Where Did The Tradition of Big Belt Buckles Come From?

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

If you’re a fan of country music, cowboys, or any sort of western culture, you’re probably very familiar with the large and glitzy belt buckles worn by those in that world. But have you ever wondered how the ornate buckle became synonymous with cowboys and western life? I did, so I thought I’d share what I found with you.

Notice the waist cinch and suspenders.

Early on in American history, pants weren’t made with belt loops. In fact, these utilitarian strips of fabric didn’t make an appearance on pants until 1922, when Levi Strauss began including the feature on his denim jeans. Prior to that, many trousers came equipped with a small cinch across the back that could be tightened to help the waist fit better—or people used suspenders to hold up their pants.

 

An unknown Union soldier with prominent belt buckle.

But in 1861, the Civil War broke out, and belts with a prominent brass buckle were part of the uniforms worn by both sides. The belts often held an ammunition box, a sword’s scabbard, pistol holster, or other necessary items. The buckles were usually emblazoned with “CSA” for Confederate States of America or “US” for the Federal soldiers—or some had eagles with their wings spread wide. At the war’s end, many men continued to wear parts of their uniforms, since supplies were scarce—so the belts became a bit more common.

Robert E. Lee with a belt and buckle.

 

Belts and their buckles became more mainstream as the American west opened up—and people needed a reliable way to carry a sidearm. Many of the Texas Rangers converted their uniform belts into gun belts, and the belts, buckles, and holsters began to transition to a more ornate style. No longer were the belts just simple straps of leather with a brass buckle. In this era, leather workers began tooling the leather with intricate patterns, both on the belt and the holster, and silversmiths developed more ornate three-piece buckles. Loops were sewn into the belt to carry extra bullets, and a whole new style developed.

William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who led one of the best-known Wild West Shows.
Notice his large belt buckle.

 

In the 1870s, the Wild West show became prominent. Actors and notable figures of the era donned western-styled costumes and regalia to entertain and wow audiences with feats of horsemanship, shooting, and reenactments of western events. In turn, this gave way to moving pictures. The first western movies—a series of silent reels—was put out by Thomas Edison’s studio in 1894, and the popularity grew from there. Many of the early western movies gave moviegoers quick snapshots of what life on the frontier was like. As actors portrayed life out west on stage and screen, the ornate gun belts and large buckles that held them in place became a common sight across America. The belt and its buckle was becoming mainstream.

John Wayne in a 1930s-era movie,
sporting a belt and gun belt.

 

Then, enter the rodeo. As I wrote about in an earlier post, the rodeo has a long history dating back to early ranch life. But as the rodeo became a professional group of sports with a union and set rules, along with that came trophies—in the form of ornate belt buckles for the top-placing competitors. The higher one placed in a given event, the larger the buckle one could win.

 

So there you have it—the history of the western belt buckle. From a non-existent object to a utilitarian bit of metal, all the way to a wearable trophy, this fashion statement has embedded itself into America’s history and culture.

It's Your Turn: Do you like the big, glitzy western belt buckles as a fashion statement? Why or why not?

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered western novels at twelve when she swiped the only “horse” book from her brother’s bookshelf. Across the next decade, she devoured westerns and fell in love with the genre. While attaining a B.A. in writing from the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. She has finaled in and won numerous writing competitions and appeared on various best-seller lists. Besides writing, she’s been a business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, a historical researcher, a publisher, and a full-time homemaker. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband and fur children.

 

 

Love and Order: A Three-Part Old West Romantic Mystery

Wanted: 

Family, Love, and Justice

One Old West Mystery Solved Throughout Three Short Romantic Stories

Separated as children when they were adopted out to different families from an orphan train, the Braddock siblings have each grown up and taken on various jobs within law enforcement and criminal justice.

 

Youngest child, Callie, has pushed past her insecurities to pursue a career as a Pinkerton agent. Middle child, Andi, has spent years studying law under her adoptive father’s tutelage. And the eldest and only son, Rion, is a rough-and-tumble bounty hunter. 

 

When the hunt for a serial killer with a long history of murders reunites the brother and sisters in Cambria Springs, Colorado, they find themselves not only in a fight for justice, but also a fight to keep their newly reunited family intact. How will they navigate these challenges when further complicated by unexpected romances?

