DREAMS FOR SALE--THE STORY OF THE 101 RANCH by CHERYL PIERSON

On a vast open plain a few miles south of Ponca City, Oklahoma, lies the burial ground of one of the greatest ranching empires of the West—the Miller brothers’ 101 Ranch.

Established in 1893 by Colonel George Washington Miller, a former Confederate soldier, and his wife Molly, the 101 became known as the “Largest Diversified Farm and Ranch in America.” It was nicknamed the “White House.”

Not only was the 101 one of the largest working ranches west of the Mississippi, it was even more famous for its Wild West shows. These displays of horsemanship, roping, and daring “rescues” transitioned from local shows to the national level in 1907 when the 101 Wild West Show performed at the Jamestown Exposition in Virginia. In 1908, the tour circuit began in earnest.

The Miller brothers, Joseph, George Jr., and Zack, had permitted some of their cowboys to perform at a local fair, and from this, their own Wild West show grew to become known worldwide.

It was essentially a Wild West show, complete with cattle, buffaloes, cowboys and Indians. It included an all-around crowd pleaser—the attack on the stagecoach. But it also contained elements of the circus with sideshows, and “freaks” such as the Bearded Lady. In the heyday of its popularity, the Millers’ 101 Wild West Show netted them over one million dollars per year!

The idea of formalizing the performing cowboys into a Wild West show came from the Millers’ longtime friend and neighbor, Major Gordon W. Lillie—also known as Pawnee Bill. Pawnee Bill eventually combined his own Wild West show with Buffalo Bill Cody’s. The 101 Wild West Show, however, remained solitary, boasting stars such as black bulldogger Bill Pickett, Bee Ho Gray, early movie star Tom Mix, Mexican Joe, and eventually, Buffalo Bill Cody as well.

The Miller brothers were latecomers to the Wild West show circuit, causing them to suffer financially with the advent of movies. Even so, their show became the largest in the nation by the 1920’s, requiring more than 100 train cars to travel from town to town.

By 1916, the two younger Miller brothers, George Jr. and Zack, gave up trying to work with their temperamental oldest brother, Joe. It was during this time period that Joe hired an aging Buffalo Bill Cody to star in a WWI recruitment show: The Pageant of Preparedness. Cody quit the show due to illness, and died within a year. Still, Joe tried to keep the show going, but was unsuccessful. He offered it for sale to the American Circus Corporation in 1927. They were uninterested, suffering from financial distress as well. On October 21, 1927, a neighbor found Joe Miller dead in the ranch garage of carbon monoxide poisoning. Several months later, his brother, George Jr., was killed in a car accident. In 1932, Zack Miller was forced to file for bankruptcy. The U.S. Government seized what remained of the show’s assets and bought 8,000 acres of the 101 Ranch. Zack Miller died in 1952 of cancer.

Today, what remains of the once-glorious three-story stucco 101 Ranch headquarters is rubble. Over ten years ago, efforts began to turn the site into a roadside park.

Bill Pickett, the inventor of bulldogging, or steer wrestling, is buried there. On the same mound where Bill Pickett lies is a memorial to the Ponca chief, White Eagle, who led his people to a nearby reservation during the 1870’s from their holdings along the Nebraska-Dakota border.

The stone monument was built as an Indian trail marker where signals and messages could be left by different friendly tribes who passed by. These tribes generally understood the signals, and could tell which way the other travelers were going. Gradually, settlers took away the stones for building purposes. Because Colonel George Miller and White Eagle were lifetime friends, and Joe Miller was adopted into the tribe, the renovation of the trail marker had significance to the 101 Ranch for many reasons.

The 101 Ranch was a bridge between these old, lost days of the early West, when Colonel George Miller started the venture as a settler after the States’ War, and the modern times of change. The 101 Ranch was the headquarters for the show business contingent of cowboys and other western performers of the early 1900’s. Will Rogers was a frequent visitor, as well as presidents and celebrities from around the world. Some of the first western movies were filmed on the 101 Ranch.

Though there isn’t much left of the actual building, the 101 Ranch exceeded the expectations for a “cattle ranch.” Indeed, it was a virtual palace on the Oklahoma plains; a place where dreams were lived.

In my novel, Fire Eyes, Kaed Turner talks with his friend and mentor, Tom Sellers, about giving up law enforcement and settling down to ranching. I don't think they ever had anything as grand as the 101 Ranch in mind. At first, Tom sees it as an unattainable dream; but as the conversation progresses, the possibilities look better. Here’s what happens!

FROM FIRE EYES:
Tom smiled. “Glad you’ve got somebody good—deep down—like you are, Kaed. Ain’t too many men who’d take on another man’s child, love her like you do your Lexi.”

Kaed put his hand against the rough wood of the tree and straightened out his arm, stretching his muscles.

Tom drew deeply on his pipe, and Kaed waited. He’d known Tom so long that he recognized the older man was going to broach a subject with him that he normally would have avoided. Finally, Tom said, “I told Harv he needed to find someone. Settle down again. Grow corn and make babies. Think I might’ve offended him. But after seein’ him with little Lexi, it hit me that he seemed content. For the first time in a long while.”

It had struck Kaed, as well. Harv rarely smiled. But when he’d played with Lexi, it seemed that grin of his was permanently fixed on his face.

“Seems that way for you, too, boy.” Tom wouldn’t look at him. “Seems like you found what you’ve been looking for. Don’t let marshalin’ ruin it for you, Kaed. I’ve stayed with it too long. Me and Harv and Jack, we’ve been damn lucky to get this old without gettin’ killed either in the War, or doin’ this job.”

“Tom? Sounds like you’ve got some regrets.”

Tom nodded. “You made me realize somethin’, Marshal Turner, and now I don’t know whether to thank you or cuss you. When I saw the way that woman looked at you, the way that baby’s eyes lit up, it made me know I shoulda give this all up years ago and found myself somebody. Taken the advice I gave Harv. Planted my seed in the cornfield and in my woman’s belly, and maybe I’d’a been happier, too.”

“It’s not too late.” Kaed’s voice was low and rough. The doubt he’d had at starting his own family again was suddenly erased by the older man’s words. Nothing would bring his first family back. But he had a second chance now, and he was a helluva lot younger than Tom Sellers. He’d had it twice, and Tom had never had it at all. Never felt the love flow through a woman, through her touch, her look, and into his own body, completing him. Never looked into the eyes of a child who worshipped him. He wouldn’t have missed that for anything the first time. Or the second.

Tom turned slowly to look at Kaed, the leaves of the elm tree patterning the filtering moonlight across his face. “You think that cause you’re young, Kaed. Twenty-nine ain’t forty-three.”

“Forty-three ain’t dead, Tom. There’s plenty of women out there. Plenty of land. Room to spread out. What’re you grinnin’ at?”

Tom laughed aloud. “Got any particular woman in mind?” Quickly, he added, “Now, remember, Kaed. She’s gotta be young enough to give me a baby, but not so young she’s a baby herself. Gotta be easy on the eye, and I want her to look at me like your Jessica looks at you. And by the way, have you got any idea where a fella could get a piece of good land for raisin’ cattle, with a little patch for farmin’?”

Kaed’s lips twitched. Tom was dreaming, but only half dreaming. The serious half had taken root in his heart and mind. Kaed knew before too much longer, that part would eat away at the lightheartedness until it took over completely, becoming a bold, unshakeable dream that he would do his utmost to accomplish. Now that Tom had envisioned what his life could be, Kaed knew it would fall to him to help make it a reality.

“Let’s end this business with Fallon. After that, we’ll find the land and the cattle.”

“Don’t mean nothin’ without the woman, Kaed. You oughtta know that.”

“I do.” Kaed smiled, his thoughts straying to Miss Amelia Bailey, the not-so-young-but-young-enough school teacher in Fort Smith, who always seemed to trip over her words when Tom Sellers came around. Just the right age. And very easy on the eye. “Stick with me, old man. I may even help you find a decent woman to settle down with.”

I'm giving away an autographed copy of FIRE EYES today to a lucky commenter! Please leave your contact info in your comment and be sure to check back sometime after 9:00 this evening to see if you were the winner of the drawing!

You can find more of my work here:
https://www.amazon.com/author/cherylpierson

LULU BELL PARR, CHAMPION LADY BUCKING-HORSE RIDER OF THE WORLD

“Bronco busting isn’t a game for the timid and weak,” Buffalo Bill Cody told newspaper reporters in January 1912. “Death lurks close every time a rider mounts up.”

Lulu Bell Parr thrilled audiences around the world with her daring rides on unbroken ponies. Born in 1876, she was only three when her parents died and she and her brother were sent to Ft. Wayne, Indiana to live with their uncle, William Sheehan. She burst onto the Wild West Show scene in 1903, when newly divorced Lulu Bell joined Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Brighton Tour and traveled to Europe where she performed for King Edward VII.

Lulu Bell moved from one wild west show to another, from Pawnee Bill’s to Buffalo Bill Cody’s, to the 101 Ranch Wild West program. With them she toured South America and charmed Argentina’s President Jose Figueroa Alcorta, who showered her with flowers and gift. She moved back to Pawnee Bill’s show in 1916, riding the decline of the entertainment form until her retirement in 1929. Fifty-three and broke, Lulu moved to Dayton, Ohio, to live with her brother and his wife. She spent her days entertaining children in the neighborhood with stories of her travels and the horses she’d ridden.

Lulu Bell Parr died on April 24, 1960, from complications she suffered from a stroke. Among her possessions was an ivory-handled Colt single-action revolver engraved with the words “Buffalo Bill Cody to Lulu Parr – 1911.” Newspapers reported she had so many souvenirs of her career you could hardly walk into her room.

In 2005, Lulu Bell Parr was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas. She was, and is, considered the “Champion Lady Bucking Horse Rider of the World.”



Tracy Garrett

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DREAMS FOR SALE--THE STORY OF THE 101 RANCH by CHERYL PIERSON

On a vast open plain a few miles south of Ponca City, Oklahoma, lies the burial ground of one of the greatest ranching empires of the West—the Miller brothers’ 101 Ranch.

Established in 1893 by Colonel George Washington Miller, a former Confederate soldier, and his wife Molly, the 101 became known as the “Largest Diversified Farm and Ranch in America.” It was nicknamed the “White House.”

Not only was the 101 one of the largest working ranches west of the Mississippi, it was even more famous for its Wild West shows. These displays of horsemanship, roping, and daring “rescues” transitioned from local shows to the national level in 1907 when the 101 Wild West Show performed at the Jamestown Exposition in Virginia. In 1908, the tour circuit began in earnest.

The Miller brothers, Joseph, George Jr., and Zack, had permitted some of their cowboys to perform at a local fair, and from this, their own Wild West show grew to become known worldwide.

It was essentially a Wild West show, complete with cattle, buffaloes, cowboys and Indians. It included an all-around crowd pleaser—the attack on the stagecoach. But it also contained elements of the circus with sideshows, and “freaks” such as the Bearded Lady. In the heyday of its popularity, the Millers’ 101 Wild West Show netted them over one million dollars per year!

The idea of formalizing the performing cowboys into a Wild West show came from the Millers’ longtime friend and neighbor, Major Gordon W. Lillie—also known as Pawnee Bill. Pawnee Bill eventually combined his own Wild West show with Buffalo Bill Cody’s. The 101 Wild West Show, however, remained solitary, boasting stars such as black bulldogger Bill Pickett, Bee Ho Gray, early movie star Tom Mix, Mexican Joe, and eventually, Buffalo Bill Cody as well.

The Miller brothers were latecomers to the Wild West show circuit, causing them to suffer financially with the advent of movies. Even so, their show became the largest in the nation by the 1920’s, requiring more than 100 train cars to travel from town to town.

By 1916, the two younger Miller brothers, George Jr. and Zack, gave up trying to work with their temperamental oldest brother, Joe. It was during this time period that Joe hired an aging Buffalo Bill Cody to star in a WWI recruitment show: The Pageant of Preparedness. Cody quit the show due to illness, and died within a year. Still, Joe tried to keep the show going, but was unsuccessful. He offered it for sale to the American Circus Corporation in 1927. They were uninterested, suffering from financial distress as well. On October 21, 1927, a neighbor found Joe Miller dead in the ranch garage of carbon monoxide poisoning. Several months later, his brother, George Jr., was killed in a car accident. In 1932, Zack Miller was forced to file for bankruptcy. The U.S. Government seized what remained of the show’s assets and bought 8,000 acres of the 101 Ranch. Zack Miller died in 1952 of cancer.

Today, what remains of the once-glorious three-story stucco 101 Ranch headquarters is rubble. Over ten years ago, efforts began to turn the site into a roadside park.

Bill Pickett, the inventor of bulldogging, or steer wrestling, is buried there. On the same mound where Bill Pickett lies is a memorial to the Ponca chief, White Eagle, who led his people to a nearby reservation during the 1870’s from their holdings along the Nebraska-Dakota border.

The stone monument was built as an Indian trail marker where signals and messages could be left by different friendly tribes who passed by. These tribes generally understood the signals, and could tell which way the other travelers were going. Gradually, settlers took away the stones for building purposes. Because Colonel George Miller and White Eagle were lifetime friends, and Joe Miller was adopted into the tribe, the renovation of the trail marker had significance to the 101 Ranch for many reasons.

