Zane Grey was a popular American author who wrote of adventures in the Old West. He was born Pearl Zane Grey in Zanesville, OH but later dropped his first name favoring his middle. Zanesville, Ohio was actually founded by his maternal ancestor. As a boy, Zane was engaged in every possible physical activity from horseback riding to fishing to hunting, and eventually received a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania for baseball. Afterwards, like his father, he followed a career in dentistry. But alas, the outdoors called. He successfully wrote extensively and passionately about his love for adventures and became most famous for his work, “Riders of the Purple Sage†(1921).