 

 

 

 

 

A Brief History of the Rodeo

 by Jennifer Uhlarik

I have loved the Old West since I was a young girl, and I’ve written stories set in the Old West since I was high school. But I’ve been a dweller of the suburbs all my life. I’ve never owned a horse, have ridden horseback only infrequently, and until this past weekend, I’d never gone to the rodeo. That all changed on Saturday when the hubs and I went to a small rodeo at the local county fairgrounds.

 

The rodeo was a fairly small one, in my estimation. The pre-show was fun, with two handfuls of young children doing some mutton busting. I gotta say, those kids were spunky, and some of them were durn tough! Then, as the sun set, the real show began. It started with five or six brave young men competing in bronc riding, followed by ten or so bull riders. A totally silly intermission of “bull soccer” broke up the events. What is bull soccer, you ask? The asked for four athletic audience members to don those giant bubble suits and get into the arena with a bull and let the 2000 pound beast knock them around for entertainment. Once that was done, another round of bronc riders vied for top spots, then another set of bull riders. The final event of the night was the women competing in barrel racing. Overall, I had fun, despite the fact that only about half the bronc riders made qualifying 8-second rides and none of the bull riders did on this particular night.

 

In spite of the fact I’d never been to a rodeo until now, I have long known the origin of our modern-day rodeo. Do you? In case you’re unfamiliar, here’s a brief rundown.

 

A Mexican vaquero

The term “rodeo” comes from the Spanish word rodear, which means roundup. From that, you might guess that rodeo’s roots come out of the Mexican ranch workers known as vaqueros. If you did make such a guess, you’d be right. Throughout the early 1800s, these vaqueros made sport of doing their ranch chores, competing with other ranch workers to see who was better able to ride a wild horse and who could rope the best. Soon, the competitions grew so that one ranch was vying against another in crazy festivals of sport.

 

After the Texas Revolution (1835-36), and particularly after the United States annexed Texas in 1845, the vaqueros intermingled with American cowboys, and these competitions grew even more. Another big boost to the growing competitions came after the end of the Civil War, when former slaves traveled West and became cowboys. All of these men became the early fabric of our modern-day rodeos.

Jesse Stahl, one of the best bronc riders in history,
circa 1928

 

The next big boost for modern rodeo came in 1883, when one William F. Cody—better known as Buffalo Bill—began his traveling Wild West Show. Despite the fact that the “wild” west was quickly taming into a more populated and genteel place than in previous decades, Buffalo Bill Cody’s show cemented the romantic notion of its wildness. Among the many facets of his exhibition, sharp-shooting, roping, trick riding, bronc busting and the like were on display for all to see.

 

Only a handful of years after Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show got its illustrious start, one of the earliest official rodeos was held in Prescott, Arizona, on July 4, 1888. Others, like the Cheyenne Frontier Days, were held in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1897, and even more in the first decade of the 1900s. The sports that comprise rodeo were gaining traction, and by the 1930s, the competitors founded the first cowboy union after having to fight for fair compensation for their work. 

 

Today, that same union—the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association—still exists, albeit after at least two name changes. It lists over 5000 competitive members and several thousand more in non-competitive roles, and it hosts hundreds of events each year, culminating in the finals, where millions of dollars in prize money is given away.

 

It’s Your Turn: Have you ever been to a rodeo? If yes, what was your favorite event? If no, do you desire to see one? Why or why not?

 

Award-winning, best-selling novelist Jennifer Uhlarik has loved the western genre since she read her first Louis L’Amour novel. She penned her first western while earning a writing degree from University of Tampa. Jennifer lives near Tampa with her husband, son, and furbabies. www.jenniferuhlarik.com

 

 

AVAILABLE NOW

 

Love’s Fortress by Jennifer Uhlarik

 

A Friendship From the Past Brings Closure to Dani’s Fractured Family

 

When Dani Sango’s art forger father passes away, Dani inherits his home. There, she finds a book of Native American drawings, which leads her to seek museum curator Brad Osgood’s help to decipher the ledger art. Why would her father have this book? Is it another forgery?

 

Brad Osgood longs to provide his four-year-old niece, Brynn, the safe home she desperately deserves. The last thing he needs is more drama, especially from a forger’s daughter. But when the two meet “accidentally” at St. Augustine’s 350-year-old Spanish fort, he can’t refuse the intriguing woman.

 

Broken Bow is among seventy-three Plains Indians transported to Florida in 1875 for incarceration at ancient Fort Marion. Sally Jo Harris and Luke Worthing dream of serving on a foreign mission field, but when the Indians reach St. Augustine, God changes their plans. However, when Sally Jo’s friendship with Broken Bow leads to false accusations, it could cost them their lives.

 

Can Dani discover how Broken Bow and Sally Jo’s story ends and how it impacted her father’s life?

 

 

 

And They Call the Thing Rodeo

By Cindy Regnier 

It’s bulls and blood
It’s dust and mud
It’s the roar of a Sunday crowd

At least that’s how Garth Brooks describes it and I guess I’d have to agree. Do you enjoy rodeo? Ever wonder how it got started? As one of my favorite sports (next to my alma mater football) I’ve always been interested in its beginnings. Let’s delve into it and see what we can find out.

You may be surprised to learn that rodeo is a little more complex than boots, cowboy hats and fancy belt buckles. Rodeo is actually a unique of blend of cultures and traditions with its roots in Spanish origin. Modern day rodeo in our country dates back to the cattle industry of the American West, but it was greatly influenced by Spanish conquistadors in the 1700s.

Today’s rodeo developed many of its practices from Spanish ranchers and their Mexican ranch hands, or vaqueros. The word “rodeo” itself is derived from the Spanish word “rodear” meaning “roundup,” in reference to the roundup of cattle. As pioneers from the East interacted with the Spanish, Mexican, Californian, and Texan cowboys, they took on many of the vaqueros’ styles and traditions of ranch life.

The blending of Anglo and Spanish-Mexican cultures led to the birth of the American cowboy era in the 1800s. Breaking horses to ride and catching cattle for branding, doctoring, and sale required roping and riding skills on the frontier ranches. In the 1820s and ’30s ranch-versus-ranch contests began to spring up with cowboys and vaqueros testing their skills against each other.

Branding

It wasn’t until after the Civil War, however, that the cowboy era truly began, as ranchers from the Southwest organized cattle drives to deliver cattle to trains where they would be transported East. At the end of a drive, cowboys would hold informal competitions against each other to see which group had the best skills in riding and roping. These events soon became competitions on for public display at race tracks, fairgrounds, and festivals.

Some folks believe the first official rodeo was held in 1869 in Deer Trail, Colorado, when two groups of cowboys from neighboring ranches met to settle an argument over who was best at performing everyday cowboy tasks, including breaking wild horses, which is today’s saddle bronc riding event. Over the years, a culmination of skills and techniques from Spanish-speaking cowboys, vaqueros, and cowboys from the East combined to bring us today’s modern rodeo. 

Many others claim to be the first rodeo in the U.S., including Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1872; Winfield, Kansas, in 1882; and Pecos, Texas, in 1883. Still, these early contests were primarily simple displays of riding and roping skills and not the organized events now standard in today’s rodeo industry.

From the 1880s through the 1920s, frontier days, stampedes, and cowboy contests were the most popular names of what we now call the rodeo. Buffalo Bill Cody 

Buffalo Bill

and his Fourth of July Wild West show in North Platte, Nebraska, in 1882 was the first competition to offer prize money, with Prescott, Arizona, claiming to hold the “first formalized rodeo” on July 4, 1888. From there, Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1897, the Pendleton Round-Up in 1910, and the Calgary Stampede in 1912 followed as popular rodeo venues.

Initially, rodeo was a fairly nondiscriminatory sport, often including Hispanic, African American, Native American, and female contestants in an era when race and gender discrimination were commonplace. Women competed in many events at mixed-gender rodeos well into the 1930s. During this time, ladies often competed against men and won in a variety of rodeo events, including bronc riding and steer roping, as well as trick and fancy roping and riding.

One of the more well-known female competitors was Phoebe Ann Moses Butler. Butler grew up in a poor family in Ohio, where she took up hunting to provide for her family after her father died. From those marksman skills developed as a hunter, she earned the nickname “Little Sure Shot” and joined Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show as Annie Oakley in 1885.

