American West « History Rhymes

8Feb/100

Life in Nineteenth Century Mining Towns

Bannack: First Capital of Montana.
Source: Distinctly Montana

One of my biggest fascinations with the Old West is with what life in a Rocky Mountain mining town in nineteenth century would have been like. It would have been a life full of filth, rough characters and hard work combined with drinking, fighting and gambling as pastimes. Of course these are stereotypes of any old Wild West town, but were they really true? What was it that these brave, tough and rough souls did when they weren't working in the mines?

These and other questions will be answered in a new series I am beginning here at History Rhymes. I will be exploring several different mining towns throughout the Rocky Mountains in the coming weeks. Some are still active towns, but many are nothing but ghost towns now. I will explore how people lived, what life was generally like in the towns and I will also give a brief history of how each town came to be and, in the case of some of them, came to pass.

This will be a multi-part series. You will be able to see all of the entries in this series in the Rocky Mountain Mining Towns category which can also be found in the sidebar.

Tagged as: American West, Ghost Towns, Mining, Mining Towns, Rocky Mountains No Comments

3Feb/100

The Johnson County War

TA Ranch Stable - Where the final shootout took place.
Source: Wikipedia

The Johnson County War has gone down in history as one of many Wild West legends about range wars. Some accounts claim various famous gun slingers like Jesse James were involved, however, this was certainly not the case. The real range war occurred in April 1892 and was the result of tensions, brewing between small and large ranchers in Wyoming, finally reaching a critical point.

In the western territories and states of the late nineteenth century, conflicts over land and cattle were not an uncommon occurrence. In Wyoming, the biggest concern of many large ranching operations was the issue of cattle rustling. To prevent this, they took several different preventative measures. Some of the commons ones included forbidding employees from owning their own cattle and harsh punishment of suspected cattle rustlers -- many of whom were small ranchers.

Although already bitter, relations between the large ranchers and small ranchers took a turn for the worst after the harsh winter of 1887-1888. Many cattle died with temperatures of -40 to -50 degrees Fahrenheit common during that season. This harsh winter was preceded by a very hot and dry summer. The larger ranchers took action in their own interests and began to control water flow and forcefully remove small ranchers from their properties.

In retaliation, the small ranchers formed an association to counter the Wyoming Stock Growers' Association (WSGA), which was an organization comprising many different large ranchers and which had quite a bit of political sway in the state. This new association formed by the small ranchers was called the Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers' Association (NWFSGA).

In 1892, the WSGA took extreme action against the smaller ranchers and their association. They hired a group of twenty-three gunmen from Paris, Texas led by Frank Wolcott and four cattle detectives from the WSGA. This group of men was supposed to serve a dual purpose: killing suspected cattle rustlers and eliminating the NWFSGA. Others associated with the WSGA also joined, eventually making a total 50 men who were to perform these tasks. They were led by Frank Canton, a former sheriff of Johnson County.

The group of men who invaded Johnson County.
Source: Wikipedia

The first target by the gunmen was a small rancher by the name of Nate Champion who was very active in the organization of an association of small ranchers to compete with the WSGA. His ranch, the KC Ranch, became the first battleground of the Johnson County War. On the night of April 8, 1982, the group traveled to Nate's ranch and waited until daybreak. Two travelers who were staying overnight at the KC Ranch were the first victims when emerged from the house to get water. They were promptly shot. A third traveler, Nick Ray, was shot while standing in the door of the cabin and he died a few hours later.

Nate Champion remained inside the cabin for some time, all the while keeping a detailed journal. Eventually the group set fire to the cabin, forcing Nate out. They immediately gunned him down, pinning a note to him which said "Cattle Thieves Beware." Two passer-byers noticed the commotion and a local rancher, Jack Flagg, rode to Buffalo, Wyoming to report it. There the sheriff and a posse of 200 men were gathered set out the next day on the trail of the WSGA group.

TA Ranch -- Where the final standoff took place.
Source: Wikipedia

The sheriff and his posse finally caught up to the WSGA group at the TA Ranch on April 11, 1982 -- two days after Nate Champion was murdered. The WSGA group took shelter in a stable (see image at the top). Three of the WSGA men were killed when trying to escape while another was successful and contacted the acting Governor of Wyoming the next day. After attempts to save the WSGA group, the acting Governor telegraphed President Benjamin Harrison for help on April 12, 1892. The telegraph, which was published in The New York Times on April 14th, read as follows:

About sixty-one owners of live stock are reported to have made an armed expedition into Johnson County for the purpose of protecting their live stock and preventing unlawful roundups by rustlers. They are at ‘T.A.’ Ranch, thirteen miles from Fort McKinney, and are besieged by Sheriff and posse and by rustlers from that section of the country, said to be two or three hundred in number. The wagons of stockmen were captured and taken away from them and it is reported a battle took place yesterday, during which a number of men were killed. Great excitement prevails. Both parties are very determined and it is feared that if successful will show no mercy to the persons captured. The civil authorities are unable to prevent violence. The situation is serious and immediate assistance will probably prevent great loss of life.

President Harrison responded by ordering the United States Secretary of War Stephen B. Elkins to address the situation. Elkins sent out the Sixth Calvary who were stated at Fort McKinney, a short distance from Buffalo, to intervene. The Sixth Calvary reached the TA Ranch on April 13th and both the sheriff's posse and the WSGA group surrendered to the calvary detachment.

Although the situation was resolved, tensions continued to run high for many years. A good description of some of the chaos which ensued can be read in this New York Times article which was published on April 23, 1892. The WSGA group was imprisoned after the standoff at TA Ranch, but the members were never tried and all of them were released shortly after their arrest.

Tagged as: American West, Cheyenne, Johnson County, Ranchers, Wyoming No Comments

7May/092

Wyoming Territorial Prison

Well, the internship that I was going to start at the Wyoming Territorial Prison Museum fell through unfortunately, but I am going to write about it anyway.

Wyoming Territorial Prison in the 19th century

Located in Laramie, Wyoming, the Wyoming Territorial Prison was the result of the need for a penitentiary for convicted felons after Wyoming became a territory of the United States. Legislation for the creation of a prison in Laramie, Wyoming was approved in 1869. With federal funding, the prison was opened two years later in 1871 with a total of 42 cells. When Wyoming became a state in 1890, the prison officially became the Wyoming State Penitentiary. During the facility's 30 year run as a prison, it held notorious prisoners such as Butch Cassidy and Dan Parker. In 1892, a broom factory was built within the stockades of the prison in which prisoners would make brooms.

In 1903, prisoners were transferred to the new prison in Rawlins, Wyoming. At this point, the University of Wyoming, also located in Laramie, began using the old facility as an experimental stock farm. It was not until 1989 that restoration began and the prison was converted into a museum which opened to the public in 1991.

For more information about the Prison Museum, visit their website.

Tagged as: American West, Butch Cassidy, Prison, Wild West, Wyoming 2 Comments

24Aug/082

Who were the real cowboys? (Part 5)

Life on the cattle trail in the late 19th century was often monotonous and boring, however, there were also times that were quite exciting and dangerous. Chief among the many dangers that the cowboys had to face on a regular basis were Indians, thieves and stampedes.

Cowboys 'n' Indians

Indian raids were certainly among the most prominent concerns of the 19th century cowboy. The image portrayed to us by fictional westerns of Indians swooping down from nearby mesas and hill-tops, killing everyone in their path is only partially true in terms of devastation, although it was usually far less dramatic than portrayed by the movies. Some trails, such as the Chisholm trail, that ran from Texas to Kansas followed a route through Indian Territory, or the modern day Oklahoma. Cowboys who drove their cattle down these trails ran the great risk of Indian attack. Rather than always brutally attack the driving parties, Indians would also take to other tactics to try to dissuade cowboys from driving their cattle through their territory. Often times the Indians were the cause behind other such trail calamities such as stealing cattle or even worse: causing a stampede.

Different brand types

Of course the Indians were not the only cattle thieves on the trail. White, black and Mexican bandits were also responsible for cyphering cattle from herds being driven on any trail. Theft of cattle indeed was such a problem that the practice of branding the cattle became commonplace amongst cowboys and ranchers alike. The symbol branded on the cattle varied based on which ranch the cattle came from. Designs for symbols ranged from elegant to very simple -- often times just the initials of the owner of the ranch the cattle were originally from. Branding the cattle also made it far easier to recover cattle who sometimes ran great distances during a stampede by allowing the cowboys to distinguish them from either wild cattle or another rancher’s cattle in the event that they should mix with other cattle.

