westerns by the hundreds - featuring actors like William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy), Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

After the late '50s and early '60s, western genre heyday, there have been some popular westerns: Clint Eastwood moved from his TV role of Rowdy Yates on "Rawhide" to his spaghetti western anti-hero roles which found an audience in the turbulent mid- to late-1960s. Paul Newman and Robert Redford enjoyed success in 1969 with the release of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", a movie that received four Oscars. Larry McMurtry's 1985 book "Lonesome Dove", a Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, was turned into a popular TV miniseries. Eastwood returned in 1992 and took best picture and best director Oscars for "Unforgiven." The recent TV show "Deadwood" brought a gritty and violent old west to life.

The Spur awards are given annually for distinguished writing about the American west by the Western Writers of America. Recent winners include: Elmer Kelton, Jeanne Williams, Johnny D. Boggs and Rick Steber.

Will western books and movies survive to find a new audience? It is entirely up to you. The Morgan Hill Library has a section of western books and a number of classic and modern western movies, and TV shows just waiting to be checked out.

Well pardner, are you gonna climb up into the saddle and help rescue a great American art form? Or are you gonna let it die in the dirt with buzzards flyin' overhead? The library's waitin' amigo - the next move is yours ...

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