Home on the Range

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Oklahoma views itself as the epitome of the American pioneer spirit.

The state started out as Indian Territory, where tribes forcibly removed from other parts of the US were dumped.

These included the Cherokee, at the end of the Trail of Tears (see The Majesty of Trees).





Eventually, white settlers looked on the land as valuable, and pushed the federal government to open it.

On April 22, 1889, they did.

Any settler could claim 160 acres for free as long as they farmed it.

This resulted in the great Oklahoma Land Rush, and major towns like Oklahoma City sprung up overnight.

Naturally, some settlers cheated and snuck in early.

They were called Sooners, now the motto of the state.





In many areas, people discovered the soil was more suited to raising cattle than plants, and settlers turned to ranching.

Then, in 1897, prospectors drilled the first successful oil well, and fortune seekers rushed in.

Cities like Tulsa were soon awash in new wealth.





This history of exploration, ranching and oil has created a natural rivalry with Texas to the south.

These days, most of it plays out on the college football field.

Although both Texas and Oklahoma claim to be the home of the American cowboy, the latter has an edge in at least one respect.

Oklahoma City holds the National Cowboy Museum, the most extensive museum on this important aspect of American culture.

I spent the entire day there.

National Cowboy Museum

The museum entrance holds an enormous plaster statue of a depressed Native American on an equally depressed horse, The End of the Trail by James Earl Fraser.

One of the most reproduced sculptures of western art in the country, it symbolizes the closing of the frontier.

A plaque nearby, written by a Cherokee, gives a Native American interpretation; their land and traditional way of life have gone, but the trail of life itself continues.





The rest of the museum contains multiple exhibit areas on all aspects of cowboy culture, reality, and myth.

The first exhibit covers the history.

For a job that looms as large in western myth as this one, the gritty reality of ranching could not be more different.

Cowboy History

Animal husbandry existed in Europe long before colonists came to the United States.

English farmers raised dairy cows.

Spanish ranchers, called vaqueros, raised cattle for beef and hides.

When Spain conquered Mexico, vaqueros moved to this new land and set up huge ranches.

Around the time of the Mexican-American war, Spanish ranching merged with English animal farming techniques to form modern ranching.

Ironically, this most American of occupations owes more to the Spanish than anyone else.





Until the late 1800s, all ranching was done on the open range.

Cowboys grazed their cattle wherever they found suitable land.

When the animals were ready, they drove their herds to markets in towns like Dodge City Kansas in the legendary western cattle drives.

Nearly all cowboys worked for a boss who actually owned the herd, and were hired for a season at a time.

They worked, ate, and slept next to their charges, living outdoors in all kinds of weather.

A cowboy’s career was difficult, often short, and as far from glamorous as it gets.





People from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds worked on the range.

Many African American Civil War soldiers became cowboys afterwards.

After being confined to reservations, many Native Americans turned to ranching to survive.

Very few women became cowboys, but some did own herds, and many wives of herd owners joined their husbands on the frontier.





The museum has a big gallery on dress and equipment, which has become iconic.

It all evolved for practical reasons, to make the job easier and more productive.

The basics eventually became standardized through the west, with lots of regional variation.

Jeans and wool shirts kept warm in inclement weather, stood up to punishment, and could handle being in mud.

Cowboy boots kept off the mud also, provided footing on poor soil, and could grip stirrups.

Lariats allowed cowboys to lasso and control animals from their horses.

Spurs, bridles, and saddles evolved for better horse control.

The displays have lots of samples.





They also cover the Stetson hat, a cowboy symbol by itself.

The famous wide brims kept away the elements.

Ironically, this most western of items was derived from Mexican sombreros, and perfected in Pennsylvania!





The most important job on the range, after the boss, belonged to the cook.

If cowboys didn’t eat well, they were both unhappy and unproductive.

He needed to move ahead of the main drive so food would be ready when the group set up camp for the night.

This need led to the chuck wagon, which could hold all supplies but still have sufficient speed (see The Real, and Fake, Wild West).





With all those cattle on the open range, owners needed a way to tell them apart.

The Spanish were the first to heat a hot iron and apply it to the skin of new calves, creating branding.

