170 Fun Facts About Cowboy

In Spanish, vaquero is built on the word vaca, meaning what?

Cow: Spanish vaca plus the trade suffix -ero gives vaquero, the mounted herder, and English-speaking cowhands later bent that word into 'buckaroo'.

The vaquero traditions behind the American cowboy trace back to Spanish settlers from which region?

Andalusia, in southern Spain, had a tradition of working cattle from horseback that its settlers carried to Mexico, where it grew into the craft of the vaquero.

In 1598 Juan de Oñate's colonists drove their wagons and herds into New Mexico across which river?

The Rio Grande was forded in spring 1598, just after Oñate formally claimed New Mexico for Spain; his colonists' road north carried the Camino Real, the royal road from Mexico City, deep into New Mexico.

In the British Isles, long before the American West, the word 'cowboy' described whom?

A boy tending the family cows was the first 'cowboy': the word is recorded in English from the 1720s, more than a century before it came to mean a mounted cattle hand of the American plains.

Besides about ten cowboys, a typical Texas trail-drive crew included a cook and which other specialist?

A wrangler joined the cook to round out the crew: he herded the outfit's spare mounts, so that every rider could swap a tired horse for a fresh one through the day.

Barred from many rodeos as a Black man, Bill Pickett was often entered as what?

A Native American: Pickett was often billed as an Indian so he could compete against white cowboys, yet in 1972 the sport that had shut him out made him the first Black honoree in its national hall of fame.

Which Kansas town became the main railhead for Texas herds after Joseph McCoy built stockyards there in 1867?

Abilene, Kansas, drew some 35,000 Texas cattle in 1867 after dealer Joseph McCoy built stockyards beside the new railway and advertised them across Texas; the trail there took the name Chisholm.

Missouri and Kansas turned back Texas trail herds because the Longhorns carried which pest, whose fever killed local cattle?

Ticks on the Longhorns spread Texas fever: the Texas cattle shrugged it off, but local herds died after a drive passed, so quarantine lines kept pushing the trails farther west.

On a cattle drive, the herd of spare horses was known as what?

The remuda, from a Spanish word for an exchange, was the herd of spare saddle horses: riders swapped tired mounts for fresh ones through the day, which is why each man needed several.

Besides the food, what else was the trail cook in charge of, making him a respected figure?

Medical supplies and medicine rode in the cook's chuckwagon, and he doctored the crew as well as feeding it; a good trail cook drew about twice a cowhand's pay.

Samuel Maverick, the Texan said to be behind the word 'maverick', famously neglected which ranch chore?

Branding his calves was the chore Samuel Maverick let slide, so the story goes; an unmarked stray came to be called a maverick and, by range custom, belonged to whoever put a brand on it first.

The chuckwagon was built from a Civil War surplus wagon made by which manufacturer?

Goodnight built his chuckwagon on a Studebaker wagon, a sturdy Civil War army-surplus model; the South Bend firm later became famous for automobiles.

The sombrero is thought to take its name from 'sombra', the Spanish word for what?

Shade is what the sombrero's wide brim was built to cast; Mexican vaqueros carried the style north, where it became one model for the cowboy hat.

The JA Ranch, founded in 1876 as the first ranch in the Texas Panhandle, sits in which landmark?

Palo Duro Canyon sheltered the ranch Charles Goodnight and John Adair founded in 1876, branded with Adair's initials; Goodnight also kept a bison herd and later shipped animals to Yellowstone.

Doan's Crossing, where trail herds left Texas for Indian Territory, lay on which river?

Doan's Crossing on the Red River, near Vernon, Texas, grew up around the trading post Jonathan and Corwin Doan opened in 1878 to sell supplies to drovers heading into Indian Territory.

Which invention let Western ranchers of the 1880s confine their cattle to designated areas?

Barbed wire, patented by farmer Joseph Glidden in 1874, let ranchers enclose their pastures cheaply, and Texas saw fence-cutting conflicts in the early 1880s as the fences went up.

Texas Longhorns descend from Spanish cattle first landed in the Americas on which expedition?

Columbus's second voyage landed the first cattle on Hispaniola in 1493; their descendants ran half-wild in Texas for centuries and became the Longhorn, a breed nearly lost by the 1920s.

John B. Stetson founded his hat company in 1865 in which city?

John B. Stetson, a hatter's son, founded his company in Philadelphia in 1865 after a health trip west, where he had made himself a broad-brimmed felt hat.

Which hat did writer Lucius Beebe call 'the hat that won the West'?

Lucius Beebe called the bowler 'the hat that won the West'; it stayed on in wind better than wide-brimmed hats and was worn by settlers, lawmen and outlaws alike.

Chaps were created in Mexico to replace which gear?

The armas, leather flaps hung from the pommel, covered a rider's legs from the saddle; chaparreras did the same job strapped to the rider himself, and English speakers clipped the name to chaps.

What do cowboys call the small eye at a rope's end that forms the loop?

