Ernest Haycox

Ernest Haycox was one of the prominent authors of the historical and western fiction genres, hailing from The United States. He was born on October 1, 1899; and died on October 13, 1950. Author Haycox’s birth had taken place in Portland, Oregon. His parents were Martha Burghardt and William James Haycox. After completing his primary education in local schools of Oregon and Washington, Haycox joined the US Army in the year 1915. He was first stationed at the Mexican border at the time of the year 1916. When the First World War was going on, author Haycox was stationed in Europe. Following the end of the War, he came back to enroll himself at the Reed College, located in Portland. Haycox went on to graduate from the Oregon University in 1923 with a BA degree in the subject of journalism. He started writing stories under the guidance of professor WFG Thatcher, while he was still studying at the university. It was in 1925 that author Haycox got married to Jill M. Chord, with whom he had a couple of children. Author Haycox wrote and published 2 dozen books and around 300 short stories in his writing career. Many of his stories have featured in the pulp magazines during the early 1920’s. During most of the 1930’s and 40’s, author Haycox used to contribute to the Collier’s Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post on a regular basis. Some of the fans of his dedicated work included personalities like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. In fact, Hemingway had written once that he liked to read The Saturday Post only when Haycox posted his stories and serials in it. One of the books of author Haycox, titled Stage to Lordsburg, was adapted into a film with the name Stagecoach in 1939. John Ford was the director of the film, while John Wayne played the title role in it. The tremendous success of the movie made John Wayne an overnight star and he started getting many film offers after it.