Cowboy Dress, Arms, Tools and Equipments As Used In The Little Missouri Range Country and The Medora Area In The 1880's

Rickey, Don

The object of this report is to make available sound information on the dress, arms, equipments and tools used by the working cowboys in western North Dakota .in the 1880's. This information is basic to the sound interpretation of the open range cattle industry participated in by Theodore Roosevelt in the period 1882-87. The open range era can not be adequately interpreted for the visiting public without giving much attention to the men who made. it live - the working cowboys. In the years since the open range passed from the scene, the cowboy has become the' darling of historical romancers, debunkers, pulp magazine writers and B quality movie makers. He has been presented to the American public as a superman, often armed and garbed in such a way as to make the picture unrecognizable to those few elderly men now living who actually were cowboys in the great days of the open range.For presentation of the northern cowboy of the 1B80's, as he actually was, it has been deemed necessary to conduct the research embodied in this report, to the end that pictures, artifacts andrelics, dioramas and other interpretive mediums will be able to convey to the public exact information as to how the cowboys dressed, how they armed themselves, what special equipment they used in the course of their work and the why and wherefore to make this material meaningful.