The honda is the small eye that the rope's other end runs through to form the loop, so that a pull on the rope draws the noose shut around whatever the throw has caught.

Which two early bootmakers set up shop in Olathe, Kansas, and Spanish Fort, Texas?

Hyer and Justin: Charles Hyer worked in Olathe, Kansas, and H. J. 'Daddy Joe' Justin at Spanish Fort, Texas, where trail drivers ordered boots heading north and collected them on the ride home.

Florida's 'cracker cowboys' historically herded cattle mainly with which tools?

Bullwhips and dogs were the Florida cowhunter's main tools, which set him apart from the Western cowboy: dogs trained to work cattle gathered the herd, and long whips drove it along.

The Hawaiian cowboy is called a paniolo, believed to be a Hawaiianised pronunciation of which word?

Español is the usual explanation: Hawaiian has no 's' sound and ends every syllable in a vowel, so the Spanish-speaking horsemen who taught islanders cattle work became paniolo, though other origins have been proposed.

Which British captain gave cattle to Kamehameha I in 1793, starting Hawaii's cattle story?

George Vancouver presented cattle to Kamehameha I in 1793; the king put a kapu on killing them, and the protected animals multiplied into the wild herds that roamed the Big Island.

The mounted cattle herders of the French Camargue are called what?

Gardians ride white Camargue horses to tend the black bulls that run half-wild in the Rhône delta's marshes, cattle bred for the course camarguaise, a bloodless bull game.

Which nickname did Black cowboy Nat Love claim to have won at an 1876 rodeo?

Nat Love said he won the name Deadwood Dick at a Fourth of July 1876 contest in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, though local papers record no rodeo; workmates had earlier called him Red River Dick.

After his years on the cattle trails, Black cowboy Nat Love spent his later career in which job?

Pullman porter: with the long drives over, Love took a railway job in 1890 and worked the sleeping cars until 1907, the year he published a memoir of his life in the saddle.

What job earned William F. Cody the nickname 'Buffalo Bill'?

Railroad hunter: Cody shot bison to feed the men laying the Kansas Pacific line in 1867, and he kept the name when he launched his Wild West show in 1883.

Rodeo cowgirl Fannie Sperry Steele rode rough stock like the men while wearing what?

Fannie Sperry Steele rode broncs in a heavy split skirt, more cumbersome than men's trousers, yet rode 'slick' with untied stirrups; she was Lady Bucking Horse Champion at the first Calgary Stampede in 1912.

The celebration billed as the world's largest outdoor rodeo has been held since 1897 in which Western city?

Cheyenne first staged Frontier Days in 1897 as a cowboy roundup with bronco busting, steer roping and pony races; the celebration now fills ten days in late July.

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is held every year in which Nevada town?

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering was first staged in Elko, Nevada, in 1985 by the Western Folklife Center and made the railroad and ranching town the capital of cowboy verse.

Which cowboy star of radio and screen wrote a ten-point 'Cowboy Code' for his young listeners?

Gene Autry's Cowboy Code told young fans that a cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man or take unfair advantage, and must always tell the truth.

Mesteñeros, riders who caught and broke wild horses for market, share their name's root with which English word?

Mustang comes from the Spanish mesteño or mestengo, a stray or ownerless animal, so the mesteñeros were literally the mustang-runners who drove captured herds to market.

What did the chuckwagon's inventor call his bison-cattle crossbreed?

Charles Goodnight, the chuckwagon's inventor, crossed bison with cattle and called the hybrid cattalo; the male offspring were largely sterile, and the experiment never paid.

Which tall-tale cowboy was raised by coyotes and is said to have ridden a cyclone?

Pecos Bill was lost from his family's wagon at the Pecos River and brought up by coyotes; the tall tales also credit him with inventing the branding iron and the cowboy song.

Jesse Chisholm, namesake of the great cattle trail, was a fur trader of which Native heritage?

Cherokee through his mother and Scottish through his father, Jesse Chisholm was a trader, guide and interpreter, never a cattle drover; he died in 1868, before the great herds made his name famous.

Which trail did John T. Lytle blaze in 1874, later the main route north for Texas herds?

The Great Western Trail ran from South Texas to the northern ranges; Lytle blazed it in 1874 while delivering 3,500 steers to the Red Cloud agency in Nebraska.

The Goodnight-Loving Trail met the Pecos River at which ford on the old Butterfield stage route?

Horsehead Crossing, said to be named for the horse skulls that marked the ford, is where the trail struck the Pecos before turning upriver to Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

Oliver Loving died in 1867 after being wounded by which people on a cattle drive?

Comanches wounded Oliver Loving on the Pecos in 1867; he reached Fort Sumner but died there of gangrene, and Goodnight kept a promise to have his partner's body taken back to Texas for burial.

Roy Rogers rode which golden palomino, his co-star in dozens of Western films?

