Bernadette J. Palombo is a professor of criminal justice and chair of the Department of History and Social Sciences at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. She holds a doctorate in political science and a master's degree in criminal justice from the Center for Politics and Economics at the Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California. She is a member of Alpha Phi Sigma National Criminal Justice Honor Society, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the American Society of Criminology.

Gary D. Joiner is the Mary Anne and Leonard Selber Professor of History at Louisiana State University in Shreveport, where he teaches both history and geography and serves as director of the Red River Regional Studies Center. He holds a bachelor's degree in history and geography and a master's degree in history from Louisiana Tech University and earned his PhD in history from St. Martin's College, Lancaster University, in the United Kingdom. Dr. Joiner is past president of the North Louisiana Civil War Round Table and the DeSoto Historical Society and is president and founder of the Friends of the Mansfield Battlefield. History is both his profession and his hobby. In 2010, he was named Preservationist of the Year by the Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation. He is series editor for Western Theater in the Civil War with the University of Tennessee Press. He writes the "History Doctor" column for Forum News and presents a weekly "History Matters" commentary on Red River Radio, public radio.
W. Chris Hale is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. He has published and presented research in the areas of cybercrime, terrorism and intelligence analysis. Most recently, he has had his work published in the Proteus Futures Digest and the International Journal of Emergency Management. He is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Scie

In the rough-and-tumble days of the nineteenth century, Shreveport was on the very edge of the country's western frontier. It was a city struggling to tame lawlessness, and its streets were rocked by duels, lynchings and shootouts. A new century and Prohi