Early History - Cowboys

The Homestead Act, enacted in 1862 by Abraham Lincoln, was “an Act to secure Homesteads to actual Settlers on the Public Domain” and offered homesteaders up to 160 acres of free public land. Homesteading allowed settlers to live and farm previously undeveloped land. This became particularly meaningful following the Civil War with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that protected the civil rights of those of African descent brought to or born in the United States and recognized their citizenship. Black citizens moved west after the US Civil War and started ranching and farming but still faced discrimination.

Born the son of enslaved people in Davidson County, Tennessee, in 1854, Nat Love learned to read and write as a child, which was rare for African Americans born in slavery. In 1869, he left Tennessee to work as a drover, moving cattle and horses in various places, including the Texas Panhandle, Kansas, Arizona Territory, and Dakota Territory. In 1890, he began work as a porter for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. In 1907, he wrote an autobiography called, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love Better Known in the Cattle Country as “Deadwood Dick.” Nat Love died in Los Angeles at the age of 67.

Bill Pickett, “the Dusky Demon,” was of American Indian and African American descent. He transformed himself from ranch-lad into a performer who appeared as a trick-roper, bull rider and steer “rassler” with the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch and Wild West Show from Ponca City, Oklahoma. He never seemed to tire of his theatrical adventures in the saddle, appearing at hundreds of small and large rodeo events. The indefatigable, skilled, charismatic, and crowd-pleasing cowboy set standards that influenced all of his successors and helped mass audiences redefine what Black men had accomplished in the real West.

George McJunkin

Born in Texas during the era of slavery, George McJunkin grew up on a ranch where mastered the skills of a ranch hand and taught himself to read and write. He spent the majority of his life as a bronco-buster along the Texas-New Mexico border. In 1908, McJunkin and a friend, Bill Gordon, found bones sticking out of the ground on the bank of the Dry Cimarron River near Folsom. In 1925, scientists announced that the bones were from extinct bison estimated to be over ten thousand years old. The site eventually yielded human remains that became known as “Folsom Man.” McJunkin died in 1922.