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.
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.
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
"Part history, part memoir, part pulp folklore, Gathering Strays takes readers on an adventure through esoteric and mostly forgotten moments of the region's past."--Kansas History "If you've spent much time in Kansas, this book will increase your appreciation for the state's people and their history. If you're new to Kansas, you'll get a first class introduction to this place we call home."--Rex Buchanan for Kansas Public Radio "Growing up on ranches in the Flint Hills of Kansas, Jim Hoy has spent his life riding and writing. He leads us on a fun, information-rich tour of the people, places, and events of the Old West. We meet memorable cowboys, outlaws, and other frontier folk and explore cow towns, ranches, rodeos, and more. Saddle up and enjoy the ride!"--Richard W. Slatta is professor emeritus of history at North Carolina State University and author of The Cowboy Encyclopedia and Cowboys of the Americas "Jim Hoy is a fine storyteller with deep roots in the Flint Hills of Kansas and the Great Plains. This connection with the old days and old ways of the West gives him a perspective to interpret the history of the Great Plains. Anything he's written is well worth reading, including this fine book."--Jim Garry is a storyteller and the author of This Ol' Drought Ain't Broke Us Yet and The First Liar Never Has a Chance "Gathering Strays is Jim Hoy's amble through a lifetime of stories that didn't fit in any of his other books. Already known for his history of cattle guards and the definitive chronicle of cowboy life in the Flint Hills, Hoy is a careful scholar and natural storyteller who turns his considerable attention to those true tales most Kansans have likely never heard before. Here you'll meet horse thief Hurricane Bill Martin, the terror of Wichita; hapless outlaw Elmer McCurdy, killed in a gunfight in 1911 and whose mummified body went on tour as a carnival attraction for the next six decades; performer Buddy Heaton and his trained buffalo Old Grunter; eccentric rancher and practical joker Henry Mudge, who used chicken blood to fake murders; and sixteen-year-old Minnie Walkup, who in 1885 got away with poisoning her middle-aged husband for the money. This is the kind of book you read not just for the stories, but also to spend some time in the gentle company of Hoy, a native Kansan who makes you feel at home in the Sunflower State, no matter where you're from."--Max McCoy, author of Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River
