Where do our cowboy roots come from?

[Two Spurs]

A few of those who play our game are real cowboys.  Some of us have run cows with a feed sack.  Some admire them from a truck or car window. Where do our roots come from?

 

Why do we like the idea of playing the game we do? Gene, Roy, John Wayne, Lonesome Dove, raised on a ranch?   I think most of you out there will get a smile from this short 7 minute video from Walt Disney that my wife found, showing what a small boy dreams of about being a cowboy. It covers it all. (Gun Fighters will get an extra smile out of it! ) 

 

 

Two Spurs (getting older)

 

 

[Carolina Drifter]

Growing up watching old Westerns with my dad.  John Wayne & Clint Eastwood big inspirations of course they seemed to always be our favorites although there are many great films.  Running around outside as a kid with the old cast toy cowboy pop guns wearing a little cowboy hat playing cowboys and Indians with my cousins.  When I got a bit older being introduced to real firearms and shooting those .22 LR Colt's and Ruger Single Six's.  So a Single Action "cowboy" gun just always felt right.  Something I get to enjoy with my father and hope to one day be able to enjoy with my son also.

[HossMunny]

Yessir!!!!  Growing up working cattle and having a farm.  It's just something you have in your blood.  

Great cartoon.  Fighting bad guys, good vs. evil, self-less service without desire for reward, cherishing life, respect and saving women????  Can you imagine what life would be like today if kids were still taught these things?  

[HossMunny]

Here's another good-un!!!!

 

 

[Texas Lizard]

Saturday B westerns...Silent and talkies...Late night movies on the TV...Along with wrestling and roller derby...

 

Texas Lizard

[Jimmy Reb, SASS #54804]

Zane Grey and Louis L'amour.

[Jimmy Reb, SASS #54804]

dbl tap

[Guest Grass Range #51406]

I was born into it and still have the ranch I grew up on. Right now it is snowed in and no way to get hay out

[Goody, SASS #26190]

Believe this about says it for me..........

 

 

[Shotgun Willie Nelson]

44 minutes ago, Goody, SASS #26190 said:

Believe this about says it for me..........

I resemble that remark!

[Lawman Mays]

As a young boy, my father decorated my bedroom walls with wallpaper that was full of guns. I guess that's where it all started. Then, watching western TV shows and movies. I always liked lever action rifles. I enjoyed the stories of western lawmen like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Heck Thomas, Bill Tighlman, etc. I always liked the guns of the 19th century period and still do, just so cool. And now, I get to own them, shoot them, caress them, love them . . .  well, you get the idea.

[Westwood Willie]

About 6 yrs old, 1950, Mom would make hamburgers and we would set the card table up right in front of the 12" BW tv at 6:00 on Sunday night and watch Hopalong Cassidy. Then there was Wild Bill Hickock, Roy Rogers, Cisco Kid, Long Ranger and many others from back then.

Even from Ohio came a Cowboy. My email from the 90's started with wild_bill and still is.

WW

[Hashknife Cowboy]

Just raised in the AZ, immediate family came to AZ in 1953 from Texas.   Family settled in West Texas in the 1880 after arriving here from Spain and Italy.  Great Grandpa Santini repaired mining machinery in southern AZ and traded with the Apaches in the late 1800's and horses, cattle and guns have always been part of our life.   Its just who we are.....God bless Vaqueros and Cowboys......cowgirls too.

 

And yes I was raised on westerns....

[Mustang Gregg]

 

I reckon I come by "acting cowboy" from my grandparents and parents. 

Grandpa was an honest to goodness cowboy and had a large Hereford herd.

Dad had Angus cattle until just recently.

And I grew up riding, sorting, round ups, and all.

In the '70's & '80's, even I had a small herd of Angus & BWF cattle.

And I really miss that life.

 

I'll post a pic of Grandpa and his horsemanship later.

 

Mustang

 

 

[Hoss]

Thanks for sharing the cartoon Spurs. that was great!

 

When I was a kid we kept and showed horses. Until I was about 15 if it did not have a mane & tali I did not care nothing about it. (then I discovered girls!!!!)  My dad and I loved to watch the westerns. Gunsmoke, Big Vallley, Rawhide, Wagon Train, and of course Bonanza. My dad always called me.....you guessed it.... HOSS! 

 

He would have loved this game. Wish I could have shared it with him. 

[Wapaloosie73]

The roots of our cowboy culture come from Spain originally. Europeans and Africans heading west into the vast open spaces picked up the Mexican Vaquero way of working livestock and horsemanship. And eventually so did the Indians...... Saddles started sporting horns to anchor livestock via rope. The rest is history.

 

By 1900 the old west was dead.....but it lived on in Hollywood on the silver screen and in dime novels and our own imaginations..... and this is why even today it lives on through us. We keep the flame of its memory alive. And so does many other groups. Dude ranches, Outfitters, Blank fire reenactors, Cowboy Airsoft (shameless plug) Rodeo cowboys and cowgirls, Ranchers, Working cowboys....

 

Its important and by far away the most romanized era of US History.

