Gathering Strays

Stories from Kansas and the Southwestern Plains
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-0-7006-3410-1
Verlag: University Press of Kansas

Buch, Englisch, 402 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

Celebrated folklorist and author Jim Hoy has spent most of his life living in the heart of the famed Flint Hills of Kansas and documenting and celebrating his fellow Kansans and plains folk. Like rounding up stray cattle in a rolling pasture, Hoy has gathered over a hundred stray stories, tales without a single theme or unified narrative, and rounded them up here for the very first time. Branding these stories in sections like Cattle Towns, Outlaws, and Cowboy Music, Hoy’s vignettes teach, excite, charm, and instill a deep pride in anyone fortunate enough to have lived on the Great Plains.In Gathering Strays, Hoy gives us a collection of stories about Kansas, the Great Plains, and Western life that reflect his life-long love of the land, experience, and history of the region. Hoy introduces us to folks like Elmer McCurdy, a failed train robber whose arsenic-embalmed body went on tour and made money for the undertaker, and Ame Cole, who scolded Russian Grand Duke Alexis on his table manners. Writing as an easygoing storyteller, Hoy covers familiar areas like rodeos and cattle drives, takes us from Dodge City to Beer City and everywhere in between, explains why Kansas has the best state song in the nation, and expands our picture of cowboys with stories of Australian drovers, Black cowboys, and Mexican vaqueros.Throughout, his easy-to-read yet authoritative style describes the people, places, and events that make the region so distinctive and celebrated. Gathering Strays will be hailed by anyone interested in the heroes and villains, towns and ranges, and myths and legends of the West.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hoy, Jim

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Preface and Acknowledgments
- I. Cattle Towns
- 1. Abilene, Prototype of the Cow Town
- 2. Joe McCoy’s Buffalo Stunt
- 3. Bloody Newton
- 4. Hell Is in Session in Ellsworth
- 5. Wild times in Ellsworth: Later Edition
- 6. Wichita: The Rowdy Family (Joe and Kate)
- 7. Wichita: Hurricane Bill Martin
- 8. Caldwell: The Border Queen
- 9. Dodge City: Queen of the Cow Towns
- 10. Trail City and Coolidge
- 11. Elgin, the Last Cow Town
- II. Outlaws 12. Outlaws
- 12. Outlaws
- 13. An Armless Horse Thief
- 14. The Reno Gang: America’s First Train Robbers
- 15. The Fleagle Gang
- 16. The Short Life and Long Afterlife of Elmer McCurdy
- 17. Bootlegging
- 18, Jesse James
- 19. Tiger Bill
- 20. James Dalton
- 21. Dutch Henry
- 22. The Marlow Brothers
- 23. Femme Fatale
- 24. Sam Purple
- 25. West Texas Justice
- III. The Cowboy 26. The Origin of the Cowboy
- 27. The Cowboy as Symbol
- 28. the Cowboy as Hero
- 29. Black Cowboys
- 30. Boots, Hats, and Leather Leggings
- 31. A Letter from a Wyoming Cowboy to His Mother in Kansas
- IV. Trailing Cattle
- 32. The Goodnight-Loving Trail
- 33. Nelson Story’s Cattle Drive
- 34. The Chisholm Trail
- 35. The Log of a Cowboy
- 36. Texas-to-Kansas Cattle Drives
- 37. Prairie Cattle Company Roundup
- V. Other Cowboys
- 38. The Mexican Vaquero
- 39. Gaucho Rodeo
- 40. Sabanero de Costariccens
- 41. Estancia Los Potreros
- 42. Celtic Cowboys
- 43. Jack Sammon, Australian Drover
- VI. Rodeo
- 44. The Early Days of Rodeo
- 45. Going Down the Road
- 46. The First Indoor Rodeo
- 47. The First Bulldogger
- 48. Clay McGonagill, Steer Roper
- 49. Rodeo Bulls
- 50. The Belgrade Bull
- 51. Homer Venters, Rodeo Photographer
- 52. Shoat
- 53. Floyd Rumford
- 54. Buddy Heaton
- 55. Ranch Rodeo
- VII. Cowboy Music 56. Singing Cowboys and Cowboy Songs
- 57. The Old Chisholm Trail
- 58. Folk Songs and Fire
- 59. The Lane County Bachelor
- 60. Home on the Range
- 61. Buck Ramsey
- 62. Carson Robison and the Queen of England
- VIII. People 63. The Inimitable Henry Mudge
- 64. The Abernathy Boys
- 65. Lon Ford
- 66. Mary Elizabeth Haley
- 67. Ranicky Bill
- 68. Boney Joe
- 69. Cannonball Green
- 70. The Pony Express and Three Kansas Riders
- 71. Ame Cole, Frontiersman 72. Buffalo Bill
- 73. Jack McFall
- 74. Charlie Goodnight, Uncle Frank, My Son, and the Chuck Wagon
- 75. Ed Whitney
- 76. Landon Carter Haynes
- 77. Faye Gaines, Rancher
- 78. Ralph Bowlby and Flashaway
- 79. The Pilgrim Bard
- 80. Cattle Drives, Grasshoppers, Buffalo, and Indian Scares: The Memories of Alfred Bradshaw
- 81. Badger Clark
- 82. Fred Schouten
- IX. Places 83. El Quartelejo
- 84. Beer City
- 85. Russell Springs and the Butterfield Overland Despatch
- 86. Smokey Valley Ranch 87. Cyclone Day in Codell
- 88. The Pig Pen Ranch
- X. Happenings
- 89. A Prairie Burial
- 90. The Dewey-Berry Feud
- 91. The Cowboy War in Kansas
- 92. American Indians and the Santa Fe Trail
- 93. The Legend of Indian Hill
- 94. A Flying Saucer
- XI. Animals
- 95. Armadillos
- 96. Bear Tales
- 97. Crow Hop
- 98. Locusts
- 99. Monkey Business
- 100. Rattlesnake Stores
- 101. Longhorns, Texas and English
- 102. The Murder Steer
- 103. The Saga of Black Kettle
- 104. Wolves
- Glossary of Spanish Terms

Über Autor(innen)

Jim Hoy is professor emeritus of English, Emporia State University, and director emeritus of the Center for Great Plains Studies. Among his many books are My Flint Hills: Observations and Reminiscences from America’s Last Tallgrass Prairie, Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales from the Tallgrass Prairie, also from Kansas, and, with Tom Isern, Plains Folk: A Commonplace of the Great Plains.