James F. Hoy

The Flint Hills are America's last tallgrass prairie, a green enclave set in the midst of the farmland of eastern Kansas. Known as the home of the Big Beef Steer, these rugged hills have produced exemplary cowboys—both the ranch and rodeo varieties—whose hard work has given them plenty of material for equally good stories. Jim Hoy grew up in the Flint Hills on a ranch at Cassoday that's been in his family for five generations and boasts roots "as deep as those of bluestem grass in black-soil bottomland." He now draws on this area's rich cowboy lore—as well as on his own experience working cattle, breaking horses, and rodeoing—to write a folk history of the Flint Hills spanning a century and a half. Hoy blends history, folklore, and memoir to conjure for readers the tallgrass prairies of his boyhood in a book that richly recalls the ranching life and the people who lived it. Here are cowboys and outlaws, rodeo stars and runaway horses, ordinary folks and the stuff of legends. Hoy introduces readers to the likes of Lou Hart, a top hand with the Crocker Brothers from 1906 to1910, whose poetic paean to ranch life circulated orally for fifty years before seeing print. And he tracks down the legend of Bud Gillette, considered by his neighbors the world's fastest man until he fell in with an unscrupulous promoter. He even unravels the mystery of a lone grave supposed to be that of the first cowboy in the Flint Hills. Hoy also explains why a good horse makes up for having to work with exasperating cattle—and why not all horses are created (or trained) equal. And he traces Flint Hills cattle culture from the days of the trail drive through the railroad years to today's trucking era, with most railroad stockyards torn down and only one section house left standing. Writes Hoy, "I feed on the stories of the Hills and the characters who tell them as the cattle feed on the grasses." His love of the land shines throughout a book so real that readers will swear they hear the click of horseshoes on flint rock with every turn of the page.

Tales from the Tallgrass Prairie

Flint Hills Cowboys

With this study the cattle guard joins the sod house, the windmill, and barbed wire as a symbol of range country on the American Great Plains. A U.S. folk innovation now in use throughout the world, the cattle guard functions as both a gate and a fence: it keeps livestock from crossing, but allows automobiles and people to cross freely. The author blends traditional history and folklore to trace the origins of the cattle guard and to describe how, in true folk fashion, the device in its simplest form--wooden poles or logs spaced in parallel fashion over a pit in the roadway--was reinvented and adapted throughout livestock country. Hoy traces the origins of the cattle guard to flat stone stiles unique to Cornwall, England, then through the railroad cattle guard, in use in this country as early as 1836, and finally to the Great Plains where, probably in 1905, the first ones appeared on roads. He describes regional variations in cattle guards and details unusual types. He provides information on cattle-guard makers, who range from local blacksmiths and welders to farmers and ranchers to large manufacturers. In addition to documenting the economic and cultural significance of the cattle guard, this volume reveals much about early twentieth-century farm and ranch life. It will be of interest not only to folklorists and historians of agriculture and Western America, but also to many Plains-area farmers, ranchers, and oilmen.

Its History and Lore

The Cattle Guard

A collection of essays and tales about cowboy life, emphasizing the role of Kansas in the development of the cowboy legend, and drawing from personal experience, folklore, and history to relate the details of a cowhand's daily work.

James F. Hoy

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