[Springfield Slim SASS #24733]

Funny how the Disney film says a Cowboy needs a horse, song, hat, boots and fancy spurs, but never mentioned the six shooters. They just magically appear and get used in every scenario. It was just a given and didn't have to be mentioned, because everybody knew without the guns the rest was just window dressing? I guess people had more sense back then, in 1956, the year I was born.

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

My first interest was all about the Dress Up! Guns were fun; but not number one. (Rhyme intended.)

[Sixgun Sheridan]

My dad got a job out here and drove the family across the country from back east when I was just 8 years old. We stopped by Yellowstone along the way, and my parents bought me a red cowboy hat and a pair of cap gun six-shooters. Somewhere my mom still has a picture of me wearing that hat and pair of pistols watching Old Faithful. I guess that's when and where the addiction started.

[Creeker, SASS #43022]

Im originally from Michigan. 

Lots of hard working honest folks; but most were more likely to have ridden to work on a Harley than a horse.

I grew up with hunters and race car drivers, factory workers and pig farmers.

My baby pictures were taken with me inside a Grand National stock car.

I didn't know any cowboys. 

I grew up after John Wayne was gone and Eastwood was already Dirty Harry.

Sure I watched Gunsmoke and Bonanza on TV with my Grandpa; but we also watched Rockford Files and Barnaby Jones.

I could have just as easily become an elderly decrepit detective as a cowboy.

 

But then one time my Grandpa's brother, Uncle Rault came to visit. 

UncleRault was from California; owned a ranch and always dressed the part. 

Shiny boots, big hat and he always carried a gun. 

I heard adventures about mountain lions, exploring unseen wilderness and randomly sleeping under the stars (bear in mind, in Michigan most of the year, sleeping under the stars generally meant you would wake up as a popsicle).

I fell in love with the idea of being a cowboy at that moment and "almost" everything that being a cowboy included (still not a big fan of horses).

I practiced gun spinning with my Hubley cap guns until I wore blisters on my trigger finger.  

My first handgun was a Ruger Bearcat, that I begged my mom to buy me at age nine from the Osco hardware. 

 

Looking back; I don't see how I could have ever ended up anyplace different than I have arrived.

[Charlie Whiskers]

  My grandparents (Dad's side) came to the US from Sweden in 1910 through Ellis Island. Both were raised on farms there. Grand dad had a brother that owned a small butcher shop in Chicago so that was their 2nd stop in the US. He worked with his brother for a couple of years to raise the money for a train ticket west. In 1912 he got on the Great Northern and headed west. He got off of the train in a small town (Bowdoin, Mt. had both city limits on one post) and went to work for the RR until he raised money enough to homestead a farm north of Bowdoin. That was in 1913.

  They raised 6 kids along with cattle, pigs, chickens and grain everything was done by horse and sweat. They got the 1st tractor in 45 when my uncle Vern came home from WW2. My oldest aunt got married and they farmed about 5 miles from my grandparents. I lived in the same city where I am now. I spent pretty much every summer from the early 50's at both farms with them and my cousins. That's where I learned to ride a horse, round up cattle and help with the branding. Later on with the combining too. I learned to shoot, hunt and respect all guns from my Dad and uncles. I got my 1st pair of cowboy boots, a hat and cap guns when I was maybe 5 or 6. I shot my 1st deer, duck and goose when I was 12.

  My uncle Carl had come back to the farm after years of being a logger in western Mt. in the late 60's and pretty much took over running the farm. He eventually (at 77) decided it was time to quit farming and sold the whole lot in 2003. By then we had 2100 acres, mostly in grain. He asked me if I wanted to take over the farm rather than sell it. I had just moved back from Mn. after 32 years 30 of that with the phone company, and bought a house where I am now. Farming had changed a lot in 30+years.

  I never knew much about my Mother's side of the family. They were a strange lot. She was raised in Kansas and Missouri by her grandparents. Her dad walked out and farmed in Nebraska. My Great Granddad was a US Marshall in the Oklahoma Indian territory up until the early 1900's. I was named after him. Past that her side is a mystery.

  Pretty much like the rest I grew up on TV and Movie westerns. Roy, Rex Allen, Lash LaRue, Lone Ranger etc...never cared much for Gene.... Gunsmoke and All day westerns at the theater for 25 cents. That's about what started me shooting CAS. Old era guns and playing cowboy again.

[Aggie Bill]

Just remember playing cowboys and indians with my brothers and watching all the cowboy shows on TV. My 2nd great grandfather Larkin D Secrest, was elected City Marshal in Weimer, Texas in 1875 until 1880, before and after that time he was a carpenter. That's why I choose to shot in Columbus, Texas. I only wish I had his guns, have no clue what became of them.

[Two Spurs]

My grandfather raised cows back in the early 1900's around Flatonia, Texas but died in 1957- the year before i was born.  Woulda been nice to talk with him about things.

 

For me- 7th grade (1971) had "Career Day" films about once a month. Steel mill, timber industry, other stuff, ...........a working cattle ranch in Montana! The hook was set! Ended up with cattle on and off starting as an early teenager with my dad. Dropped that in the early 90's.  The westerns were a default watching of course and continues to this day!

 

Still love everything about ranching to this day, even though it's mostly memories.  Our game is the best!

