THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE
COWBOY
by: Andrea Downing
A short ride down
the road from me in Montauk, New York is Deep Hollow Ranch. At 350 years old,
it is the oldest ranch in the country and the purported birthplace of the
American cowboy. But we rarely think of
cowboys as creatures of the east. Say
‘cowboy’ to someone and they invariably envisage the heroic male kitted out
with Stetson, chaps and Colt, riding across the plains. Strange to think, then, that the cowboy whom
that picture presents did not truly come into existence until after the end of
the Civil War.
When the war ended in 1865, thousands of men were returning
to homes destroyed, land ravaged and family and friends dead or gone. There was little prospect of making a living,
especially in the war-torn south. West
in Texas, meanwhile, longhorn cattle had been driven to markets in Missouri and
Louisiana to try to feed the Confederate Army.
But as these routes had been closed, a surplus of cattle ensued while
new markets in the east and California opened.
The Homestead Act was signed into being in 1862 and a transcontinental
railway was being built. The life of a
cowboy out in the newly opened west showed promise.
Cattle drives started from Texas to MO and KS railheads in
order to get the beef to Chicago where Armour’s meat packing plant opened in
1865. As the railways expanded, cow towns
sprang up in Kansas and later in Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. At the same time, investors saw the chance to
take advantage of the open range and start huge ranches as beef prices
increased. To give you an idea of how
the industry was expanding and numbers of cowboys increasing, up in Wyoming in
1874 the round-up only required two divisions.
A division is how the range is partitioned for the sake of branding so
that each ranch may cut out its own cattle.
Reps will go from one division to another to get their own strays. By 1884, however, Wyoming required thirty-one divisions. In a single division two hundred cowboys with
approximately two thousand horses worked four hundred thousand head of cattle
over a period of six weeks. Down in
Colorado in 1885 over 12,000 brands
were registered. So what ended this
prospering business, this ‘golden age?’
Well, the answer is several things converged on the industry at once.
First of all, in the summer of 1885, President Cleveland
gave notice that all stock must be removed from Indian Reservations in Indian
Territory. This took over nine million
acres out of use, and threw about nine hundred thousand head of cattle onto already
overcrowded northern ranges. And those ranges were constantly depleting. The Homestead Act and land sales by the
railways were inviting increasing numbers of emigrants. Where once cowboys had signed up for
homesteads and then signed over their land to their ranches, parcels going to
farmers and others were taking chunks out of the open range, reducing it and
causing problems such as the Johnson County War.
Beef prices in 1885
were already low due to overproduction so some ranchers were keeping cattle over winter in the hope prices
would go up. Unfortunately, added to
this was a plague of grasshoppers, lower than normal rainfall and a number of
range fires, all reducing winter forage.
Finally, total disaster struck.
In late 1885, the winter came early and particularly harsh. Losses were great. But that winter was nothing compared to the winter
of ‘86/’87, which plays a pivotal role
in my book, Loveland. That year, temperatures
dropped as low as -47 in some parts of the high plains. With losses at 60-75% of their stock, many
ranches went under and the ‘golden age’ of the cowboy came to an end.
About Andrea Downing
Andrea Downing likes to say that, when she decided to leave
New York, the city of her birth, she made a wrong turn and went east instead of
west. She ended up spending most of her life in the
UK where she received an M.A. from the University of Keele in Staffordshire. She married and raised a beautiful daughter
and stayed on to teach and write, living
in the Derbyshire Peak District, the English Lake District, Wales and the
Chiltern Hills before finally moving into London. During this time, family
vacations were often on guest ranches in the American West, where she and her
daughter have clocked up some 17 ranches to date. In addition, she has traveled
widely throughout Europe, South America, and Africa, living briefly in Nigeria.
In 2008 she returned to the city of her birth, NYC, but frequently exchanges
the canyons of city streets for the wide open spaces of the West. Her love of horses, ranches, rodeo and just
about anything else western is reflected in her writing. Loveland, a western historical romance
published by The Wild Rose Press, was her first book and is a finalist for the
RONE Award of Best American Historical to be announced in August, 2013. Lawless
Love, a story, comes out as part of The Wild Rose Press Lawmen and Outlaws’
series on Sept. 4. Andrea is a member of
Romance Writers of America and Women Writing the West.
From her book Loveland
When Lady
Alexandra Calthorpe returns to the Loveland, Colorado, ranch owned by her
father, the Duke, she has little idea of how the experience will alter her
future. Headstrong and willful, Alex tries to overcome a disastrous marriage in
England and be free of the strictures of Victorian society --and become
independent of men. That is, until Jesse Makepeace saunters back into her
life...
Hot-tempered
and hot-blooded cowpuncher Jesse Makepeace can’t seem to accept that the child
he once knew is now the ravishing yet determined woman before him. Fighting
rustlers proves a whole lot easier than fighting Alex when he’s got to keep
more than his temper under control.
Arguments
abound as Alex pursues her career as an artist and Jesse faces the prejudice of
the English social order. The question is, will Loveland live up to its name?
From the back cover:
The two men looked over at Jesse who was leading his own horse
into the stable, anger etched in every muscle of his face. Joe nodded toward
the chuck house and they followed the others in to leave Alex alone when Jesse
came out.
She was starting back to the main house when Jesse grabbed her
arm and turned her around. “You ever do that again,” he said in a voice she had
never heard, intense in its anger, rage just below its surface, “I swear to
God, Alex, I’ll...I’ll take you over my knee and give you a lickin’ once and
for all.”
“How dare you!” She shook him off. “How dare you talk to me like
that! How dare you! Who the hell do you think you are?”
Jesse jabbed his finger at her to emphasize he meant what he was
saying. “Who do I think I am?”he snarled back. “Who do I think I am? You ever,
ever take a gun off me again and point it at someone, you’ll find out who the
hell I think I am. You know that coulda gone off? You know you coulda killed
someone? I told you—out there yonder—I told you, you never point that thing at
anyone less’n you mean bus’ness.”
“I did bloody well mean business! They were destroying that
horse. Furthermore, I knew, and you knew, and they both knew, there wasn’t a
shot under the hammer. You taught me that, didn’t you? So there was no chance
of an accident!”
“That don’t matter none. You coulda pulled the hammer back
twice. Way you was, you were nothin’ better’n a loose cannon, Alex. You ever do
a thing like that again—”
“You’ll what?” She shook with her rage as tears pooled against
her will. “I apologized to them both and they accepted my apologies. It’s none
of your concern—”
“None of my concern! You pulled my gun! You ever do that again—
Don’t you walk away when I’m talkin’ to you!”
She turned back to him after a few steps. “You’ll what? You’ll
what, Jesse? What will you do? I want to hear it! Say it again. What will you
do?” And she stood there in the evening darkness, facing him down, wearing him
out like she’d faced down the stallion.
Buy the book here:
