The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955 Page: 221
650 p. : ill., maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Cowboy in His Home State
frontier communities. The early statistical reports concerning the
industry were reprinted in newspapers farther removed from the
scene; then, later, as the reporters themselves became more fa-
miliar with events and the people involved, their vivid descrip-
tions of cowboy life and escapades appeared with remarkable
rapidity in some of the leading newspapers in the country. Curious
editors were no longer satisfied with reprints; they sent their own
men westward to get firsthand information of this spectacular
rangeland drama, and in a short time these too succumbed to the
spell of the cowboy. The accounts that filled column after column
in their respective sheets both extolled and deplored life on the
open range, and always, as in the case of the critics on the frontier,
the cowboy was the particular target.
Since we are assuming, as the title of this paper suggests, that
all this started in Texas, what, then, did the frontier journalist in
the 'Seventies say about the Texas cowboy? Here is one of the
earliest accounts:
The "Cow-Boys" [notice spelling] of Texas are a peculiar breed. They
are distinct in their habits and characteristics from the remainder of
even the Texan population as if they belonged to another race. The
Lipan and Comanche are not more unlike the civilized white man
than is the nomadic herdsman to the Texan who dwells in the city or
cultivates the plains.'
A few years later a correspondent for the Baxter Springs (Kan-
sas) Times paid a visit to Fort Worth, which he considered a good
place to observe the peculiar product of frontier life, and summed
him up as follows:
He comes here from his home on the plains to spend his money at the
saloons, swagger in the streets, buy himself a new sombrero ..., and
make merry with the painted syrens [sic] of the variety theater. Full
of strange oaths, free with his cash and his revolver, boisterous, lawless,
but not hard-hearted, the cow-boy is a character sui generis. ... [He]
is altogether the most free and independent fellow to be found in this
peculiarly free and independent country.2
In a feature article for the Fortnightly Review in 188o, William
Baillie-Groham characterized the cowboy in general and the Texan
in particular:
1"Texas Cow Boys," Ellsworth (Kansas) Reporter, August 28, 1873.
2"The Texas Cow-Boy," The Times (Baxter Springs, Kansas), July 3, 1879.221
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955, periodical, 1955; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101158/m1/262/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.