Trigger, first called Golden Cloud, had carried Olivia de Havilland's Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood before Rogers picked him from a line of rented horses and renamed him.

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, home of the Hall of Great Westerners, is where?

Oklahoma City won the museum over scores of rival cities by donating land on Persimmon Hill; proposed in the 1950s by Kansas City's Chester A. Reynolds, it opened to the public in 1965.

The graveyard for gunfighters and drifters in many Old West cattle towns went by what name?

Boot Hill: tradition says its dead had 'died with their boots on', shot or hanged and not in bed, though the name's true origin is uncertain; Tombstone's still draws visitors.

Which Kansas cattle town was named after a fort honouring a Civil War general?

Dodge City took its name from Fort Dodge, the post built nearby in 1865 on the orders of Union general Grenville Dodge; the settlement was first called Buffalo City until that name proved taken.

Chicago's Union Stock Yards, opened in 1865, earned the city what nickname?

Carl Sandburg's 1914 poem 'Chicago' opens 'Hog Butcher for the World', a title the Union Stock Yards earned; they ran on the South Side from 1865 to 1971.

Which Texas city became a stockyard hub after the railroad's 1876 arrival?

Fort Worth was a supply stop for drovers heading up the trail until the railroad came in 1876; stockyards and big packing plants followed, and the old yards are now a historic district.

The word 'rodeo' comes from the Spanish verb rodear, which means what?

To surround, or go round: a rodeo was first a cattle roundup or the ring that held it, and only later did the word come to mean a public contest of riding and roping.

Hatmaker John B. Stetson gave his name to a university in which state?

Florida's DeLand University was renamed for John B. Stetson in 1889 after the hatmaker, who kept a winter home in DeLand, became its chief benefactor; its teams are still called the Hatters.

What was Stetson's original 1865 Western hat called?

Boss of the Plains hats had waterproof felt that shed rain, and owners found one could carry drinking water, fan a campfire or blindfold a stubborn horse.

The small spiked wheel that spins at the back of a cowboy's spur is called what?

A rowel turns on a pin at the end of the spur's shank; its name comes through Old French from the Latin rota, a wheel, and rodeo rules call for dull rowels that roll freely.

In rodeo calf roping, what does the cowboy do to the calf with the short 'piggin' string'?

Tie its legs together: the cowboy throws the roped calf by hand and binds three of its feet with the piggin' string, a chore taken straight from ranch work, where calves are still caught and held this way.

The two basic styles of cowboy boot are the western (classic) and which other?

The roper, the other basic style, has a short shaft and a low squared heel for calf ropers who must run on foot; the classic western boot has a tall shaft and an angled heel.

Justin Boots and Tony Lama are both divisions of a company owned by which conglomerate?

Justin Brands, parent of Justin Boots, Tony Lama and Nocona, has been a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary since Warren Buffett's firm bought Justin Industries in 2000.

Bootmaker Tony Lama, an army cobbler at Fort Bliss, opened his first shop in which Texas city?

El Paso was where Lama, apprenticed to a shoemaker as a boy in Syracuse, stayed on after his army service at Fort Bliss and turned a small repair shop into a boot company.

The Lucchese boot company was founded in 1883 in San Antonio by immigrants from which island?

Salvatore Lucchese and his brothers, immigrants from Sicily, founded the Lucchese Boot Company in San Antonio in 1883, selling first to army officers at Fort Sam Houston.

The word 'spur' comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'spura', related to a word meaning what?

To kick: the Old English spura is kin to spurnan, to kick, so to 'spurn' someone once meant kicking them away before it meant merely rejecting them.

Chaps, short for chaparreras, are usually traced to the Spanish for chaparral, which is what?

A dense scrub thicket: Spanish chaparro is a scrub oak, and riders who chased cattle through such brush strapped on leather chaparreras to save their legs.

The Western saddle developed partly from 'la jineta', a riding style Spain took from whom?

The Moors brought la jineta to Spain, a nimble riding style named for the Zanata Berbers, famed horsemen; blended with the heavier jousting seat called la brida, it shaped the stock saddle.

The American Quarter Horse Association has its headquarters in which Texas city?

Amarillo became the association's permanent home in 1946; founded in 1940, the registry had spent its first years run from its secretaries' own houses.

The American Quarter Horse is named for outrunning other breeds over a quarter of what?

A mile: colonial sprinters that won quarter-mile match races gave the breed its name, and ranchers later prized the same quick burst for working cattle.

In 1927 a herd was gathered to save the Texas Longhorn at which Oklahoma wildlife refuge?

Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge took in the small herd that Will C. Barnes and other Forest Service men collected in South Texas in 1927, when only a few Longhorn herds were left.

Hot-iron cattle branding goes back more than 4,000 years to which ancient civilisation?

Egyptians painted cattle roundups and branding on tomb walls more than 4,000 years ago; on the unfenced ranges of the American West the brand became a registered mark of ownership.

Which red-bodied, white-faced beef breed became the standard range cattle of the American West?

