The Cowboy

by Stuart Rosebrook | Dec 7, 2023 | Features & Gunfights

America’s icon still rides tall in the saddle.

A Mumble-Peg Game, Turkey Track Ranch, Texas, 1906. Erwin E. Smith, Courtesy Library of Congress

They call him cowboy, vaquero, buckaroo, waddy, paniolo, saddletramp, wrangler and drover. He is a loner and an owner. He’s a father and a mother. He’s a son and a daughter. He’s a rancher and a farmer. He’s a singer and an entertainer, a fence builder and a horseshoer. He’s a maverick and a rebel. He is the legendary, mythic, icon of America. He is the cowboy.

In honor of the American cowboy, the editors of True West present the following portfolio of classic 19th- and early-20th-century photographs as a testament to his—and her—status as the icon of America.

Bill Pickett
Location and Date Unknown
Courtesy North Fort Worth Historical Society

Tillie Baldwin, Riding Stampede
New York, New York, 1916
Courtesy Beinecke Library, Yale University

A Shoe Bar Wrangler Shoe Bar Ranch, Texas, 1912, Erwin E. Smith, Courtesy Erwin E. Smith Collection of the Library of Congress on Deposit at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Hacienda Owner Arcadio Lara Mexico City, Mexico

Santa Anita Cowboys Under a Tree
Rancho Santa Anita, California, 1890
Courtesy USC Libraries, California State Historical Society

Ladies in Chaps, Unknown cowgirl and Maude Beardsley (right)
Alberta, Canada, 1920 Courtesy Provincial Archives

Cowboys Branding Cattle in a Corral California, circa 1900
Courtesy USC Libraries, Special Collections, CHS-3483

Stephen Peters, Majordomo of the Santa Margarita California, 1917
Courtesy UC Irvine, Orange County, California, Regional History Collection

Idaho Cowboy
Location and Date Unknown
Courtesy UC Riverside, California Museum of Photography

Rodeo Champion
Kitty Canutt on Winnemucca Rawlins, Wyoming, 1919
Courtesy Library of Congress

Roping in Corral
Rancho Santa Anita, California, 1890
Courtesy USC Libraries, California State Historical Society

Nat Love, Cowboy
Location Unknown, 1907

“Fur-Out” Cowboy
Caldwell, Kansas, circa 1880s

James Stott
Northern Arizona, 1888

Border Cowboy
Location and Date Unknown

Buckskin Cowboy
Location and Date Unknown

Unarmed Cowboy
Location and Date Unknown

“Cottonwood Charlie” Nebo and Nicholas Janis
Location Unknown, circa 1880s

Well-Dressed Cowpoke
Location and Date Unknown

Cow Girl, Tex-Mex Border
Cameron County, Texas, circa 1910-12
T. J. Barrett, Courtesy DeGolyer Library, SMU

Miss Sadie Austin, A Typical Nebraska Cowgirl
Simeon, Cherry County, Nebraska
Solomon Butcher, Courtesy Library of Congress

Cowboys in Vests at Roundup
Angus VV Ranch, Ruidoso, New Mexico, circa 1885

Cowboy and His Chuck Wagon
Bonham, Texas, 1909
Erwin E. Smith, Courtesy The Getty Online Collection

Charlie Meadows, The Famous Scout & Horseman of Arizona
Location and Date Unknown
Courtesy UC Riverside,
California Museum of Photography

Cutting Out From the Herd
LS Range, Texas, 1907
Erwin E. Smith, Courtesy Library of Congress