A Stampeded Herd

Stampedes were another major concern of the cowboys. During a stampede, the cattle would run en masse, which not only made them difficult to round up again after the stampede had ended, but also presented a grave danger to the personal safety of the cowboys themselves. A stampede could easily be triggered by even the slightest thing. A single cow could step on a twig causing it to snap, the cow would panic and run, not knowing what made the noise. The other cows would quickly follow suit, assuming that if that cow had been frightened by something, they do not want to deal with it. A cowboy in the way of a stampeding herd was in terrible danger as the panicked herd would not stop or even bother to go around the cowboy -- even if the cowboy was mounted on his horse. If all was well and no one had been maimed or killed by the stampede, the cowboys would then have to round up all of the cattle which could take several days.

As full of danger and excitement as the cattle drive might have been, it was indeed a short-lived phenomenon. By the 1890’s -- only about 30 years after the first large drives began -- most of the open range had all but disappeared and the cattle drive was suffocated by the quickly encroaching ranches. Ranchers began using barbed wire to mark their property and to prevent large herds from being driven through them. Another chapter of American history had closed.

Other parts of this series

Tagged as: American West, Cattle, Cow Towns, Drives, History 2 Comments

21Aug/080

How Railroads took the ‘Wild’ out of the West

While I'm finishing up some other articles for History Rhymes (such as the 5th installment of the "Who were the real cowboys?" series...finally), I found a good article about how the railroads took the wild out of the wild west. It was a very interesting read actually about the development of the railroads in the west and the element of stability and civilization it brought to the previously uncivilized west.

The article is from HistoryNet.com and can be found here: http://www.historynet.com/how-railroads-took-the-wild-out-of-the-west.htm.

Tagged as: American West, History, Railroads, Wild West No Comments

13Jun/080

Who were the real cowboys? (Part 4)

In the late 19th century, the combination of high demand for beef in the eastern United States and the lack of railroads or really any kind of infrastructure in the west was the cause for a unique phenomenon west. The western ranchers in states such as Texas and Wyoming needed to find a way to bring their cattle to the eastern markets. The best way was the cattle drive.

The first large cattle drive took place in 1866. A rancher in Texas and a group of hired cowhands attempted to drive a large herd of cattle with several thousand head from the ranch in Texas to the nearest railroad point in Sedalia, Missouri. The goal was to then ship the cattle by railroad to meat packing plants in Chicago and other eastern cities, however, because Missouri was already “settled” state, the Missourians objected to the large herd being driven through their farms and towns. The drive was not successful. The rancher was forced to sell his cattle at a loss and return to Texas.

The next year saw a new railroad head open in Abilene, Kansas. Texas ranchers took the first drive as an example and chose to drive their cattle to Abilene instead. This time they were successful. A total of about 36,000 head of cattle were driven to Abilene in 1867 and the trail they took from Texas to Abilene would eventually come to be known as the Chisholm Trail. In following years the trail was expanded to reach another new railroad head in Dodge City, Kansas to accommodate the escalating number of cattle making their way to Abilene and Dodge City. In 1877, 500,000 head of cattle were driven to Abilene and Dodge City.

For cowboys, life on the cattle trail was often brutal. They had no shelter other than what their hats could provide and the food they had to eat was often marginal at best. A quote from James H. Cook sums up the cowboys’ life on the trail:

On the trail we were each allowed to take a pair of bed blankets and a sack containing a little extra clothing...We had no tents or shelter of any sort other than our blankets.

On a drive, cowboys would spend everyday for two months in the saddle and would often drive a herd of about 3,000 head of cattle as far as 15 to 20 miles a day. A drive team would generally consist of ten cowboys -- one of which was usually the rancher and in charge, a cook with a chuckwagon and a horse wrangler, who looked after the remuda, or spare horses. Each cowboy would need at least three horses. The younger and less experienced cowboys were generally made to ride behind the herd where the most dust would be kicked up.

While on the trail, the cook was considered king. While he may not have been necessarily in charge, only the dumbest of cowboys would do anything to irritate him. As the title implies, the cook was in charge of the food and cooking, however, he generally also had a basic knowledge of medicine and was in charge of the chuckwagon. The chuckwagon hauled supplies for the cowboys such as food, an extra change of clothes, bedrolls, tools that could not be carried on the horse such as shovels, and anything else needed by the team. Chuckwagons were usually pulled by a team of oxen contradictory to how most are depicted today.

