A Life in Stories

William Sydney Porter in his colorful lifetime became a licensed pharmacist. He would also become a bank teller, bookkeeper, clerk, illustrator, a draftsman in the General Land Office a newspaperman, an editor, reporter, columnist, and cartoonist. He also learned to break a stubborn bronco, lasso cattle, and shear sheep, and he could rope and ride and shoot a gun.

"Will", as his family and neighbors called him, was also a writer. In a lifetime often marred by tragic events, he became a voice for the ordinary people, writing hundreds of stories that brought him great renown. We have come to know him as simply O. Henry.