Richardson, Tony Gladwell

Gladwell Toney Richardson was born September 4, 1903 at Alvarado, Texas, His father, S.I. Richardson was a noted Navajo Indian trader who came to Arizona in 1896 when he was eighteen. His mother was part Choctaw Indian. Her father was an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Mr. Richardson's ancestors were Indian traders in Arizona and New Mexico. One great-great uncle, Fred Smith, was first a mountain man, then a pack train trader among the Navajo until killed in Navajo Canyon in l86l. Two great uncles followed him into Indian trading north of Flagstaff, G.W. McAdams in 1877 and J.H. McAdams in 1896. Both were nephews of Smith. Then his father became an Indian trader in 1896 and his two uncles after 1908. The Smith-McAdams-Richardson combination were all famous traders.

In addition to operating Navajo trading posts, Mr. Richardson's father owned ranches in Arizona and Oklahoma. It was on these ranches that Gladwell learned cowboying. And he learned Indian trading in the posts, having managed the Houck trading post when he was seventeen years old, then Pine Springs north of present U.S. 40. Mr. Richardson did three years in the Navy, returned home, married, and went back to school part of the time.

Thereafter, he ran a number of Navajo trading posts, and he began his writing career on the store counter at Shonto trading post in 1925, although he submitted nothing to editors until the following year. His first sales were sea stories (fiction), placed with Street & Smith's SEA STORIES magazine. Since the sale of his first story, Richardson has sold more than sixty million words, largely in more than 300 western novels and serials.

For the past five years he has been producing non-fiction exclusively, of the western historical type. Although each article requires many hours of research, Richardson places 125-130 such articles with some 31 magazines each year. Ten to fifteen of his articles are on the newsstands every month.

Gladwell Richardson has owned a home in Flagstaff since 1918, and he has spent most of his life in Flagstaff and on the Navajo Reservation nearby as a trader. He has two daughters, both married and living in Montana. The oldest, Cecile Darlene Cobb, attended what is now Northern Arizona University. The second daughter, Toni Dale Davis matriculated one year in the School of Journalism at Northern Arizona University, then entered the College of Journalism at Montana University, Missoula, and graduated at the top of her class.

From the guide to the Tony Gladwell Richardson Collection, 1936, 1947, 1965-1966., (Cline Library. Special Collections and Archives Department)