Life on the trail was often boring, but there were times it could also be quite exciting and even dangerous. Cowboys were constantly faced with many dangers on the trail that several didn’t survive.

Part 5

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Tagged as: American West, Cattle, Drives, History No Comments

12Jun/080

Who were the real cowboys? (Part 3)

The image of the American cowboy as we perceive it today was created in the 19th century, particularly in the postbellum period, or the period after the Civil War. After the war, many soldiers from both the Union and the Confederate sides had difficulties finding jobs in the east despite the South's infrastructure laying in ruins and the process of Reconstruction just beginning. Freed slaves were also seeking opportunities to take advantage of their newly won freedom and many of them found it in the west.

Large herds of cattle and the promise of a new start away from the memories of the war drove many people west. Jobs were easy to come across as large cattle ranches were founded in Texas, among other places, and cowhands were needed to keep the cattle in line before the invention of barbed wire fencing. The easiest way to perform this task over the arid span of the vast ranches was the tried and true method of the horse-mounted Mexican vaqueros.

The vaqueros, and subsequently the American cowboys, used practical tools and clothing for their jobs. Examples that we are all familiar with today include the wide-brimmed cowboy hat, which was used to block the sun, rain and other elements, the bandana, which was used to cover their mouths and to avoid inhaling the huge amounts dust kicked up by cattle, and leather chaps, which were used to protect the cowboys’ legs when spending long hours in the saddle. The typical leather boots worn by the cowboys had a pointed tip, a tall top and high heel. They had a pointed tip to allow for easy entry into the stirrup, the tall top was to protect the lower leg where the chaps were their weakest and the high heel was the prevent the foot from slipping through the stirrup when standing. Other tools such as the lariat, spurs and the branding iron were also common. The lariat was used to rope cattle while mounted on a horse, the spurs were used for better control of the horse while the cowboys’ hands were busy with the lariat and the branding iron was used to burn an identifying mark on the cattle so others knew they belonged to a specific ranch and/or rancher.

Cowboys were also needed in the west to bring the cattle to market. Ranchers in the west tried their best to meet the high demand for beef in the eastern states, however, the infrastructure in the west was almost non-existent in the 19th century, which meant the cattle had to be driven on foot to the nearest railroad head. The cattle drive was born and the legend of the heroic cowboy was soon to follow.

Part 4

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Tagged as: American West, History No Comments

7Jun/080

Who were the real cowboys? (Part 2)

The history of the cowboy is a story that begins long ago. What we now think of as a uniquely American tradition is not solely American at all. Cowboy tradition first originated in mediæval Spain with the hacienda, or estate. The haciendas belonged to wealthy landowners and were generally, but not always, located on vast cattle ranches. Because of the dry climate on the Iberian Peninsula (and subsequently the dry climate of Mexico and the American southwest), a huge amount of land was required to sustain a herd of cattle due to lack of water and of sufficient forage. The need to traverse these large cattle ranches gave birth to the tradition of cattle herding on horseback. Thus the vaquero (literally, cow-man) was born.

When the Spanish conquistadores, or conquerors, arrived on the North American continent in the fifteenth century and later colonized what is now Mexico and the southwestern United States, they brought with them this tradition as well as cattle and horses. Horses had disappeared in North America long before the arrival of the Spanish at the end of the prehistoric ice age. The cattle they brought with them would eventually evolve into today's Texas Longhorn cattle (see the picture on the right).

The vaqueros evolved further in North America bringing into it traditions from the natives as well as adaptations to the new climate of the new continent. One such difference is that in North America, the vaqueros tended to be of native origin while the hacendados (owners of the haciendas) tended to be of Spanish origin. The Mexican vaqueros were hired by the hacendados to drive cattle between New Mexico and Mexico city and later between Texas and Mexico City.

In the eighteenth century, the first English-speaking traders and settlers began trickling westward from what would become the United States. The beginning of trade between Mexico and the United States also brought with it a trade in culture and language. In 1821, the first group of American settlers arrived in Texas under the leadership of Stephen F. Austin. The group wanted to take advantage of the cattle free for the taking in Texas. By that time, the Texas Longhorn had become a feral group and had multiplied until its numbers swelled. The new arrivals turned to the Mexican tradition of the vaquero to help them in their undertaking.

