A Cowboy Legend Lonnie celebrates the life of a CFD Old West Museum Legend.

BECAUSE A Cowboy

HE MADE A WALKED THIS Difference WAY,

by Lonnie Reese

The one thing that brings our community together is our love of western culture. Cattle drives. Wagon trains. Frontier towns. The billowy smell of new leather, sweat on the withers, and the tender melodic comfort sounds of the herd eating their morning hay. Many Western novels have been based on the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of western romance. They depict a culture steeped in a deep moral compass, itching for adventure and the freedom of the open range. Together, they symbolize this deep love and reverence for our beautiful western way of life where the Cowboy Code is the norm. Enter Mr. Raymond C. Kinter. Ray called the Museum one winter day inquiring about the Chris Ledoux bronze project honoring the 125th Celebration of Cheyenne Frontier Days™. He had been one of the supporting patrons of the Lane Frost bronze years before and wished to assist with this new project. As we talked about his interest in the project. I learned about 16 his passion for Western Art, paint horses, and the love of western heritage. Those are things I also love, so we decided to meet in person. Ray was precisely as I pictured him; tall, lean, adorned with a wild rag, a crisp Stetson, an engaging smile, and possessing a clever sense of humor. His home was filled with inspiring western art, all with a story behind them. I learned that his heroes had always been cowboys on the big movie screen and in the arena. Art depicting a nod to giants from John Wayne to Larry Mahan was part of his collection. I learned about Ray and his varied interests. He and his black and white tobiano horse, Comanche, loved the challenge of the painted trails. He adored the comradery of sitting around the campfire after an adventurous day on a wide-open mountain valley. Ray took every moment and made it memorable for those who joined his escapades.

Ray treasured great food and good wine and loved dark chocolate (something we shared in common). I received a letter from him one day. Inside was an article from a study published in the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology that supported the argument that eating chocolate once a week can lower your risk of heart disease. “Well,” he writes, “that is surely great news, but you and I are ahead of the curve!” and referred to it as “health-improvement” food after that. In his professional life, Ray was an educator. During his last position as the Principal of an elementary school in Castle Rock, Colorado, Ray capped a lifetime of helping others find the best inside of themselves. During his lifetime, Ray collected friends. He was tough but fair and made you earn your stripes. The Museum was lucky enough to become one of his friends. Cancer added a different twist to his story. In September this year, Ray left us to continue his journey on the celestial “painted trails” on his next adventure. Ray left the Museum a substantial gift to our “Become a Legend” Expansion Campaign; he has enabled us to move forward with our vision and mission. He felt the expansion campaign was a “great and important project that he was thankful for playing a small part in.” He wanted his gift to be a “game-changer” to propel us forward through the expansion ahead. Many people come and go in our lives. Ray was extraordinary. Why did this man’s essence stick with me? Why was it important to me? Although we came from different generations, his heritage and love of western culture aligned with mine. I see that same value resonating in my daughter’s life. It is the thread that binds generations. On my last visit to see Ray, I asked him what he wanted to be remembered for. He pondered for a moment, gently looked up at me with his smiling eyes, and said, “Because a cowboy walked this way, he made a difference.” Well, Ray, you certainly have done that! We will make you proud! Whether it is to help the Museum grow or to help with the areas of greatest need through operational support, please consider supporting western heritage during the year-end giving season. Each of us can make a difference, too: in our own way and at a level we feel comfortable sharing. Heritage matters, and funds invested in the Museum will ensure that the American Western Legacy and Frontier way of life is always revered.

In his own words: “The Old West is a very important and rapidly disappearing segment of our American heritage. We have a responsibility to future generations to preserve as much of the small piece that is left..as we possibly can. Thankfully, that is exactly what the Old West Museum is doing. I was honored to have a small part in helping them achieve their mission.” - Raymond C. Kinter

A LITTLE OLD,PLENTY NEW by Brad Jorgensen

This winter, we’re going to be hard at work! On top of managing our exhibits during construction, we’re moving the Hall of Fame exhibit, relocating and reshuffling the Vandewark room, and installing the Museum Purchase Exhibit. As you are all aware, the Museum has taken its first step into construction, and with this comes new challenges throughout our exhibits. Expect plenty of changes throughout the Vandewark Gallery, the Cheyenne Room, and the Hall of Fame hallway. Approximately 30% of the gallery will be moved. During this time, many of the items on display, especially in the Hall of Fame exhibit, will be temporarily relocated or removed from public viewing. However, we’re taking this as an opportunity to create a new semi-permanent home for the Hall of Fame that will feature more space and better lighting. We’re also working on some fantastic upgrades to the exhibit that we can’t wait to show you! Look for these changes in the first quarter of of next year! Additionally, many items in the Vandewark Gallery are going to be relocated for the time being. This does present us with some new space that we are working to create a brand-new rodeo exhibit. Keep your ears open for more updates as we get closer to its unveiling. Finally, since the closing of New Frontiers on December 5th, we have been curating a Museum Purchase Exhibit, featuring classics as well as items that haven’t been on display for quite a long time! Be sure to catch this exhibit in the carriage hall, as some of these pieces may go back into the vault for a while, and we love showing off those pieces that the local community has donated to our collection. In closing, I wanted to give a heart-filled thank you to all the volunteers that have helped me with exhibits and with the art shows this year. This was my first year at the museum and I could not have done it without you. Happy Holidays and have a Merry Christmas. –

