2024 | Daniel Grant, “'Whenever we exist on any land, we know it is our country': Cocopa Mobility and the Colorado River in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1887-1936,” Western Historical Quarterly (Spring 2023)

2023 | Donna Rae Devlin, “A ‘Hired Girl’ Testifies Against the ‘Son of a Prominent Family’: Bastardy and Rape on the Nineteenth-Century Nebraska Plains,” Western Historical Quarterly (Spring 2022)

2022 | Laura Dominguez, "Courtyard Sisters: Settler Fantasy and Experiment at the International Institute of Los Angeles, 1914-1940," Western Historical Quarterly (Winter 2021)

2021 | Brigida Blasi, "Rediscovering Dana: The Forgotten Black Coal Miners of Southern Wyoming," Western Historical Quarterly (Autumn 2020)

2020 | Mariel Aquino, "'It Has a Way of Getting In Your Blood When You're Basque': Basque Sheepherders, Race, and Labor, 1880-1959,” Western Historical Quarterly (Winter 2019)

2019 | Michael A. Hill, “The Myth of Seward’s Folly,” Western Historical Quarterly (Spring 2019)

2018 | Jessica Leslie Arnett for "Unsettled Rights in Territorial Alaska: Native Land, Sovereignty, and Citizenship from the Indian Reorganization Act to Termination" (Autumn 2017)

2017 | Reetta Humalajoki for "'What is it to Withdraw?': Klamath and Navajo Tribal Councils' Tactics in Negotiating Termination Policy, 1949-1964," (Winter 2017)

2016 | Lauren Brand for "'Great Conceptions of Their Own Power': Native and U.S. Diplomacy in the Old Southwest" (Summer 2016)

2015 | Benjamin Lindquist for “Testimony of the Senses: Latter-day Saints and the Civilized Soundscape," (Spring 2015)

2014 | Andrew Offenburger for "When the West Turned South: Making Home Lands in Revolutionary Sonora," (Autumn 2014)

2013 | Fredy González for “Chinese Dragon and the Eagle of Anáhuac: The Local, National, and International Implications of the Ensenada Anti-Chinese Campaign of 1934,” (Spring 2013)

2012 | Miles A. Powell for “Divided Waters: Heiltsuk Spatial Management of Herring Fisheries and the Politics of Native Sovereignty” (Winter 2012)

2011 | Bob Reinhardt for “Drowned Towns in the Cold War West: Small Communities and Federal Water Projects” (Summer 2011)

2010 | Todd Holmes for “The Economic Roots of Reaganism: Corporate Conservatives, Political Economy, and the United Farm Workers Movement, 1965-1970” (Spring 2010)

2009| Alexander I. Olson for “Heritage Schemes: The Curtis Brothers and the Indian Moment of Northwest Boosterism” (Summer 2009)

2008 | Janne Lahti for “Colonized Labor: Apaches and Pawnees as Army Workers” (Autumn 2008)

2007 | Gretchen Heefner for “Missiles and Memory: Dismantling South Dakota‘s Cold War” (Summer 2007)

2006 | Roxanne Willis for “A New Game in the North: Alaska Native Reindeer Herding, 1890-1940,” (Autumn 2006)

2005 | Nicolas G. Rosenthal for “Representing Indians: Native American Actor on Hollywood's Frontier” (Autumn 2005)

2004 | James Feldman for “The View from Sand Island: Reconsidering the Perhipheral Economy, 1880-1940” (Autumn)

2003 | Matthew C. Whitaker for “’Creative Conflict‘: Lincoln and Eleanor Ragsdale, Collaboration, and Community Activism in Phoenix, 1953-1965” (Summer 2003)

2002 | Daniel M. Cobb for “’Us Indians Understand the Basics‘: Oklahoma Indians and the Politics of Community Action, 1964-1970” (Spring 2002)

2001 | Helen McLure for “The Wild, Wild Web: The Mythic American West and the Electronic Frontier” (Winter 2000)

2000 | Adam M. Sowards for “Administrative Trials, Environmental Consequences, and the Use of History in Arizona‘s Tonto National Forest, 1926-1996” (Summer 2000)

1999 | Pekka Hämäläinen for “The Western Comanche Trade Center: Rethinking the Plains Indian Trade System” (Winter 1998)

1998 | Elliott Young for “Red Men, Princess Pocohontas, and George Washington: Harmonizing Race Relations in Laredo at the Turn of the Century” (Spring 1998)

1997 | Andrew H. Fisher for “The 1932 Handshake Agreement: Yakama Indian Treaty Rights and Forest Service Policy in the Pacific Northwest” (Summer 1997)

1996 | Brad Asher for “Their Own Domestic Difficulties‘: Intra-Indian Crime and White Law in Western Washington Territory, 1873-1889” (Summer 1996)

1995 | Alexandra Harmon for “Lines in the Sand: Shifting Boundaries between Indians and Non-Indians in the Puget Sound Region” (Winter 1995)

1994 | Christina Klein for “’Everything of interest in the late Pine Ridge War are held by us for sale‘: Popular Culture and Wounded Knee” (Spring 1994)

1993 | Gunther Peck for “Padrones and Protest: ‘Old‘ Radicals and ‘New‘ Immigrants in Bingham, Utah, 1905-1912” (May 1993)

1992 | David W. Stowe for “Jazz in the West: Cultural Frontier and Region During the Swing Era” (February 1992)

1991 | Robert R. Treviño for “Prensa y Patria: The Spanish-Language Press and the Biculturation of the Tejano Middle Class, 1920-1940” (November 1991)

1990 | Kevin Allen Leonard for “’Is That What We Fought For?‘ Japanese Americans and Racism in California, The Impact of World War II” (November 1990)

1989 | Charles E. Rankin for “Teaching Opportunity and Limitation for Wyoming Women” (May 1990)

1988 | William F. Deverell for “To Loosen the Safety Valve: Eastern Workers and Western Lands”(August 1988)

1987 | No Award Given

1986 | Kenneth J. Bindas for “Western Mystic: Bob Nolan and His Songs”(October 1986)

1985 | Joseph B. Herring for “Tragedy on the Osage” (April 1986)

1984 | David Rich Lewis for “Argonauts and the Overland Trail Experience: Method and Theory” (July 1985)

1983 | Douglas R. Littlefield for “Water Rights During the California Gold Rush: Conflicts Over Economic Points of View” (October 1983)