The Hereford, red with a white face, was imported from England and bred onto Western ranges in the late 1800s, replacing the rangy Longhorn as the beef animal of choice.

In western Canada, a cattle guard is commonly called what?

Texas gate is the western Canadian name for a grid of bars laid over a ditch: livestock will not step across the gaps, so vehicles pass without anyone stopping to open a gate.

Levi Strauss left New York to open a West Coast branch of his brothers' dry-goods business in which city?

San Francisco was the commercial hub of the Gold Rush, so the Bavarian-born Strauss sailed there to sell his brothers' dry goods; in 1873 he and tailor Jacob Davis patented riveted work pants.

Wrangler jeans were first made by which maker, which acquired the brand in the 1940s?

Blue Bell Overall took over the Wrangler name in the 1940s and hired tailor 'Rodeo Ben' Lichtenstein, who worked closely with cowboys, to cut jeans that suited rodeo riders.

The Marlboro Man cowboy campaign was conceived in 1954 by which advertising executive?

Leo Burnett's Chicago agency created the Marlboro Man in 1954 to sell filtered cigarettes to men, turning a brand once aimed at women into a cowboy icon; the US campaign ran until 1999.

Professional rodeo's rough-stock events include bull riding and which two kinds of bronc riding?

Saddle and bareback bronc riding join bull riding as rodeo's rough-stock events; in all three the judges mark the animal's bucking as well as the rider's skill.

Bull riding has been called 'the most dangerous' how many seconds in sports?

A qualified bull ride lasts eight seconds, hence 'the most dangerous eight seconds in sports'; touching the bull with the free hand disqualifies the ride.

Rodeo bucking bulls are most often crossbreeds built on which breed?

Brahman blood runs through most bucking bulls: breeders cross it with other cattle and select the calves for their urge to 'leap, plunge and spin' when a rider is aboard.

The bull Bodacious was nicknamed 'the world's most dangerous' and was what unusual colour?

Yellow from birth, the one thing that set him apart in a herd of greys and creams, Bodacious grew into a Charbray bull so violent that his owner retired him in his prime.

Bodacious is best remembered for seriously injuring which bull-riding icon?

Bodacious shattered Tuff Hedeman's face at the 1995 PBR World Finals, requiring reconstructive surgery; owner Sammy Andrews retired the bull after that year's National Finals Rodeo.

Which piece of rodeo gear is fastened ahead of a bucking animal's hind legs to make it buck harder?

The flank strap encourages a bronc or bull to throw its hind legs out as it bucks; rodeo rules bar any strap that hurts the animal, yet animal-welfare groups still count it among the sport's cruel tools.

Bill Pickett's original bulldogging method involved doing what to the steer?

Biting its lip: Pickett seized a steer by the horns, twisted its neck and sank his teeth into its upper lip, a hold he had copied from the herding dogs that controlled cattle the same way.

How did Bill Pickett die in 1932?

Kicked in the head by a bronco he was handling on an Oklahoma ranch, Pickett died in April 1932; the man who invented bulldogging had come through a quarter-century of wrestling steers in Wild West shows.

Bill Pickett was famously associated with which Oklahoma spread near Ponca City?

The 101 Ranch, run by the Miller family near Ponca City, spread over more than 100,000 acres and staged the Wild West show that Pickett joined in 1905 and starred in for over 25 years.

In team roping, what is the rider who throws the first loop called?

The header ropes the steer's horns or head first and turns it so the heeler can rope the hind feet; the clock stops when both ropes are tight.

A barrel racer must manoeuvre around three barrels set in what pattern?

A triangle of three barrels is the course, and the rider runs a cloverleaf around them; barrel racing developed as a rodeo event for women.

Modern rodeo splits the old rodeo clown role into bullfighters and comic entertainers called what?

Barrelmen supply the comedy and take their name from the barrel they shelter in, a trick rodeo clowns began using in the 1930s, while bullfighters draw the bull away from a thrown rider.

The PRCA traces its origins to a 1936 walkout by cowboys at a rodeo in which arena?

Boston Garden's rodeo was struck in 1936 by sixty-one cowboys protesting its prize money; they went on to form the Cowboys' Turtle Association, slow to organise but ready to stick their necks out.

The PRCA is headquartered in which city?

Colorado Springs houses the PRCA's offices and, beside them, the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, opened in 1979, which honours famous bucking bulls and broncs as well as cowboys.

The National Finals Rodeo is held each December at which venue?

The Thomas & Mack Center, on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas, has hosted the Finals since 1985, when the city outbid the rodeo's home of the previous twenty years.

PRCA event titles go to the contestant with the year's highest total of what?

Prize money won decides it, a dollar counting as a point: the top 15 earners in each event reach the National Finals Rodeo, whose rich purses can still reshuffle the standings.

Which unridden bull did Freckles Brown finally conquer at the 1967 National Finals?

Tornado, owned by champion Jim Shoulders, went six years without a qualified ride until Brown, a 46-year-old veteran, stayed aboard in what rodeo fans still call 'The Ride'.

The Calgary Stampede bills itself as what?

The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth dates from 1912, when American showman Guy Weadick persuaded four Calgary businessmen, later called the Big Four, to bankroll the first Stampede.

The Pendleton Round-Up rodeo, held since 1910, takes place in which state?

Oregon. For the first Round-Up in 1910 the organisers invited the neighbouring Umatilla, Cayuse and Walla Walla tribes, who set up a tepee camp beside the arena and raced their horses in the show.

Which Texas city hosts the world's largest livestock exhibition and rodeo?

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, begun in 1932 as the Houston Fat Stock Show to promote Texas livestock, bills itself as the world's largest livestock exhibition and rodeo.

Lucille Mulhall's family ranch stood in which state, still a territory in 1900?

Oklahoma. Raised on the family ranch near present-day Mulhall, she starred in her father's Wild West show and went on to compete against men in roping contests, winning a world roping title.

Which seven-time all-around rodeo champion married singer Jewel?

Ty Murray. As a schoolboy he said he wanted to beat Larry Mahan's record of six all-around titles, and in 1998 he won his seventh.

Jim Shoulders, winner of 16 world titles, was known as the what of rodeo?

Babe Ruth of rodeo was the usual tag for Shoulders and his 16 world titles; years after his last ride he found a second fame as a pitchman in Miller Lite beer commercials.

The Great American Cowboy, a film about rodeo champion Larry Mahan, won which 1974 Oscar?

The Great American Cowboy, Kieth Merrill's 1973 film following Larry Mahan and Phil Lyne through a rodeo season, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 1974 ceremony.

Lane Frost was the only rider ever to score a qualified ride on which 1987 Bucking Bull of the Year?

Red Rock threw all 309 riders in his pro career and had already been retired when the 1988 Challenge of the Champions was arranged; over its seven matches Frost stayed on him four times.

Casey Tibbs, twice World All-Around Cowboy Champion, came from which state?

South Dakota, where he was born near Fort Pierre. His flamboyant riding put Tibbs on the cover of Life magazine in 1951 and made him a household name well beyond the rodeo circuit.

Chris LeDoux was a rodeo champion and country singer who also worked in which art form?

Bronze sculpture won LeDoux art awards too. The 1976 world champion rider sold his home-recorded tapes at rodeos until a 1989 Garth Brooks lyric name-checked him and brought him national fame.

In the slang of the American West, what is a hoosegow?

A jail: the word is traced to the Spanish juzgado, a court, as English speakers in the West heard it said, with the d dropped.

Which Lonesome Dove character was inspired by the Black trail hand Bose Ikard?

Joshua Deets, the scout in Lonesome Dove, was modelled on Bose Ikard, who carried his boss's cash on the long drives; the rancher called him 'my detective, banker, and everything else'.

Which formerly enslaved lawman policed Indian Territory for 32 years?

Bass Reeves is credited with more than 3,000 arrests, and when a murder warrant was issued for his own son he took it himself and brought him in.

Cattle rustler Isom Dart was believed to have been assassinated in 1900 by which hired gunman?

Tom Horn, a range detective for the big cattle outfits, is believed to have shot Dart from ambush months after killing his partner Matt Rash; Horn was hanged in 1903 for the murder of a 14-year-old boy.

'Stagecoach Mary' Fields carried US mail from Cascade to Saint Peter's Mission in which state?

Montana. Fields was in her sixties when she won the contract in 1895, and when snow stopped her team she strapped on snowshoes and carried the sacks on foot, never missing a day in eight years.

Which nickname did newspapers give Ellen Watson, the homesteader lynched in 1889 by ranchers who called her a rustler?

Cattle Kate was the press's name for her, printed after the hanging. Her homestead claim took in water and a hay meadow that her accuser, rancher Albert Bothwell, had been using.

The Johnson County War of 1889-93 was ended by cavalry sent on the orders of which president?

President Benjamin Harrison, woken at night by two senators, sent the 6th Cavalry from Fort McKinney in April 1892; the troops lifted a settlers' siege and so rescued the cattlemen's hired gunmen.

Billy the Kid joined the Regulators to avenge which murdered English rancher?

John Tunstall was shot by a sheriff's posse in February 1878. His ranch hands, the Kid among them, formed the Regulators and killed the sheriff and several posse members in revenge.

Billy the Kid, alias William Bonney, was born with which name?

Henry McCarty was his birth name; Bonney was an alias he took later. Orphaned in his teens when his mother died of tuberculosis, he was arrested for stealing the next year and soon broke out.

Butch Cassidy's real name was what?

Butch Cassidy was born Robert LeRoy Parker in Beaver, Utah, in 1866, taking 'Cassidy' from a mentor, Mike Cassidy; Pinkerton pressure drove him to South America in 1901.

