Archives West Finding Aid

Walter Shelley Phillips (1867-1940), also known as "El Comancho," was a self-educated and self-trained newspaper reporter, free-lance writer, author of numerous books, painter, illustrator, carver, photographer, naturalist, and geologist. In his own words: "I am first, last, and always, a Western man...I've always stood on my own hind legs, looked the world in the eye and told it to go to hell -- and am still doing it."

He was born March 3, 1867 in Fairbury, Illinois to Oliver H. Phillips and Eliza Jane Mcdowell Phillips. His family moved west, reaching Nebraska in 1969, and settling in Beatrice, Nebraska. According to his unpublished memoir, the family's homestead was within the Otoe tribe's hunting grounds, and Chief Arkeketa visited with the family regularly. Phillips played as a child with Arkeketa's children in the Otoe camp and by his accounting, was happier with that way of life than with going to school. He hunted buffalo, fished, attended ceremonies, and learned the Plains Indian sign language with which peoples of different Plains tribes communicated with each other. In Phillips' biographical notes within the collection he relates that in his early life he "went thro [sic] Grasshopper plague which came to Nebr. July 16 - 1874." He left school early and traveled across the West and Southwest on his own, meeting up with the Sioux (Lakota), Blackfeet, and Crow peoples as well as other tribes. He acquired the name "Lone Man" from the Sioux. He traveled through the Black Hills, the Rockies, and finally to Seattle in February 1888. He continued his travels, including through the American Southwest.

Phillips began writing about outdoor life in around 1887, including pieces for Forest and Stream , published in New York City. He began work as a reporter for his hometown newspaper, the Beatrice Express , and then the Lincoln Call as a cartoonist. After a time, he traveled west again, and filed a claim on some land, possibly near Billings, Montana or near Belle Fourche, South Dakota. During his time on the claim, the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred in South Dakota in 1890, which Phillips describes as a "piece of heartbreaking butchery that no white men could be proud of." After this time, Phillips returned to Lincoln, Nebraska amd continued his work at the Nebraska Call . He married his wife, Rena Egleston, with whom he had grown up in Beatrice, probably in 1891, and the couple eloped and traveled out to Seattle. In 1891 he began a reporting job at the Seattle Press where his first assignment was to cover a ball given by the Yesler family. After a few months, the Seattle Press came under new management and Phillips was out of a job. He worked on a pile driver crew for two years, and then brought his family back east for two years. Upon their return to Seattle, he wrote a column and drew cartoons for the Telegraph . His job ended when Seattle Post-Intelligencer bought the paper. The Northwestern Lumberman paper in Chicago hired him as an illustrator, ad representative, and reporter, and he worked there for seven years. He returned to the Pacific Northwest to work for the West Coast Lumberman published in Tacoma. He traveled back to Chicago to open that city's western office of Field and Stream . Phillips wrote in 1939 that he had crossed the United States coast to coast 198 times.

At some point during his career he worked for Louis Hill, president of the Great Northern Railroad; he spent more than a year with the Blackfoot tribe in the area that is now Glacier National Park to gather information for the Railroad's advertising department as the company built its line westward. Afterwards he performed a geologic and natural resources survey for the Great Northern from Glacier National Park to Seattle.

In 1904 he began Pacific Sportsman magazine in Seattle; he sold the magazine around 1911. Phillips also became a founding member of the Washington State Game and Fish Protective Association; he wrote thousands of articles on outdoor life and lore, including the syndicated newspaper feature "Teepee Tales." He also wrote books, and illustrated his own and others' books from the 1890s to 1920s, including books for children and Indian legends. He died in Seattle in 1940.