The Cowboys of the Southwest – A Year of Discovery

I live in a bedroom community in the fifth largest city in America, Phoenix. Urban sprawl is an understatement here as houses rise out of dirt overnight, and people flock to soak up the endless sunshine. Buckeye, where I live, is one of the fastest-growing cities in America. Where once cattle roamed and agriculture flourished, California-style communities are taking hold with the influx of Californians. It’s not surprising as the area has a little bit of everything one might be looking for…yes, even water! So imagine my surprise when I took a side road instead of the highway loop and discovered COWBOYS!

They were hard to miss because everything around me seemed so “suburb-like” until I hit this hidden ranching community with cowboys on horses. Now, I’m not talking about the cowboy banker who comes home to horses or the pipefitter by day, cowboy by night. No, these were full-time chap-wearing, dirt-clad cowboys on horses doing a hard day’s work.

As I slowed to inspect the ranches and the activity surrounding them, my surprise slowly dissipated, and my brain kicked into gear. Of course, there should be cowboys here; this is, after all, the West! This is where the Earp brothers became legendary, where Ringo, Stillwater, Doc Holiday, and others earned their fame. But I was not looking at gunslingers as I drove by. I was looking at what was once termed “cowhands, cowpokes, and buckaroos.” Of course, over time, the name changed to “cowboys, meaning those who herded cattle, roped and rode, etc. Believe it or not, many of the first true cowboys, like Nat Love and Bill Pickett, were black. But the cowboys out my window were mainly Latino or Caucasian… actually, it was hard to tell with all the dust and dirt covering their clothes and faces. But I was intrigued.

I was so intrigued that when I had the chance, I moseyed on up to Wickenburg, AZ, Capital of Team Roping of the World, to see the cowboys up there. I saw a few chap-clad men on horses in a corral, but mostly, I saw 100 Cowboys from 100 Years in Photographs at the Wickenburg Desert Caballeros Western Museum. Scott Baxter’s poignant exhibit Revealing the West, thoroughly captured the cowboys of the last one hundred years in the Southwest. I walked with my husband for hours in the museum, learning about the life of the cowboys during the turn of the 20th century. You know the saying, if pictures could talk? Well, these photographs would have captured our hearts and minds for sure. They were simply black and white, but the faces that looked back at me told a story going back at least 100 years. These were not just men taming the west, but the stories of the women cowgirls and the Mexican Caballeros known as the Gentlemen on Horses.

Who knew that a simple turn off the highway to bypass traffic would lead me to an adventure into America’s past? There’s a whole world out there to discover. Take time to look around you and deviate from your plans. You just may discover a fascinating world hidden in your own community! I know I did!