Zane Grey was an American author best known for his western adventures and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged old west.

Pearl Zane Gray was born January 31, 1872 in Zanesville, Ohio. He was the fourth of five children. The family ancestor who was responsible for immigrating to America was Robert Zane Gray who migrated from England in 1673. His father was Lewis M. Gray, a dentist, and his mother Alice “Allie” Josephine Zane. His family was responsible for changing the spelling of his name to Grey.

It is reported that as a child, Zane frequently engaged in violent brawls. While his father was quite a disciplinarian, Zane was mentored by father substitute named Muddy Miser who great approved of Grey’s love of fishing and writing and often spouted philosophically on the advantages of an unconventional life. This mentoring led Zane to be an avid reader of adventure stories and dime novels. He ended up writing his first story Jim of the Cave when he was only fifteen.

After High School, Zane went to the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship. While he was quite an athlete at the university, he eventually decided to become a dentist (like his father) after graduating in 1896. His brother Romer Carl Grey did have some success playing baseball professionally and eventually played for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

After graduating, Zane set up a dentistry practice in New York City. While it was a competitive area, he was closer to publishers and did begin to write again. It was during this time that Zane met his future wife Lina Roth, better known as “Dolly,” and married in 1905.

With Dolly’s inheritance, Zane was able to give up his practice and write full time. In 1906, they took a honeymoon trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, which was Zane’s first trip west and which also led to a life-long love of the beautiful southwest and Arizona. “My beloved Arizona” was the actual term of endearment Zane Grey bestowed upon this state.

Partially with Dolly’s insistence, Zane came back to Arizona and the Colorado River Basin. In 1907, Zane, and famed western hunter and guide C.T. “Buffalo” Jones, came back to the North rim of the Grand Canyon for a mountain lion hunting trip (often referred to as “lassoing lions in Arizona”). This trip made such an indelible mark on Zane, he wrote, “Surely, of all the gifts that have come to me from contact with the West, this one of sheer love of wildness, beauty, color, grandeur, has been the greatest, the most significant for my work.”

While standing at certain points on the Mogollon Rim at sunset, there is a grand view (on clear days) for about 50 miles in three directions, south, west and east. And, at times, some or all of the sweeping landscape may well appear a hue of purple as the sunset fades. This view led Zane to write his all-time best seller Riders of the Purple Sage in 1912. This novel is also one of the most successful of all time.

By 1915, Zane has 15 books in print (frontier/baseball/juvenile adventure/western) along with many fishing and outdoor adventure articles and serialized stories. However, Zane continued his travels to the southwest and in the early 1920’s, he and Dolly had a cabin built on Mogollon Rim, a 2,000-foot-high escarpment that stretches for miles across northern Arizona. He was also known for often fishing the lakes and streams in the area.

Zane spent much time at his cabin from 1923 – 1930. However, during his latter years, Zane attempted to explore as much “unspoiled” lands as possible since he believed his beloved Arizona was beginning to be overrun by tourists and speculators. This eventually led to a confrontation with the state’s Game and Fish Department and Zane left Arizona for good at sometime around 1929 – 1930. While discouraged, he never lost hope for Arizona and her beauty. Near the end of his life he wrote, “The so-called civilization of man and his works shall perish from the earth, while the shifting sands, the red looming walls, the purple sage, and the towering monuments, the cast brooding range show no perceptible change.”

Zane Grey died of heart failure on October 23, 1939 at his home in Altadena, California. He was interred at the Union Cemetery in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania.