The Cowboy Trail

[milomorris]

Bill Pickett, cowboy & rodeo performer. He is the 1st African-American to be inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame, the 1st African-American cowboy star, & the inventor of the technique of bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns & wrestling them to the ground. He toured around the world and starred in films The Bull-Dogger and The Crimson Skull, but due to racism, he was not allowed in many rodeos; he often was forced to claim he was of Comanche heritage in order to perform

This reminds me of my visit to the Buffalo Soldier Museum in Houston. I don't recall if they had any Pickett artifacts there, but the museum certainly was an education on a part of black history about which I knew very little.

[morrobay]

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[Front-Ranger]

And this picture is just sweet. You just know that li'l cowpoke wants to grow up to be just like his daddy. 

The spittin' image!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Looks like somebody can afford a ropin' horse. 

[morrobay]

  

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In 1975 Fannie Sperry Steele was one of the first of three women inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame. A few years later at ninety, Fannie summed up her life: “To the yesterdays that are gone, to the cowboys I used to know, to the bronc busters that rode beside me, to the horses beneath me (sometimes) I take off my hat. I wouldn’t have missed one minute of it.” Fannie died in 1983.