The 101 Ranch was a bridge between these old, lost days of the early West, when Colonel George Miller started the venture as a settler after the States’ War, and the modern times of change. The 101 Ranch was the headquarters for the show business contingent of cowboys and other western performers of the early 1900’s. Will Rogers was a frequent visitor, as well as presidents and celebrities from around the world. Some of the first western movies were filmed on the 101 Ranch.

Though there isn’t much left of the actual building, the 101 Ranch exceeded the expectations for a “cattle ranch.” Indeed, it was a virtual palace on the Oklahoma plains; a place where dreams were lived.

In my novel, Fire Eyes, Kaed Turner talks with his friend and mentor, Tom Sellers, about giving up law enforcement and settling down to ranching. I don't think they ever had anything as grand as the 101 Ranch in mind. At first, Tom sees it as an unattainable dream; but as the conversation progresses, the possibilities look better. Here’s what happens!

FROM FIRE EYES:
Tom smiled. “Glad you’ve got somebody good—deep down—like you are, Kaed. Ain’t too many men who’d take on another man’s child, love her like you do your Lexi.”

Kaed put his hand against the rough wood of the tree and straightened out his arm, stretching his muscles.

Tom drew deeply on his pipe, and Kaed waited. He’d known Tom so long that he recognized the older man was going to broach a subject with him that he normally would have avoided. Finally, Tom said, “I told Harv he needed to find someone. Settle down again. Grow corn and make babies. Think I might’ve offended him. But after seein’ him with little Lexi, it hit me that he seemed content. For the first time in a long while.”

It had struck Kaed, as well. Harv rarely smiled. But when he’d played with Lexi, it seemed that grin of his was permanently fixed on his face.

“Seems that way for you, too, boy.” Tom wouldn’t look at him. “Seems like you found what you’ve been looking for. Don’t let marshalin’ ruin it for you, Kaed. I’ve stayed with it too long. Me and Harv and Jack, we’ve been damn lucky to get this old without gettin’ killed either in the War, or doin’ this job.”

“Tom? Sounds like you’ve got some regrets.”

Tom nodded. “You made me realize somethin’, Marshal Turner, and now I don’t know whether to thank you or cuss you. When I saw the way that woman looked at you, the way that baby’s eyes lit up, it made me know I shoulda give this all up years ago and found myself somebody. Taken the advice I gave Harv. Planted my seed in the cornfield and in my woman’s belly, and maybe I’d’a been happier, too.”

“It’s not too late.” Kaed’s voice was low and rough. The doubt he’d had at starting his own family again was suddenly erased by the older man’s words. Nothing would bring his first family back. But he had a second chance now, and he was a helluva lot younger than Tom Sellers. He’d had it twice, and Tom had never had it at all. Never felt the love flow through a woman, through her touch, her look, and into his own body, completing him. Never looked into the eyes of a child who worshipped him. He wouldn’t have missed that for anything the first time. Or the second.

Tom turned slowly to look at Kaed, the leaves of the elm tree patterning the filtering moonlight across his face. “You think that cause you’re young, Kaed. Twenty-nine ain’t forty-three.”

“Forty-three ain’t dead, Tom. There’s plenty of women out there. Plenty of land. Room to spread out. What’re you grinnin’ at?”

Tom laughed aloud. “Got any particular woman in mind?” Quickly, he added, “Now, remember, Kaed. She’s gotta be young enough to give me a baby, but not so young she’s a baby herself. Gotta be easy on the eye, and I want her to look at me like your Jessica looks at you. And by the way, have you got any idea where a fella could get a piece of good land for raisin’ cattle, with a little patch for farmin’?”

Kaed’s lips twitched. Tom was dreaming, but only half dreaming. The serious half had taken root in his heart and mind. Kaed knew before too much longer, that part would eat away at the lightheartedness until it took over completely, becoming a bold, unshakeable dream that he would do his utmost to accomplish. Now that Tom had envisioned what his life could be, Kaed knew it would fall to him to help make it a reality.

“Let’s end this business with Fallon. After that, we’ll find the land and the cattle.”

“Don’t mean nothin’ without the woman, Kaed. You oughtta know that.”

“I do.” Kaed smiled, his thoughts straying to Miss Amelia Bailey, the not-so-young-but-young-enough school teacher in Fort Smith, who always seemed to trip over her words when Tom Sellers came around. Just the right age. And very easy on the eye. “Stick with me, old man. I may even help you find a decent woman to settle down with.”

I'm giving away an autographed copy of FIRE EYES today to a lucky commenter! Please leave your contact info in your comment and be sure to check back sometime after 9:00 this evening to see if you were the winner of the drawing!

