Walter Shelley Phillips, known as El Comancho, was a self-educated and self-trained naturalist, artist, geologist, newspaper reporter, freelance writer and author of numerous books.

The Phillips family traveled between Illinois and Pennsylvania until March 1869, when they moved by covered wagon to Beatrice, Nebraska.

It was there that Phillips first became familiar with many Native American tribes, including the Otoes, Pawnees, Omahas, Sioux, Kiowa, Kansas and others.

Phillips was given the name "Comanche" by Chief High Horse of the Sioux Tribe, but later changed it to "El Comancho" as a nom de plume for his writing and art.

He traveled from anywhere between one week and one year at a time, and frequently made friends with different Native American tribes as he ventured as far as Seattle and southern California.

All of the tribes he encountered welcomed him and many referred to him as some variation of “Lone Man.”[1] Early in life Phillips was a hunter for workers building the Burlington railroad across Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana.

Phillips returned to Seattle in July 1940 to the home of his daughter, where he died just over a month later on September 1, 1940, of a brain hemorrhage.