It’s still an essential tool of ranching.

The technique has never changed since its invention, except that cattle are now herded into a chute to apply the brands instead of roping them individually.





As branding spread, owners developed a complex system of letters and symbols to create different brands.

The museum has a long list of what different things mean.

For example, a letter made of wavy lines is called ‘lazy’, and one with a crescent under it is called ‘rocking’ (like a chair).

These days, every brand must be registered with the ranch’s state to ensure they are unique.

Once registered, brands become property of the ranch; ones famous in history have been auctioned for thousands of dollars on occasion.





That leads to a large exhibit area on a single item, the invention that forever changed the culture of western ranching, barb wire.

Until its invention, grazing pastures belonged to all; herds moved where they pleased.

Afterward, cattle owners could confine their animals to specific land, and open range was replaced by the private property of specific ranches.

A sense of limitless freedom changed into routine.





Given that huge cultural impact, the museum’s obsessiveness over barbed wire becomes more sensible.

Cowboys originally made it by soldering nails to metal wire.

That didn’t work very well, so inventors tried hundreds of experiments to improve it.

The museum has a long list of the resulting patents.

Wire is now made by dozens of techniques.

The section ends with an incredibly through barb wire library, where dozens of draws hold EIGHT HUNDRED different examples.





The history section ends with the King Ranch of south Texas, likely the most famous ranch in the world.

Their brand is the lazy W.

They were the first ranch to move beyond simply raising cattle to controlled breeding of their herds.

Through careful selection, managers created cattle with increased meat and resistance to common diseases.

Cattle breeds first developed here are now raised worldwide.

Cowboys in Popular Culture

How did a job that was so difficult in real life become so glamorized?

The museum answers this question very indirectly through a section on the cowboy in popular culture.

Starting in the late 1800s, writers published hundreds of pulp novels and magazine articles on western subjects, many staring cowboys.

The United States was gripped by a wave of nostalgia for a vanished frontier during this time, and these works fed the demand (see The Western Tradition).

The cowboy became romanticized as the ideal opposite of early industrial civilization: an outdoorsman who worked with animals and thrived in the wild alone, the ultimate manly ideal.





The rest of the section covers famous cowboy movies, the actual source of most people’s perceptions.

Display cases cover the more famous ones, with big displays of props, clothing, signed posters, and saddles.

Particularly famous actors like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry get cases to themselves.





That leads to an entire room on John Wayne, the ultimate western icon.

Its filled with memorbelia, including part of Wayne’s personal gun collection.

He began his Hollywood career as a bit player on several movies.

In 1937, he worked on a movie for director John Ford.

Ford liked what he saw, and gave Wayne the leading role on his next film, Stagecoach.

The rest is history.

Life on the Frontier

Cowboys were far from the only people roaming the early west.

The museum has an entire section on the daily lives of frontier settlers.

Unlike the mythic version, western life was always difficult and often ended quickly.





The first Europeans to explore the west were trappers and traders.

Both were after beaver pelts, which were in huge demand in Europe and China.

The museum has a wall of preserved pelts, which may frighten vegetarians.

Trappers had to be incredibly self sufficient, living off land for months at a time.

The display has samples of clothes (often self-made), rifles, traps, snowshoes, and other gear.

Traders bought beaver pelts from Indian tribes.

In return, they offered rifles, blankets, and glass beads.





The trappers and explorers were followed by farmers, ranchers, miners, and soldiers.

The last category had the job of protecting the other three from Native Americans.

Life on a frontier outpost consisted of long stretches of boredom and deprivation punctuated with the sheer terror of combat.

Enlisted men, who had to keep the posts running, suffered the worst.

Calvary officers got much better treatment, because the army viewed them as the most skilled and valuable.

The displays have uniforms, saddles, and numerous guns.





The section features many stories from soldier diaries.

Although little known now, officers were allowed to have their families live with them at their outposts.

Many took advantage of the opportunity.

Army wives ended up managing the place, as well as hosting entertainment for the troops.





Once an area became safe enough, it became irresistible to big game hunters.

Certain men loved to hunt and kill large animals, and people viewed the west as containing plenty.

