Cow People

by J. Frank Dobie

Book Overview

Cow People records the fading memories of a bygone Texas, the reminiscences of the cow people themselves. These are the Texans of the don't-fence-me-in era, their faces pinched by years of squinting into the desert glare, tanned by the sun and coarsened by the dust of the Chisholm Trail. Their stories are often raucous but just as often quiet as hot plains under a pale Texan sky.

A native Texan, J. Frank Dobie had an inborn knowledge of the men and customs of the trail camps. Cattlemen were as various as the country was big. Ab Blocker was a tall, quiet man who belonged totally to the cattle and the silent plains. But big men often had big lungs. "Shanghai Pierce was the loudest man in the country. He would sit at one end of a day coach and in normal voice hold conversation with some man at the other end of the coach, who of course had to yell, while the train was clanking along. He knew everybody, yelled at everybody he saw."

Texas bred tall men and taller stories. There was Findlay Simpson, who played havoc with fact but whiled away the drivers' long, lonely evenings with his tales. Old Findlay told of a country so wet that it bogged down the shadow of a buzzard, and of cattle that went into hibernation during rugged winters; he once spun yarns for three days straight, outlasting his listeners in a marathon of endurance.

All real cow people--from the cattle drivers to the cattle owners--lived by a simple code based on the individual's integrity. Bothering anyone else's poke or business uninvited was strictly forbidden, and enforcement of this unwritten law was as easy as pulling a trigger. Honesty was taken for granted, and a cowman's name on a check made it negotiable currency.

Yet Texas had its "bad guys"--the crooks, the thieves, even the tightwads. "A world big enough to hold a rattlesnake and a purty woman is big enough for all kinds of people," wrote Dobie. This is the world whose vast and various population the reader will find in Cow People.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0292710607
• ISBN13: 9780292710603
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Cow People

I have several titles by J. Frank Dobie, and I also am an aspiring writer of western historical lore. I use Dobie books in my research and as guides to find information. Cow People is an excellent reference for pieces that happen on or around the big spreads of the 19th century, and an interesting read. I enjoy reading about the old timers that I have heard so much about through the years, especially the ones that were here in our area. I too have worked cattle and horses on these same lands, so it takes me to places and times with which I am very familiar. I identify with the Dobie take on things because he's home-folks. He reported faithfully the way of life in this Brush-Country of ours and was one of my grandfather's best friends.

Real men never even heard of quiche....

J.Frank Dobie was memorialized in Austin Texas at the famous Barton Springs pool with a statue along with 2 other famous Texans, at a place called philosophers rock. This book is part of the reason why. In it he chronicles the stories of the real mean of the old west, the cooks, cowhands, drive captains, and cattle barons from that famous era of the late 1800's. This is done through his own experience, his uncle owned a ranch in south Texas, direct interviews with his subjects and second hand stories. His book, Cow People, originally published in 1964, doesn't just paint a picture of these people and their time, he blasts the whole place with technicolor. Must be read by all 'cow people' and wannabes.