Silver City Museum to host 'Gila' book signing

The Silver City Museum will host a book signing with local author Nancy Coggeshall, author of "Gila Country Legend: The Life and Times of Quentin Hulse," at 2 p.m. today at the Museum Annex, 302 W. Broadway, two doors down from the museum. In the book, recently released by University of New Mexico Press, Coggeshall tells the story of the larger-than-life rural Western rancher whose reputation spread well beyond the rugged Gila Wilderness he called home. Drawing on oral history, archival sources and her personal association with Hulse and the Gila, Coggeshall brings this unique New Mexican to life. Coggeshall describes Hulse and the book on her Web site, www.nancycoggeshall.com: "A product of New Mexico's Southwest, Quentin Hulse (1926-2002) lived and worked from the bottom of Canyon Creek in the Gila River country on the northern border of the Gila Wilderness. The force of his character and personality impressed people so deeply that stories about this legendary rancher, packer, guide and hound man were told even in Tasmania and Baghdad. His photograph appeared on a tourist postcard and souvenir novelty license plate in the 1950s. The Men's Channel broadcast footage of a 1962 lion hunt with him on New Year's Day 2005; boys were named for him and a song was written about him and recorded in 2003. ...read more