The government partially encouraged them as a strategy to starve Native Americans into submission (see Tourists in a Sacred Land).

Some, like Buffalo Bill, hunted to sell meat to settlers.

Most, however, only wanted trophies and left the dead animals to rot.

The wanton slaughter did have one redeeming result; by the early 1900s enough people were offended by the carnage that they started the conservation movement.





Settlers of the time always ignored the fact that the frontier was already occupied when they arrived.

Native Americans lived on western land for thousands of years before Europeans appeared.

The museum has a section on them, emphasizing the Plains tribes.

It focuses on artwork and crafts, rather than the bitter history (for that, see Tourists in a Sacred Land).

The displays have a large selection of beaded clothing, leather moccasins, and feather headdresses, plus a small sample of Southwestern pottery.

Pride of place goes to an eight foot long headdress of eagle feathers.

Cowboy Art

The museum features a large gallery of “cowboy art”.

The term is defined by a group featured in the gallery called the Cowboy Artists of America.

In practice it means realism based paintings and sculptures on western subjects, and crafts related to cowboy gear.

The leatherwork of the latter is technically impressive.





The painting and sculpture are organized roughly chronologically.

Most feature western landscapes, animals, portraits of cowboys in various environments, or scenes of cowboys on the range.

The early paintings, like the Amon Carter Museum yesterday, feature large numbers from Frederic Remington and Charles Russell.

The newer work features things like a life-size bronze cast of three sitting Native American chiefs.

The sculpture is an amazing technical achievement, but pushes few artistic boundaries.

I ultimately found the recent artwork repetitive for that reason.

Rodeo

The last section I looked at covers the cowboy sport, rodeo.

It started as a way for cowboys to show off their skills to their fellow cowboys.

Some historians believe outsiders became interested in these informal competitions after Buffalo Bill included them in his Wild West show.

Starting in the early 1900s, promoters held formal competitions for money and trophies.

In those days, the money was so low entrants found the trophies more valuable!

Cowboy actor Gene Autry, believe it or not, was one of the largest of the early promoters.

Competitors found it hard to earn a living, so several founded the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1936 to sanction and standardize events.





Although their numbers were small, women competed in early rodeo.

They participated in all events, including dangerous ones like bull riding.

That lasted until the early 1930s, when several participants died competing.

Promoters then stated excluding women from events, eventually relegating them to the sidelines.

The rise of rodeo queens, beauty queens who can ride horses and promote the event, put the nails in coffin.

Several women, most of whom worked day jobs on ranches, then formed their own group to get women competitors back into rodeo.

They have partially succeeded, by getting barrel racing into the standard rodeo lineup.

All other events are still men only, however.





The displays contain a huge selection of memorabilia from early rodeo stars: programs, tickets, saddles, boots, trophies, and so forth.

One area shows videos of memorable competitions.

Panels inside a replica rodeo arena describe the judging system.

For events outside roughstock riders, it’s based on time.

For roughstock, judges score a cowboy’s moves, with riskier ones getting more points.

If they are thrown, though, their score is zero.

A separate score goes to the animal based on how much it bucks.





The section ends with a wall honoring recent champions.

The overall champions in each event every year are based on the total money earned at rodeos around the country.

Some pay significantly more money that others, even for relatively low finishes, and tend to attract the best competitors.

The highest money earner overall, competing in multiple events, gets the title ‘All round Cowboy’.

It’s still very prestigious, even though most rodeo cowboys specialize in a single event these days (and thus aren’t eligible).

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Photos

Cowboy gear
The reality of the working cowboy

End of the Trail
The most reproduced sculpture of the American west

Cowboy clothing
The evolution of cowboy clothing. Many of these items are incredibly rare

Brands
Some famous ranch brands

Historic barb wire
Early attempts to make barb wire

Modern barb wire
A small sampling of modern wire

John Wayne
Memorbelia once owned by John Wayne

Trapper gear
Artifacts from early western trappers

Frontier Calvary
Artifacts from western frontier calvary

Frontier post entertainment
Part of how soldiers entertained themselves at a frontier outpost

Gallery of rodeo champions
Saddles and trophies from early rodeo stars

Rodeo memorbelia
Items from early rodeos