Annie Oakley

In 1929, two events occurred that changed the course of rodeo history:
1.Well-known cowgirl Bonnie McCarroll died in a bronc riding accident at Pendleton, Oregon, leading many rodeos to drop women’s contests.

Bonnie McCarroll

2.The Rodeo Association of America was formed by rodeo organizers, and not the cowboys themselves, to standardize rules, establish a point system, monitor judges, and establish fair prize money. In large part because of McCarroll’s death, the RAA was organized as an all-male entity.

1945 marks the year professional cowboys officially adopted the term “rodeo” for their sport. The PRCA went on to sanction the events and rules for saddle bronc riding, bareback riding, bull riding, calf roping, steer wrestling, team roping, and steer roping.

Women realized it would be up to them to get back into the mainstream of the sport and in 1948, the Girl’s Rodeo Association, now the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA), was started by a group of Texas ranch women. The WPRA was highly successful in restoring cowgirl contests to PRCA rodeos. Barrel racing was the most popular WPRA contest, and it spread rapidly throughout the country. It is now the only women’s event standard at PRCA rodeos and often ranks second only to bull riding in popularity.

It’s boots and chaps
It’s cowboy hats
It’s spurs and latigo
It’s the ropes and the reins
And the joy and the pain
And they call the thing rodeo

Rand Stafford isn't looking for true love. He'd ridden that trail leaving behind a shattered heart. He only needs a wife to help him care for his orphan nieces.
Fleeing her former employer, a newspaper advertisement reads like the perfect refuge to Carly Blair. Escaping the city to hide herself on a cattle ranch in Kansas is her best shot for freedom. But its sanctuary comes with a price—a husband. While marrying a man she doesn't know or love means sacrificing her dreams, it's better than being caught by the law. Or is it?

Movie Location EP Ranch

by Anita Mae Draper

The Calgary Stampede, movie poster, 1925. Wikipedia

If you've been following my series on Edward Prince of Wales and the Edward Prince (EP) Ranch, you know that 1924 had been Edward's third visit since 1919 when he'd bought the old Bedingfeld Ranch near Pekisko, Alberta, Canada. As a true working ranch with qualified staff and hands, the ranch continued its breeding program, stock sales, and ranch maintenance no matter where Edward was in his schedule of royal duties as heir to the British throne. 

However, even without a royal visit, 1925 was an exciting year at the EP Ranch because it had been chosen as the location for some of the scenes in the silent western film The Calgary Stampede starring Hoot Gibson, Virginia Browne Faire, and among others, a very young Walter Brennan.

Hoot Gibson and party at EP Ranch, Pekisko, Alberta, 1925. Glenbow Archives

Second from the left in the above photo shows Helen Carlyle, daughter of EP Ranch Manager W.L. Carlyle. In this next photo, her father and the film's star Hoot Gibson, are enjoying themselves watching the action. 

Hoot  Gibson and W. L. Carlyle on EP Ranch, Pekisko, Alberta, 1925. Glenbow Archives

As stated on the movie poster at the top of this post, many scenes were also shot on location at the 1925 Calgary Stampede. I found a video by a youtube reviewer which shows parts of the actual film footage of The Calgary Stampede with commentary (time 2:55-5:35), and gives a great example of the silent film era.

Westember II - 4. Hoot Gibson in The Calgary Stampede (1925)

Other scenes were shot around the Calgary area.

Virginia Browne Faire and Hoot Gibson, Calgary, Alberta. 1925. Glenbow Archives

The 1992 Academy award winning movie Unforgiven starring and directed by Clint Eastwood also has scenes shot at the EP Ranch. Edward Buscombe's book with the same title as the movie Unforgiven states, "Most of the exteriors of Unforgiven were shot on the E.P. Ranch in Alberta in Canada, sixty miles southwest of Calgary." Running into Clint Eastwood in 1991 was said to be a common occurrence as several locations in Alberta were used extensively in the filming, as well as the Red Hills Ranch, Sonora, California. 

According to wikipedia, in 2004 Unforgiven was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". 

