Michael Wallis

Michael Wallis (born 1945) is a journalist and popular historian of the Western United States. He has written seventeen books, including Route 66: The Mother Road, about the historic highway U.S. Route 66.

Other Wallis books include: "Oil Man: The Story of Frank Phillips and the Birth of Phillips Petroleum"; The Real Wild West: The 101 Ranch and the Creation of the American West; Pretty Boy: The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd; Mankiller: A Chief and Her People, and Way Down Yonder In The Indian Nation. His recent books include Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride, The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate, David Crockett: The Lion of the West (to be published in 2010) and The Wild West/365 Days (to be published in 2011). His work has also been published extensively in magazines and newspapers, including Time, Life, People, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.

Wallis has received the John Steinbeck Award, the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book, the Will Rogers Spirit Award, and the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall & Western Heritage Museum. He has been inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame, Writers Hall of Fame of America, and the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame, and was the first inductee into the Oklahoma Route 66 Hall of Fame. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times.

Wallis was interviewed By Rep. Roy Blunt, (R), MO., for After Words on Book TV, 29 April 2007, discussing his latest book, Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride.

Wallis attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, and moved to Miami, Florida, in 1978, where he worked for Time's Caribbean Bureau. He currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with his wife, Suzanne Fitzgerald Wallis.

Wallis also provided the voice of Sheriff in the 2006 Pixar animated film, Cars. Wallis' most recognizable feature is his mustache, and the front grille of his character was designed to resemble his mustache.