By the 1840's, the Santa Fe trail leading from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico was a well-established and well-used route for traders and settlers alike. The route would later be used by the American Army of the West during the Mexican-American War in their quest to capture New Mexico for the United States. All along the trail, the Americans encountered the Mexican vaqueros and soon began to adopt the vaquero tradition in their own manner. Thus, the American cowboy was born.

Part 3

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Tagged as: American West, History, Mexico, Spain, Texas, Vaqueros No Comments

6Jun/080

Who were the real cowboys? (Part 1)

"Always drink upstream from the herd."

That was the advice of just one of hundreds of anonymous cowboys of the 19th century. While many of us are familiar with romanticized cowboys such as those played by John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in western films, many of us do not know much about the real cowboys, what their lives were like on and off the cattle drive tails or what they even did. This series aims to enlighten those who do not know much about the real cowboys.

The cowboy image as we have come to know and love today has by and large been romanticized by legend and fiction. Movies, books and other forms of fiction pertaining to the cowboy theme became so popular so quickly around the turn of the last century that they gave birth to a genre of story-telling known as the western genre. The first western films were created as early as 1903 (The Great Train Robbery), but they were not produced en masse until much later. In the 1950's and 1960's, Hollywood began producing what we tend to think of as stereotypical westerns with such stars as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. The films and television series produced led to several more genres branched out from the original western genre. An example of one such genre is the "spaghetti western," which are westerns based in the 19th century American west, but produced in Italy.

These films tended to make the lone and nameless cowboy an unsung hero willing to do whatever it takes for good to triumph over evil. Other common western themes revolved around settlers' struggles against the native Indian population, land controversies, the hunt for gold and hunting down outlaws, to name only a few. Somehow the heroic cowboy is involved in all of these problems.

But is this how cowboys actually lived? While it might make an entertaining story, it bears little to no resemblance to how the real cowboys lived and worked.

Part 2

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Tagged as: American West, Clint Eastwood, History, John Wayne, Westerns No Comments

1Jun/080

Death and the Navajos

The Navajos struck fear into every person living in the American southwest since the first Spanish settlements until the American conquest of the southwest in the mid-nineteenth century. Their raids on the small villages and towns of present day New Mexico and Arizona were constant and were always devastating. The devastation, however, was generally not in human life, but rather in terms of lost property. Villagers lost most of their flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and horses to the Navajo raids, but rarely were human lives the target of the Navajos' ambitions.

Though they were feared, the Navajos did not generally have a reputation for being a great warrior tribe. The reason for this is that they traditionally had a cultural phobia of death, which is quite detrimental to a warrior-based society. When a person died inside one of their dwellings -- generally a hogan made of mud and wood -- the body had to be removed by bashing a hole in the wall at the point that it faced north and then by dragging the body out of the hole. The hogan then had to be destroyed otherwise its inhabitants would be plagued by the spirit of the deceased and by other evil spirits. Such spirits were believed to upset the delicate balance of nature and wreck havoc upon the living. The Navajos also believed that the presence of death led to witchcraft and other such unwanted entities.

One type of witch that the Navajos feared were called the "Yeenaaldlooshii", or "skinwalkers." According to Hampton Sides in his book Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West,

The Navajos believed in a class of witches called "skinwalkers" who were said to put on wolf pelts and dig up graves. The skinwalkers could be seen prowling around at night on all fours -- they had pallid white faces and red glowing eyes and chanted holy prayers backward to invoke evil deities. They desecrated graves and stole funerary trinkets and jewelry. They removed the dead person's flesh and ground it up to make a lethal poison called "corpse powder," which the skinwalkers blew into people's faces, giving them the "ghost sickness." Even a fingernail paring or a strand of hair from a dead person could be used by a skinwalker to perform diabolical things.

According the Navajo legend, skinwalkers also have the ability to make any animal or human sounds they choose, they can read human thoughts and they can imitate the voice of a friend or relatives to lure innocent victims into their traps. It is also believed that skinwalkers have the ability to take over another person's body if the unfortunate victim is careless enough to look at the skinwalker directly in the eyes.

Tagged as: American West, Death, History, Native Americans, Navajos, Raids, Southwest No Comments

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