You can read previous posts on Prince Edward's EP Ranch at these links:

May 5th - Alberta's Edward Prince Ranch

June 5th - EP Ranch Royal Visit 1923

July 5th - Butter Prince of 1924

Aug 5th - EP Ranch Furnishings

Do you watch the credits to see where a movie was filmed? I do. Sometimes I even get to visit the actual location. Watching the movie afterwards brings back memories of my trip and vice versa. A nice circle. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anita Mae Draper lives on the Canadian prairies where she uses her experience and love of history to enhance her stories of yesteryear's romance with realism and faith. Readers can enrich their story experience with visual references by checking Anita's Pinterest boards. All links available on her website at www.anitamaedraper.com

The World's First Rodeo

By Tiffany Amber Stockton

Last month, I took you back to the formation of the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado, yet another amazing geological formation. If you missed that post, you can read it here: https://www.hhhistory.com/2020/06/tallest-sand-dunes-in-north-america.html.

This month, let's look at an event that also attracted a lot of people, but instead of geological formations, the attraction is more of a performance and animal nature.

DEER TRAIL - Home to the WORLD'S FIRST RODEO

One of many proud signs near town

The year was 1869. The day was July 4th. Just 2 months after the historic joining of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads, creating the first transcontinental railroad in the United States. For Deer Trail, Colorado, when the rest of the country was celebrating Independence Day, this little town was holding the world's first rodeo. Although Santa Fe, N.M., Pecos, TX and Prescott, AZ also claim to have held the first rodeo, Deer Trail has it on record and documented as being the first.

Kansas Pacific Railway train

Deer Trail was founded when the Kansas Pacific Railway built a station there in 1870. It soon became a shipping point for grain, livestock, and eggs, but the rodeo has been the town's claim to fame for 150 years. Despite several severe snowstorms and a flood, the town incorporated in 1920 and reached a thriving level during that decade. Unfortunately, the Great Depression caused a significant decline, and from that point forward, the annual rodeo is what has kept the town alive.

Bronco Bustin' at the Rodeo

The historical significance and the account of the event was written about by a reporter in the “Field and Farm” magazine. Local ranch hands looking for a way to settle bets on who was the best at various cowboy fundamentals is how the idea of the rodeo got started. Folks from all the area ranches came with their most notorious broncs and best cowboys to the “Bronco Bustin’ Contest”. The prize was a suit of clothes, which was awarded to the Champion Bronc Buster of the Plains, Emiline Gardenshire of the Milliron Ranch. Emiline rode fifteen minutes on the back of Montana Blizzard, a horse known for being the worst outlaw of the bunch.

Deer Trail's claim to fame

Deer Trail, Colorado, about 45 miles east of Denver along East Colfax Avenue, has been recognized as the Home of the World’s First Rodeo by the Pro-Rodeo Hall of Fame, Colorado State Legislature, the History Channel, Guinness Book of World Records and many other publications. So, if you're looking for a rodeo to attend, come to Colorado and visit Deer Trail in July.


NOW IT'S YOUR TURN:

* Have you ever attended a live rodeo? If so, when and where?

* If you were to participate in a rodeo, what event would you like to do?

* What topics would you like to see covered in future posts?

Answer any or all of the following, or leave any comment or question you'd like below. Come back on the 9th of August for my next appearance.

---

BIO

Tiffany Amber Stockton has been crafting and embellishing stories since childhood, when she was accused of having a very active imagination and cited with talking entirely too much. Today, she has honed those childhood skills to become an award-winning and best-selling author and speaker who is also an advocate for literacy as an educational consultant with Usborne Books. She loves to share life-changing products and ideas with others to help better their lives.

She lives with her husband and fellow author, Stuart Vaughn Stockton, along with their two children and two dogs in Colorado. She has sold twenty (23) books so far and is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. You can find her on Facebook and GoodReads.

Ride 'Em Cowboy

It's Rodeo Time

In September I wrote about the history of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. That will begin here in Houston at the end of February. The one in San Antonio began last week. That made me curious about rodeos and wild west shows like Buffalo Bill's.

I discovered that rodeos are much older than most ever give them credit for being. Spanish ranchers along with their Mexican ranch hands (vaqueros) got together for cattle wrangling and bullfighting as far back as the sixteenth-century.

