All Hat and No Cattle

By Bennett Owen

Tom Mix, 1931.  Credit: the circus blog

Five things you probably didn’t know about Cowboy Hats –

• The high crown serves a purpose, trapping a layer of insulating air above the head. 
• The original Stetsons sold for five dollars in 1865.
• The official flag of Calgary, Canada features a cowboy hat.
• A 10-gallon hat holds about three quarts of water.
• It’s considered bad luck to leave a cowboy hat on a bed.

Credit: Newworld encyclopedia

One of my favorite Rick O’Shay cartoons featured Rick and his cowboy hat in action. In one frame he fans the flames of a campfire. In another he uses it as a dipper for creek water. It shields him from the sun, keeps him dry in a cloudburst, helps him round up ornery cattle. And when Rick returns to town, a ‘city slicker’ comments that ‘those hats are just for show.’  Well, if there’s no telltale ring of sweat the city slicker is probably right.

One theory of cowboy hat evolution traces back to the Vaqueros of Mexico with their broad-brimmed hats and sombreros.  They favored a high peaked crown and the brim was measured in ‘galleons’, which the American cowpunchers soon distorted to ‘gallon.’    Hence Tom Mix’s 10 Gallon Hat… a model made purely for the movies.

Credit: liveauctioneers

Credit: liveauctioneers

Cowboys in the early west were essentially lowlifes on a totem pole of rank and privilege that put the ‘cattleman’ up top, followed by his foreman, referred to as ‘Top Hand.’  Cowboys of the antebellum west tended to be drifters and malcontents who wore any kind of cover that would keep the sun out of their eyes. One turn of the century newspaper mogul even anointed the bowler as ‘the hat that won the west.’  

Credit: consombrero

Once the cowboy hat gained popularity, lawmen like Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp saw it as a signal of trouble waiting to happen.

Credit: kpbs and the Craig Foults Collection

Another vein of hat history takes us to the gold fields of Colorado and a young man named John B. Stetson and even this story has multiple interpretations.  In one version Stetson fashioned a hat from a Beaver pelt to shelter him from the elements while panning for gold.  Another has him bragging to fellow prospectors that he could ‘make cloth out of fur without weaving. ‘

Credit: thelastbestwest

What is certain is that the first Stetson hats were sold in Colorado in 1865 and the single model was called the “Boss of the Plains.” It sold for five dollars and became THE prototype for all cowboy hats to follow. The Montgomery Ward catalogue fanned the hat’s popularity and by 1886 Stetson was the world’s biggest hat maker.   The rest is what legends are made of.

Credit: My-West.com ©

Credit: My-West.com ©

Western wear has its own mystique and Calgary, Canada hands out exquisite white hats to visiting dignitaries. We mention this only because it gives us a reason to show the Duchess of Cambridge wearing one.  I mean, how often do we have the chance at My-West?  

Credit: Pacific Coast News

The Ride of Her Life - Fanny Sperry Steele

By Bennett Owen

If there are no horses in heaven, I don’t want to go there. -- Fanny Sperry Steele

Credit: Cowgirl.net

She was a stunning beauty with long braided hair, a warm and engaging personality…and an iron will…make that Steele. And when that fanny sat in the saddle, it was by God gonna’ stay put.  By age 25 Fanny Sperry had already made a name for herself throughout the west but it was her performance at the inaugural Calgary Stampede in 1912 that cemented her standing as a western legend, riding ‘Red Wing,’ a hellacious bucking bronc that had stomped a cowboy to death just four days earlier.   

Credit: geocaching

Here’s a description of the ride, courtesy WILD WEST Magazine:

Red Wing came straight out of the chute standing on his hind legs. He bucked…hard! He sidestepped, circled, head down, head up. The crowd exploded as they watched Sperry's waist-long black braid flounce up and down to the rhythm of the horse under her. She heard the 10-second whistle blow and jumped to the ground. She knew this magnificent sorrel had given her the ride of her life. 'GIVE THE LITTLE LADY A NIIICE HAND!' said the announcer.

A hand and a $1,000 dollar paycheck, a custom saddle and a gold belt buckle. In all, a pretty decent payday considering that ride lives on as one of the best in rodeo history.

Fanny Sperry was born in 1887 at the base of Sleeping Giant Mountain near Helena, Montana.   Her mother, Rachel, taught all five children to “ride as soon as they could walk” and as a child, Fanny and her brother made sport of rounding up the wild pintos in the surrounding foothills and then riding the roughest ones.  By age 15 she was performing in ‘Horse Shows,’ the precursor to the rodeo. 

In 1913 she met and married Bill Steele, a champion rider and rodeo clown and they spent their honeymoon…rodeo-ing, with Sperry Steele riding as many as 14 broncs in a single weekend and earning a reputation of ‘gluing herself to the saddle.’

Credit: National Cowboy Museum

The young couple started up a Wild West show, touring with Buffalo Bill Cody.

Credit: PatchesWorld.org

In addition to her horse and bull riding skills, Sperry Steele was a steel-eyed marksman who would shoot the ashes from her husband’s cigar.

Credit: PatchesWorld.org

She also became a fashion icon for her ‘divided’ skirts with a front panel that allowed her to ride astride and keep a ladylike appearance…always a consideration, especially when ‘sticking to the saddle like a cocklebur’ atop the infamous “Midnight” in Madison Square Garden.

Credit: BirchStreetClothing.com

The Steeles eventually went into ranching near Lincoln, Montana.

Widowed by 1940 she kept the ranch by herself for nearly 30 years, breaking horses, and saddle guiding hunters into rough country.  In 1975 at nearly 90 years of age Fanny Sperry Steele became one of the first three women inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame.  And as she edged toward the century mark, Steele summed up her life thusly:   “…to the cowboys I used to know, to the bronc busters that rode beside me, to the horses beneath me, I take off my hat. I wouldn’t have missed one minute of it.”   Now that’s one heck of a ride.