The Sundance Kid fled the US with Butch Cassidy and which woman?

Etta Place sailed for Buenos Aires with the two outlaws in February 1901 and helped them run a ranch in Argentina, yet nobody knows her real name or what finally became of her.

Which Earp brother was actually Tombstone's city marshal at the O.K. Corral gunfight?

Virgil Earp wore two badges that day, Tombstone's chief of police and a deputy US marshal; his brothers Wyatt and Morgan and Doc Holliday walked to the fight only as his temporary deputies.

Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp's friend, practised which profession?

John Henry 'Doc' Holliday earned a dentistry degree in 1872 and practised as a dentist until tuberculosis drove him west, where he made his living at the gambling tables instead.

Which Kansas cattle-town lawman ended his career as a big-city sports columnist?

Bat Masterson, born in Quebec, traded his badge for a typewriter: he moved east in 1902 and wrote a boxing column for Manhattan's Morning Telegraph until his death in 1921.

Wild Bill Hickok's real first names were what?

James Butler Hickok was shot from behind at a poker table in 1876; the aces and eights he was later said to be holding have been known ever since as the dead man's hand.

Calamity Jane's real name was Martha Jane what?

Canary, often spelt Cannary, was her family name. She was buried in 1903 beside Wild Bill Hickok: at her own dying request in one account, as a joke on him by the funeral's organisers in another.

Annie Oakley beat which marksman in a shooting contest, later marrying him?

Frank E. Butler lost the $100 match when she hit all 25 of her targets; he courted and married her, and once she was the star he stepped back to manage her act.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West opened its first overseas tour in 1887 in which city?

London. The six-month season coincided with Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, and a command performance before the Queen herself became a publicity sensation for the show.

Which showman merged his own Wild West show with Buffalo Bill's in its last years?

Pawnee Bill bought into Buffalo Bill's struggling show and the pair toured as the 'Two Bills' until 1913, when creditors closed the outfit down in Denver.

Belle Starr was convicted in 1883 of which crime?

Horse theft sent Belle Starr and her husband Sam before the federal court, and she served her time in a Detroit prison; six years later she was shot from ambush, a killing never solved.

Which future US president ran cattle at the Elkhorn Ranch in Dakota?

Theodore Roosevelt went west to grieve after his wife and his mother died on the same day in 1884, and chose the Elkhorn site, 35 miles north of Medora, that summer.

The XIT Ranch's brand was chosen mainly because it was hard to what?

Alter is the word: trail boss Ab Blocker is said to have scratched XIT in the dust with his boot when asked for a mark rustlers could not easily change. The tale that it meant 'Ten in Texas' is only legend.

The XIT Ranch's three million acres were granted by Texas to finance what?

A new state capitol: Texas paid a Chicago syndicate three million Panhandle acres to build it, a deal that turned urgent when the old capitol burned down in 1881.

Which South Texas ranch, begun by a steamboat captain, grew larger than the state of Rhode Island?

King Ranch began as Richard King's cattle camp on Santa Gertrudis Creek, and in time it bred a cattle breed of its own, the Santa Gertrudis, officially recognised in 1940.

The Homestead Act of 1862 offered settlers how many acres of western land?

160 acres, a quarter of a square mile, cost a settler only a small filing fee, provided he lived on the claim for five years and improved it.

Cattlemen gave what name to the catastrophic losses of the winter of 1886-87, which wrecked open-range ranching?

The Big Die-Up, two bitter winters ending in 1886-87, killed hundreds of thousands of cattle, with some herds losing three animals in four, and bankrupted many ranchers.

In one charreada event, a galloping rider brings down a bull by grabbing what?

Its tail: in the coleadero the charro rides alongside at a gallop, catches the tail, wraps it round his leg and turns away to throw the animal off its feet.

The gaucho is a folk symbol mainly of Argentina and which other country?

Uruguay shares the gaucho with Argentina, whose independence from Spain the horsemen helped to win; José Hernández made one the hero of his 1872 epic poem Martín Fierro.

The huaso is the traditional horseman of which country?

Chile's huaso farms as well as herds, and his skills live on in the Chilean rodeo, where two riders work as a pair to stop a young bull; it was declared the national sport in 1962.

Llaneros are herders of the Llanos grasslands in Venezuela and which other country?

The Llanos grasslands straddle Venezuela and Colombia, and their llanero horsemen supplied cavalry to both royalists and patriots, famously riding with Bolívar under José Antonio Páez.

The csikós is a mounted herdsman from which country's puszta grasslands?

Hungary's csikós ride herd on the puszta around Hortobágy, where the national park employs them to keep free-ranging herds of native horses and grey cattle on the steppe.

Anna Creek, the world's largest cattle station, lies east of Coober Pedy in which state?

South Australia. The lease began in 1863 as a sheep run, but dingoes attacked the flocks so constantly that the owners switched to cattle.

Australian drovers who covered very long distances to open new country were called what?