The vaqueros started equestrian contests and called them charreadas. They also practiced steer wrestling which had been part of an ancient tradition dating back to the days before the Olympics when the ancients practiced bull jumping, bull riding and bull wrestling. It is believed that bull wrestling could have been an ancient Greek Olympic event.

The events eventually found their way to the United States in the nineteenth-century at fairground, racetracks, fiestas, and festivals. However, the events of bull jumping and bull wrestling didn't have that much appeal to Anglo cowboys or audiences. Anglo cowboys preferred roping, riding, and racing. Those events were still enjoyed in Mexico at the charreada, the style of rodeo originating in Jalisco, Mexico.

If not for a Texan black cowboy named Bill Pickett, steer wrestling most likely would never have made its way into our rodeos. He's the one who devised the method of bulldogging similar to what we see today. He would jump from his horse to the steer's back, bit its upper lip and throw it to the ground by grabbing its horns.  His performances at rodeos in Central Texas led to his being discovered by an agent who signed Bill for a tour of the West. The publicity from his bulldogging at the 1904 Cheyenne Frontier Days brought him a contract to travel Oklahoma 101 Ranch Wild West shows. He is now a member of two rodeo halls of fame, recognized as the inventor of the event. That's the only rodeo event ever attributed to one individual. 

                            Picture by NormanFilms  Public Domain

Believe it or not, women appeared in rodeos in the early days of the twentieth-century. The first one was Tillie Baldwin who was a champion trick and bronc rider and racer. In 191, at an exhibition, Tillie participated in bull dogging, but women's contest    never took on, but it made the cowboys more  enthusiastic for the sport without the lip-biting. 

After the Texas Revolution, Texas Anglo cowboys learned everything about the sport of the vaqueros. Ranch versus ranch contests sprang up all over the state with events such as bronc riding, bull riding, and roping contests appearing at race tracks and fairs. 

Then along came William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) 

He created the first major rodeo to tour the nation along with his Wild West show. It opened in North Platte, Nebraska in 1882. His show was so successful that others attempted to create their own which led to professional rodeo. The two enjoyed a parallel existence with one capitalizing on the allure and fame of the other. Their popularity grew and women joined the circuit in the 1890's. Then animal welfare groups began targeting them and are still doing so today.

The actual word "rodeo" was only used occasionally for American cowboys until the 1920's, and even then, professional cowboys didn't use the term until 1945. In those early days, no standardization of the events occurred until 1929. Up to that time, frontier days, stampedes, and other cowboy contests grew in popularity. In 1897, Cheyenne Frontier Days inaugurated it's celebration and even today is one of the most significant of the annual celebrations around the country. The organization of these events fell to the local citizens and their committees who planned everything and chose all the events, made the rules, and arranged for everything else from the stock to officials. Winners at this competition were even considered "World Champions" until 1922. 

As the wild west shows died out, the cowboy competitions remained. Spectators would now pay to see the competitions and the cowboys paid to compete. The money went into a pool to make up the prizes for the winners. Many towns began having their own local rodeos just as they do today in towns like Prescott, Arizona and Cheyenne, Wyoming did in the early days. 

Much more is to be learned about how rodeos became the professional organization it is today and the pitfalls they faced. 


Houston is know for its annual Livestock Show and Rodeo in late February and early March. I loved attending those rodeos and still attend the livestock show on occasion. My favorite event has always been the barrel racing with saddle bronco riding next. 




Since I didn't have enough to have a drawing in December, we'll do it this month for a chance at my book about a barrel-racing rancher's daughter.
Have you ever been to a rodeo? What would be your favorite event? Be sure to leave your email address and comment by midnight Friday, February 14 to be in the drawing. 

Kylee is the youngest of the Danner clan and drops out of college to barrel race full-time and spend more time with her rodeo sweetheart, Jesse Martin. Connor Morris, known as Jesse Martin on the rodeo circuit, is in love with Kylee, but he hides his true identity from her. When the truth of his identity as Connor Morris is revealed in a news item on television, along with a woman claiming to be his fiancee, Kylee is devastated. Connor now has the task of explaining the news bit she saw is not what it appeared. He must gain back not only her trust, but also that of her brothers and her father.  

