About Author Lee A. Silva
Lee A. Silva,  a descendant of California Gold Rush pioneers, is a retired Las Vegas lounge singer and song writer, a dealer in antique weapons, and has been writing for over thirty- five years, specializing in the history and weapons of the Old West. Silva’s ancestors were California Gold Rush farmers, merchants, miners, and mule skinners. His paternal grandfather operated a hog farm, and his father owned a cattle ranch, bred quarter horses, and started taking the author shotgunning and target shooting shortly after he was old enough to walk. Lee began to collect antique guns when he was eight years old, and he has been collecting, dealing in, and writing about them ever since. Lee is a twenty-five-year member of the Western Writers of America, has been nominated four times for the Western Writers of America Spur award. His  2002 book Wyatt Earp: A Biography of the Legend, Volume I, the Cowtown Years, was voted the most outstanding book of the year by the Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association (WOLA). Lee and his wife, author Susan Silva, also received the 2005 Western Outlaw-
Lawman History Association (WOLA) award for the most outstanding Old West article of the year for Charlie Russell’s Last Legacy, which was featured in Wild West magazine. Lee is one of the co-authors of Guns and the Gunfighters; America: The Men and Their Guns That Made Her Great; and The Official Price Guide to Old West Collectibles. He has also been a literary judge for the Western Writers of America Spur Awards and the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Western Heritage Museum Awards. Lee has worked as a cowboy, lifeguard, taxi driver, jail keeper, hunting guide, process server, insurance investigator, and other jobs	while attending San Jose State University, where he majored in wildlife conservation, police science, and creative writing, and earned a B.A. degree in business. After graduating from college, Lee worked as a Porsche and Rolls Royce salesman, abalone and salvage diver and antique gun dealer, and as a Hollywood actor, Lee appeared in daytime soaps and in the TVseries Rawhide. He became a headline singer in Las Vegas with his life-long friends Stan Williams and Gil Sabourin, and he continued to sing and teach guitar in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. While spending twenty-five years as what he calls a "saloon singer," Lee began writing Old West history. Today, Lee Silva is a recognized authority on the gunfighters and weapons of the frontier.

Buy The Mexican Operation Visit Lee Silva's other website, wyattearpbook.com The Mexican Operation was published by Lee A. Silva and was produced in association with Graphic Publishers, Santa Ana, CA 97205. Back to the top This website and contents are copyrighted 2006 by Lee A. Silva