Overlanders opened new country on drives such as Patrick Durack's, whose party walked 7,250 breeding cattle some 3,000 miles from Queensland to the Kimberley.

The first Florida 'crackers' arrived in 1763 after Spain traded Florida to whom?

Great Britain took Florida in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, handing back Havana, which its fleet had captured the year before; the settlers who followed the British flag were the first Florida crackers.

Guest ranches, or dude ranches, arose partly after which historian declared the frontier 'closed' in 1893?

Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 'frontier thesis', read at the Chicago World's Fair, declared the frontier closed; the nostalgia it fed helped dude ranches sell the cowboy life to eastern visitors.

Owen Wister, author of The Virginian, is known by what title?

Father of Western fiction is the usual title, because The Virginian (1902) set out many of the genre's standard features, among them the showdown between its cowboy hero and the villain Trampas.

The Virginian is set during the 1880s in the territory that became which state?

Wyoming Territory, around Medicine Bow, is the setting: Wister based the story on real events there such as the Johnson County War, and gave his hero the line 'When you call me that, smile!'

What was Zane Grey's best-selling book?

Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) became Zane Grey's all-time best-seller only a few years after its publisher, Harper, had turned down four of his manuscripts in a row.

Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove won which honour in 1986?

Pulitzer for Fiction. The story began as a film script McMurtry wrote with director Peter Bogdanovich for John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda; the film was never made, so he turned it into a novel.

Cowboy artist Charles M. Russell made his name painting which starving animal?

A steer: the postcard-sized picture, also known as 'Last of the 5,000', was sent to a herd's owners to show how their cattle had come through the terrible winter of 1886-87.

Roy Rogers, 'King of the Cowboys', was born with what name?

Leonard Franklin Slye got his break in 1938 when Republic Pictures' reigning cowboy star walked out in a contract dispute; the studio renamed him Roy Rogers and gave him the lead in Under Western Stars.

Screen cowboy Gene Autry later owned a team in which sport?

Baseball: Autry was negotiating for the broadcast rights to a new Los Angeles expansion team in 1960 and ended up owning the club itself, the Angels, from 1961 into the 1990s.

John Wayne, nicknamed 'Duke', was born with what name?

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, in 1907; a fireman's nickname for his Airedale, Duke, stuck to the boy, and he appeared in 179 film and television productions.

Clint Eastwood's 'Man with No Name' appeared in whose Dollars Trilogy?

Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy made Eastwood an international star in the mid-1960s, after he had first found fame in the TV cattle-drive series Rawhide.

Who sang the Rawhide theme song on television?

Frankie Laine's recording outlived the series: some fifteen years after Rawhide ended, the Blues Brothers performed the song on screen in a country-and-western bar.

Which masked Western hero made his debut on Detroit radio in 1933?

The Lone Ranger was dreamed up at station WXYZ, whose owner George Trendle needed a home-grown hit to compete with the network stars; the show outgrew radio and reached television in 1949.

What was the Cartwrights' ranch in Bonanza called?

The Ponderosa was filmed in colour for a reason: the series was meant to make Americans buy colour television sets, which NBC's parent company RCA sold.

Who played Marshal Matt Dillon in the radio version of Gunsmoke?

William Conrad voiced Marshal Matt Dillon on CBS radio's Gunsmoke from 1952 to 1961; James Arness took the role when the television version began in 1955.

Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner, premiered on which channel in June 2018?

Paramount Network got the show only after HBO let it go: creator Taylor Sheridan developed it there first, but its executives wanted Robert Redford in the lead instead of Kevin Costner.

In Howard Hawks's Red River (1948), who plays the adopted son feuding with John Wayne's rancher?

Montgomery Clift was a 25-year-old stage actor when Howard Hawks, impressed by one of his performances, gave him his first Hollywood role as Matt Garth, the son who takes the herd from his adoptive father.

Which John Wayne Western gave Buddy Holly the title of 'That'll Be the Day'?

The Searchers has Wayne's Ethan Edwards say 'That'll be the day' again and again during his years-long hunt for an abducted niece; Holly saw the film in 1956.

Which classic Western ends with a boy calling after a wounded gunfighter?

Shane's director George Stevens set out to show the horror of violence without glorifying it, so he magnified every punch and gunshot on the soundtrack.

Which Western unfolds almost in real time as a marshal awaits a killer's train?

High Noon so annoyed John Wayne, who called it un-American, that he and director Howard Hawks made Rio Bravo seven years later as their answer to it.

In Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood plays an aging outlaw named what?

William Munny nearly belonged to another director: the script, written in 1976, was first optioned by Francis Ford Coppola, who could not raise the money, before it reached Eastwood in the 1980s.

In the 1969 film True Grit, who hires Rooster Cogburn to catch her father's killer?

Mattie Ross, played by Kim Darby, sets out from Fort Smith, Arkansas, yet the story's Arkansas and Indian Territory were filmed mostly in the Rockies, around the towns of Ridgway and Ouray.