Martha Rogers is a multi-published author and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Since receiving her first novel contract at age 73, Martha has written and published over 50 books. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston, Texas where they are active members of First Baptist Church. They are the parents of three sons and grandparents to eleven grandchildren and great-grandparents to five. Martha is a retired teacher with twenty-eight years teaching Home Economics and English at the secondary level and eight years at the college level supervising student teachers and teaching freshman English. She is the Director of the Texas Christian Writers Conference held in Houston in August each year, a member of ACFW, ACFW WOTS chapter in Houston, and a member of the writers’ group, Inspirational Writers Alive.

Find Martha at:  www.marthawrogers.com                   Twitter: @martharogers2                                                                      Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/MarthaRogersAuthor                                   

  

Spanish Language in the Old West and a giveaway

With Nancy J. Farrier

Have you ever wondered where our western terminology comes from? I was surprised to learn that many of our familiar words in the west originate from Spanish and the early Spanish and Mexican people. I wanted to share a few of those words with you.


Rancho is the origin of our word for ranch. The Spanish rancho was a large holding of land where cattle and horses were raised. The Ranchero or rancher was the owner. The ranchos in California were land grants generally made up of 14 square miles.



Vaquero, one who takes care of the cattle, became Cowboy in English. The literal translation of vaquero is cow and man. The vaquero, like the cowboy, was a rough, hard-working man who endured hardship to do his job. They hired on for trail drives or to work the ranch.



Corral is spelled the same in both Spanish and English but the pronunciation is different. Both refer to a pen or enclosure for animals.


Cañón is where we get the English word, Canyon. Cañón is a tube or pipe. If you

visit some of the canyons in the west, you can understand the how that word came to mean the landform. There are many beautiful canyons in the west.



Vigilante is another word spelled the same in Spanish and English but the pronunciation is different. In Spanish, a vigilante is a watchman or guard. In English, the word has come to mean anything from someone who protects or guards to someone who seeks out vengeance. 

Mostrenco is thought to be the origin of the word Mustang. The original use of the word referred to roaming cattle that were unclaimed, but came to mean

horses that roamed free.


Bronco, the same in Spanish and English, means rough or coarse in Spanish. When we think of the bucking bronco, we understand how the term relates to horses before they are broken to saddle. A horse that’s never been ridden before certainly is rough when a cowboy tries to ride them.



Lazo means bow, knot or tie in Spanish. Lazo changed to lasso in English. The lasso is a versatile tool used by the cowboy in a variety of ways. To rope a cow

or horse. To tied up an animal. To lead an animal. The lazo or lasso was also used to entertain.



Rodear in Spanish means to go around. Rodear became rodeo in English. At fiestas, the rodeo was a way for the vaqueros to show off their skills and challenge one another. The modern day rodeo is still a way for the cowboy to demonstrate the skills he is adept at performing. The arena is the perfect place to show off the meaning of “to go around.”



Estampida became Stampede in English. In the old west, on trail rides, a stampede was something to inspire fear. Crazed animals running flat out would trample anything in their path.



There are many more terms we borrowed from the Spanish language, but these are a few that are common in western historical fiction. Which ones were new to you? Do you have any others to add to the list? I am doing a giveaway of my newest release, The Ranchero’s Love. Leave a comment and include your email address to be entered in the giveaway.



Rosalinda knows she will never escape her past, both the choices forced on her

and the mistakes she’s made. She longs to find a place to live in peace—where she can learn to mother her children and where Lucio Armenta won’t be a constant reminder of the love she can never have. Lucio wants to marry. However, Rosalinda, the only woman he’s ever been attracted to, doesn’t meet the ideals he’s set for his future wife. When he discovers she, and her adorable brood, are accompanying him to his sister and brother-in-law’s, he objects. An objection that is overruled. When secrets from Lucio’s past are exposed, and Rosalinda faces choices no woman should have to make, will their growing love, and their faith, survive? 

Nancy J Farrier is an award winning author who lives in Southern Arizona in the Sonoran Desert. She loves the Southwest with its interesting historical past.

Nancy and her husband have five children and two grandsons. When Nancy isn’t writing, she loves to read, do needlecraft, play with her cats, and spend time with her family. Nancy is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of The Steve Laube Literary Agency. You can read more about Nancy and her books on her website: nancyjfarrier.com.