ask-the-marshallWhat 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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