Herding cattle from horseback has been a tradition in northern Mexico and the American West since the Spanish colonial era. The first mounted herders were the Mexican vaqueros, expert horsemen who developed the skills to work cattle in the brush country and deserts of the Southwestern borderlands. From them, Texas cowboys learned the trade, evolving their own unique culture that spread across the Southwest and Great Plains. The buckaroos of the Great Basin west of the Rockies trace their origin to the vaqueros, with influence along the way from the cowboys, though they, too, have ways and...
Herding cattle from horseback has been a tradition in northern Mexico and the American West since the Spanish colonial era. The first mounted herde...
Historian David Coffey wrote that the "late Texas folklorist and historian Lawrence Clayton found beauty where many might see only mesquite and limestone; he found humor in unlikely places, and he found nobility in the hard lives of cowboys and the roughnecks. "For years, Dr. Clayton chronicled the history of the Clear Fork Country--the stretch of land cut by the Clear Fork of the Brazos River of Shackelford and Throckmorton counties. His thoughtful prose on the region's colorful past and its equally colorful characters has appeared in dozens of publications over the years. His efforts...
Historian David Coffey wrote that the "late Texas folklorist and historian Lawrence Clayton found beauty where many might see only mesquite and limest...