You can find more of my work here:
https://www.amazon.com/author/cherylpierson

Tom and the Duke by Phil Truman

Tom Mix

Roaming one of my favorite haunts a few months back, The Tom Mix Museum in Dewey, Oklahoma, I came across a gallery of signed photographs from past Hollywood western movie luminaries – Jimmy Stewart, Walter Brennan, Will Geer, Roy and Dale, and a host of others. Like old Tom, most of them have gone on to the Big Roundup. I leaned in closer to look at one. “Best of luck to the Tom Mix Museum – John Wayne” it was inscribed.

“Dang, The Duke,” I said, clearly impressed.

Next to me, my associate Russ Maddock – historian and photographer extraordinaire – said to me, “You should ask Fawn [Lassiter, museum Manager and Curator] about John Wayne and Tom Mix.” Russ and I had both come there that day to sign our respective books for prospective readers.

Here’s what I found out.

Tom Mix and John Wayne didn’t much like each other. Tom, it’s said, was a bit jealous and feared Wayne would unseat him from his position in the Hollywood Cowboy limelight at a time when Mix’s role as a film star had begun to fade, and Wayne’s star was rising. Once when a reporter asked Tom what he thought of Wayne, he said, “The only Christian words I could use are ‘no-talent upstart.’”

As for The Duke – a nickname he picked up as a kid – it’s said his dislike for Tom went back to his (Wayne’s) football playing days at USC. Supposedly, Mix had told Wayne and several of his teammates that they should stop by Fox Studios and he’d get them jobs in the movies. When Wayne and some of the boys did show up a few weeks later, Mix told the guards he never made such an offer, and the bunch were summarily thrown off the lot. However, Tom did later get John a summer job in the studios’ prop department in exchange for USC football tickets.

The two men had diametrically opposed styles in their approach to the western genre of film acting. Mix was sort of a dandy, a showman avoiding realism for more melodramatic scenes and attractive visuals like fancy well-tailored outfits and trick-riding on his famous horse(s) Tony. Tom once said, “From the beginning I decided to make clean pictures. I decided to give boys and grown-ups good wholesome entertainment, free from suggestion or anything harmful to growing and fertile-minded youth. I try to convey to the boys and girls a message of helpfulness. In no picture have I ever smoked, taken a drink, played cards or gambled.”

John Wayne

Don't suppose Tom would've taken a part in Django Unchained, were he around today and such had been offered him. But, the film genre did evolve, thanks in large part to Wayne. We all knew The Duke as a tough, gritty, no-nonsense guy with maybe some smoldering anger issues. I believe it would be fair to say, in most of his movies he was a hard-smoking, hard-drinking kind of guy, and I can also recall a few card games. I always suspected that ever-present faded red shirt and leather vest he wore got kind of gamey, as he never seemed to change out of it. 

The world view John Wayne projected from the screen seemed to be pretty much black and white, and he was somewhat intolerant. He was short and direct with the spoken word, often confused with women; something that appealed to his audiences, especially us men. We weren’t always sure how the Duke’s relationships would play out, but we knew for certain we’d want to be on his side in the end.

My favorite John Wayne quote is, “Life is hard; it’s harder if you’re stupid.”

The irony of the whole comparison between these two men is that Tom Mix lived more of the western-style life in his younger years than did Wayne. Mix worked as a real cowboy on one of the biggest ranches in Indian Territory, the Miller Brothers’ 101 Ranch near present day Ponca City, Oklahoma. There he worked cattle and horses and performed with (an elderly) Bufflao Bill and Pawnee Bill in the Millers’ Wild West Shows. He was also a bartender and town marshal in the town of Dewey. John Wayne, on the other hand, grew up in Southern California where he worked in an ice cream store as a teen and played football at USC, losing his scholarship there due to an off-field injury while body-surfing.

But it’s like the fella said, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Phil Truman has authored three of what he calls, “Oklahoma-centric” novels. His first, GAME, an American Novel is a sports inspirational about small town schoolboy football. Legends of Tsalagee weaves a tale of mystery and adventure in a small town. A 2013 Peacemaker Award nominee and finalist for the 2013 Will Rogers Medallion for Western Fiction, Red Lands Outlaw, the Ballad of Henry Starr is Phil’s first foray into the western genre in this historical novel about the life and times of an Oklahoma outlaw. He has won numerous awards for his short fiction, and his western short story “Last Will for an Outlaw” appears in LaFrontera’s anthology, Dead or Alive, released June 2013.

Phil’s website is: http://philtrumanink.com/