Walter Shelley Phillips papers, approximately 1889-1990

Walter Shelley Phillips, who was well-known by the name “El Comancho,” was a self-educated and self-trained naturalist, artist, geologist, newspaper reporter, free-lance writer, and author of numerous books. He was born on March 3, 1867 in Fairbury, IL to parents Oregon Harry and Eliza Jennie (McDowell) Phillips. The Phillips family traveled between Illinois and Pennsylvania until March 1869, when they moved by covered wagon to Beatrice, Nebraska. It was there that Phillips first became familiar with many Native American tribes, including the Otoes, Pawnees, Omahas, Sioux, Kiowa, and Kansas, among others. As a child, he spent much of his time with the Otoes and often lived for weeks at a time with the tribe’s chief and the chief’s family in their lodge and accompanied them on buffalo hunts.

Phillips did not like school but loved the outdoors, and often left his home to roam the country while school was in session. He traveled from anywhere between one week and one year at a time, and frequently made friends with different Native American tribes as he ventured as far as Seattle and southern California. All of the tribes he encountered welcomed him and referred to him as some variation of “Lone Man.”

When he was not out on an adventure, Phillips worked at one of many different jobs. Over the course of his career, he wrote professionally and illustrated for many newspapers and magazines, including Forest & Stream, Beatrice Express, Lincoln Call, the Seattle Telegraph, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Chicago’s Northwestern Lumberman. One of his newspaper columns, “Teepee Tales,“ was syndicated in newspapers all over the country. In 1904, he began the Pacific Sportsman magazine, which later became Outdoor Life. Phillips also wrote books, and illustrated his own and others’ books, from the 1890s to the 1920s, including juvenile works, Indian legends, and more. He was also a talented artist and sketched, painted, and made bas relief carvings. He shared much of what he had learned and accomplished with the general public as he lectured all over the country.

Phillips figured that over his lifetime he made 198 round-trip tours of the country from coast to coast, and that there was no 100-square mile area in the country that he had not seen. He died in 1940.