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

I grew up listening to stories. told by my Grandfather, of his father, who was born in 1862, and drove cows up the trail from Texas, in the late 1870's and 80's.  I think my Great-Grandfather started to cowboy when he was 14, or 15.   Also, back when I was a kid, and we finally got a t.v. set,  we had a lot of westerns on t.v., as well as at the movies, and also we had lots of toy cap pistols to choose from...which would be so very not "proper" today.  "You can tell it's Mattel, it's swell!"  My Grandfather had a small place, about 150 acres, that he had cows on, and we would ride down into the "bottom", as he called it, and gather them up and head them to the location he fed them.  So I grew up around cows, and horses, and real stories of the cowboy.  My Great Uncle also had a Colt single action revolver, that was used in a gunfight, back in 1890.  He would let me look at it, and hold it.  I looked up the serial number, and it was shipped in the 1880's.  So, in my case, I grew up around rodeos, and ranch life, and stories, and even real, first generation Colt's.

Of course, much later, I read that the first cowboys were native Americans that were taught to herd cattle by the Spanish friars, after the Spanish came over and brought horses with them.  So...sort of ironically, the first American cowboys, were American "Indians".

Having been stationed in Europe, for a couple of years, while in the military, I can tell you, the Europeans are really taken with the American cowboy, and all that goes with it, thanks to the movies, books, and television.  So, the American cowboy is beloved the world over, even though it may surely be the American cowboy of the imagination.     

 

My Two Bits.

W.K. 

[Medicine Creek Johnny]

Third generation Cowman. Just can’t quit. It must be a sickness

[watab kid]

in 1956 my uncle had a farm and i spent summers there working chores as best i could but that was not being the 'cowboy' of my dreams , he did not have horses , i was reflecting on the financial issues of those times and think that 10k reward musta looked like a 'million dollars' back then , at least to kids that grew up like me , thanks all for posting the links ill spend a bit of time on these , so of its probably not PC to the young but most of us that remember these are not all that PC ---just gentlemen to the ladies in our upbringing , 

[Pat Riot]

My “cowboy” roots...

 

When I was a kid I watched Westerns like they were instruction movies on “how to be a man, how to act like a man, how to treat a Lady, how to work hard and provide for your family, and how not to be (bad guys)”. I didn’t care much for the B -Westerns or Roy Rogers type shows or movies but I watched anyway. I was more into John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. I liked Randolph Scott too.

 

When I became a teen I lost interest in being “Cowboy” but I would sooner watch a Westen than go to a rock concert.

 

Later in life I tried to be like my friends with all their tactical guns and gear but lever actions and six-guns were my thing. Even when I was shooting tactical matches I always thought, how cool would this be with cowboy guns.

 

One day in 1996 I heard a radio news blurb about this thing called the End of Trail just 60 miles away in Norco. I was there Saturday morning with my wife in tow checking out everything. I was hooked! I even got to put 40 rounds through a Gatling gun. 

 

It took me a while to get my guns together but a year later I was shooting at a Cowboy Action match in Yucaipa, CA. I grinned so much I think I pulled some muscles in my face.

 

By the way Sixgun Sheridan, I had me a red cowboy hat ad a pair of shiny silver six shooters when I was a little kid too.  

[Sgt. Chesty SASS # 73317]

My great grandfather was born in Southern Utah and moved to Arizona as a child. He spent much of his life in that part of the country. He did not marry until he was in his 40's and eventually moved his family to Idaho to farm. My grandfather was born in a covered wagon in the 20's as they moved to Idaho, this was on the Bannock Reservation. They eventually ended up ranching and farming in Montana. I own my great grandfathers Model 95 Winchester. My father was the first to join SASS in the late 80's. I found the game in 2005. 

 

Here is a picture of my great grandfather prior to 1900 when he was still a working cowboy.

[Marshal Hangtree]

When I was a kid (late 50's) we would occasionally spend the weekend at my grandparents farm in rural Chilton County, Alabama.  They had no cattle or horses, just chickens, hogs, cotton, and peach trees.  On Saturday nights the world stood still while Pappaw and I sat in his chair and watched Gunsmoke on his old B&W TV.  No one was allowed to interrupt or make any noise while Matt was on the screen.  Fond memories.  I've been a cowboy fan ever since.

[MizPete]

1) Parents bought me a blue suede Dale Evans skirt & vest with white fringe.

2) Watching Gunsmoke with my dad.

3) Playing cowboy with the kids on the block.

4) Husband (already shooting CAS) said I needed to go watch.  I was taken in and treated like royalty.

[Sixgun Sheridan]

On 3/7/2018 at 9:17 AM, Springfield Slim SASS #24733 said:

Funny how the Disney film says a Cowboy needs a horse, song, hat, boots and fancy spurs, but never mentioned the six shooters. They just magically appear and get used in every scenario. It was just a given and didn't have to be mentioned, because everybody knew without the guns the rest was just window dressing? I guess people had more sense back then, in 1956, the year I was born.

 

One thing that has always annoyed me is how the character of Woody in Toy Story wears a holster but there's no gun inside it. PC at it's most blatant.