Jesse Edward Grinstead

Jesse Edward Grinstead , was an American publisher, editor, poet and politician who in later life became a popular writer of Western fiction. Over his writing career Grinstead penned somenovels along with scores of short stories and articles that appeared in magazines and newspapers. At least two of his stories, The Scourge of the Little C and Sunset of Power, became Hollywood films. Volumes of Grinsteads works were also published in Britain, Sweden and Spain.

J. E. Grinstead was born at Owensboro, Kentucky, the son of William Travis Grinstead and Elizabeth Miranda Priest . According to his brother, author Hugh Fox Grinstead , as a young man their father had served as a guard under Lt. John James Abert during a U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers survey of the American Southwest, had made nine crossings of the Great Plains as a wagonmaster on trips to New Mexico and California, prospected for gold in the Sacramento Valley, trekked on foot from San Juan del Sur to Lake Nicaragua, transported supplies during the Utah War to General Albert S. Johnstons headquarters at Salt Lake City and conveyed the first threshing machine to Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory. By 1860 Grinsteads parents were married and living on a farm in or near Long Prairie in Mississippi County, Missouri. After the outbreak of the American Civil War Grinsteads family returned to Owensboro for the duration of the war.

Source: Wikipedia