What were Rawhiders?
J.D. Dillon
Via the Internet
Rawhiders were a rough-hewn class of frontier itinerants who gathered cow or buffalo hides for sale. Rawhide was an all-purpose material. Frontier folk used it for just about anything from wire and gate hinges to mending a broken rifle stock.
The term referred to someone always on the move or to a small cow outfit. A “Rawhide Texan” meant one tough hombre. A “Rawhide Job” meant a tough job. A “Rawhide Outfit” was a tough one to work for. So you can see it had a lot of meanings, all of them rough and rawhide tough.
Marshall Trimble is Arizona’s official historian. His books include The Arizona Trilogy and Law of the Gun.
If you have a question, write:
Ask the Marshall
PO Box 8008, Cave Creek, AZ 85327
or e-mail him at marshall.trimble@sccmail.maricopa.edu
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