Brokeback Mountain was adapted from a 1997 short story by which author?

Annie Proulx's story ran in The New Yorker in October 1997; screenwriter Diana Ossana read it within days of publication and, with Larry McMurtry, turned it into the script of the 2005 film.

City Slickers (1991) marked the acting debut of which future star?

Jake Gyllenhaal made his screen debut as Billy Crystal's young son; co-star Jack Palance won an Oscar as the trail boss Curly and celebrated, at 73, with one-armed push-ups on the stage.

Who voices Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story films?

Tom Hanks has voiced Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story films since the first in 1995; his brother Jim Hanks stands in for video games and merchandise.

Hopalong Cassidy got his nickname from what?

A limp from a leg wound named him in Clarence E. Mulford's stories, where he was a rude, rough-talking ranch hand; on screen from 1935 William Boyd made him a clean-cut hero who drank sarsaparilla.

Which silent star rode Tony the Wonder Horse?

Tom Mix befriended the aged Wyatt Earp, who visited Hollywood's Western sets in his last years, and is reported to have wept at the old lawman's funeral in 1929.

Will Rogers died in a 1935 plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska, alongside which aviator?

Wiley Post, short of cash, had built the plane from the body of one Lockheed and the wing of a wrecked one; it crashed taking off from a lagoon near Point Barrow, killing both men.

Which singer took 'Rhinestone Cowboy' to number one on both the country and pop charts in 1975?

Glen Campbell heard songwriter Larry Weiss's little-noticed original on the radio in 1974 and learned it during a tour of Australia; his own version became his signature song.

Which Western group first recorded 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds'?

Sons of the Pioneers cut it for Decca in 1934. Bob Nolan had first written it as a poem called 'Tumbling Leaves', with no tumbleweeds in it, and changed the word when the group wanted Western material.

In 1893 Buffalo Bill's Wild West added a 'Congress' of which horsemen to its title?

Rough Riders: the Congress of Rough Riders of the World brought in horsemen from many countries, and five years later the name passed to a volunteer cavalry regiment of the Spanish-American War.

The word 'cowpoke' is said to have first meant only the men doing which job?

Prodding cattle onto rail cars with long poles is the job the word is said to have named when it appeared in 1881; 'cowhand' is the older term, recorded from 1852.

In which US region is 'buckaroo' the traditional word for a cowboy?

The Great Basin kept the old vaquero ways and the name too: 'buckaroo' is how English speakers rendered the Spanish word vaquero when they first met it around 1830.

By 1866, Longhorns almost worthless in Texas fetched roughly what price a head in northern markets?

$40 a head or thereabouts awaited in the North, which wartime demand had stripped of livestock, and that gap made it worth walking Texas herds hundreds of miles to market.

On a trail drive, which riders followed behind the herd?

Drag riders ate the whole herd's dust, so the job often went to greenhorns or was handed out as punishment, while the best hands rode point at the front.

Whose death at the 1929 Pendleton Round-Up led rodeo to drop women's bronc riding?

Bonnie McCarroll had been famous since 1915 for a photograph of a bronc called Silver throwing her at this same round-up; the 1929 fall killed her, and rodeo soon barred women from its rough-stock events.

Kamehameha III sent to which then-Mexican territory for vaqueros to teach Hawaiians how to work cattle?

California, then part of Mexico, sent three vaqueros in the early 1830s; they taught islanders to rope and ride after the wild cattle that had overrun the Big Island.

Which New England sailor founded the great Mauna Kea cattle ranch that bears his name?

John Parker, a Massachusetts sailor who landed in 1809, won royal leave to hunt the island's wild cattle and in 1847 acquired the first land of what became Parker Ranch.

Which American-born cowboy helped drive cattle north into Canada in 1882 and became a celebrated rancher there?

John Ware, born into slavery, was famed as a rider no wild horse could throw, yet he died in 1905 when his own mount tripped in a badger hole and fell on him.

Raymond, whose 1902 Stampede is counted as Canada's oldest rodeo, lies in which province?

Alberta. Rancher Raymond Knight paid for the 1902 contest himself and a year later built the country's first rodeo arena and grandstand; Calgary's far bigger show followed in 1912.

Calgary, home of the Stampede and once the hub of Canada's cattle trade, earned which nickname?

Cowtown has outlived the cattle boom: Calgary now lives mainly on oil and gas, yet since the 1950s its mayors have greeted visiting dignitaries with a white cowboy hat.

Which cowboy song began as a poem written in a Kansas settler's cabin and is now that state's official song?

Home on the Range had no known author until a $500,000 plagiarism suit in 1934 sent lawyers hunting for its origin; the trail led back to Dr. Brewster Higley's poem of the early 1870s.

After the Civil War, rancher Charles Goodnight created a western-styled version of which traditional English riding item?

The sidesaddle he built was for his wife Molly: he gave it an extra horn on which the rider could rest her left knee, which made it practical for ranch country.