AN INSIDER’S VIEW OF 1902

I am never surprised that Cheyenne Frontier Days™ enthralls and captivates the journalists that come to see it. For anyone who has experienced the celebration, it leaves indelible memories, for the better for the vast majority of the time. Articles produced are usually thoughtful, sometimes entertaining and always revealing of the wonder that the spectacle elicits from even the most calloused pen. Every once in a while, there is something special that catches my attention. Polly Pry, the famed Colorado journalist, came to CFD in 1902 and gave a short but very compelling sketch of her experiences at our event. First, a little background. Leonel Ross Campbell was born in 1857 in Mississippi to a well-off family. While being educated in St. Louis, she eloped with wealthy railroad industrialist George Anthony. She followed him to Mexico where he was engaged in building the Mexico Central Railway. After five years she became bored and sought adventure. Leaving her husband to his railroad, she traveled to New York City at the age of twenty. She secured a job as a reporter with the New York World and gained fame breaking the story that the United States intended to build a canal across the isthmus of Panama. It was during this time that she acquired the moniker of Polly Pry because of her ability to “pry” a story out of anyone. When travelling to Denver to see her father who had moved to that city to treat his tuberculosis, she spent time regaling a stranger with her adventures. This stranger turned out to be Frederick Bonfils of the Denver Post. He offered Polly a job which she accepted. One of her first stories was “Our Treatment of the Insane,” an expose on the mental health system in Colorado. Her style of writing proved very popular, as did her ability to get involved with interesting stories. One of her most celebrated causes was to secure the release of Colorado’s famous cannibal, Alfred Packer. She had met Packer at the prison in Canon City and became convinced that it was wrong to hold him for the “crime” he was convicted of in 1874. She reasoned that if sailors could legally get away with eating people when adrift at sea, surely it was legal for a person to do so when lost in the mountains. Backed by the Denver Post, Polly helped secure Alfred’s parole from prison on February 1, 1902, the same year she visited Cheyenne Frontier Days™. Ah, journalism you can sink your teeth into. The following is the article that Polly Pry wrote about her experience coming to Cheyenne some months later. As you might discern after reading this article, Polly Pry remained a popular writer in Colorado until her death in 1937. While the attitudes and perspectives have changed, her talent for writing can still be appreciated.

by Mike Kassel & Polly Pry

Photo of Denver Post Writer Polly Pry, Courtesy of the Denver Public Library

Wau-Way-Way-Wau!

Faint and far away came the sounds as we leaned from our ramshacketty vehicle and started out towards the west while our driver lashed his diminutive little horses into a gallop that carried us up to the top of a sandy hill below which spread a great valley, and there in the center, encircled by a rude fence, was the fairgrounds half hidden by clouds of yellow dust. A long line of horsemen, and all manner of vehicles, from the broken-down old prairie schooner of 1849 to the fin de seicle automobile of 1903 were racing along the dusty road and over the sandy hills, en route to the grounds and the Frontier day celebration, while over in the field a vast crowd filled the amphitheater and the long rows of bleachers, and stood ten deep all around the mile track. As we swept down towards the entrance a big red steer shot out of a stockade over in the field, and, pursued by a yelping fiend on a wiry little broncho, was thrown and tied before we could get our breaths to yell. Then we were racing along behind the big stands and directly were passing fearfully through a little gate that let us out upon the track and across to the press stand, a hastily constructed lean-to beside the judges’ quarters. And then – well, the life assumed a new and wonderful color.

a Surging MaSS

Outside the small inclosure [sic] lay the great world, calm passionless, unmoved, while around us surged a mad concourse of howling lunatics, and over across the white track, hemmed in on every side, was a laughing, cheering mob of delighted humanity, who had forgotten everything except the fact that the sun shone, and life was one rainbow tinted kaleidoscope of wild hilarity and exciting sport. Wild steers vaulted into the gray field, stuck their tails into the air and fled like startled shadows before the yelping devils who pursued them with whirling ropes and frightful yells, that lent wings to the flying beasts. The lariats sang through the dust-laden atmosphere, the knowing little ponies did strange stunts and the huge steers described ungraceful curves as they sprawled full length, while the agile cowboy tied their legs together and executed war dances upon their heaving sides. Wild horses bolted through the open gates of the pen and made desperate attempts to escape the all-conquering ropes, and wilder men caught, saddled and bridled them, and despite their frantic protests, rode them into a state of quietude. Picturesque Indians, gay with paint and feathers, executed grotesque war dances and made the air sibilant with their ear-piercing yells. Bright eyed cowgirls whirled across the fields and flew about the tracks, excited punchers tore madly from point to point and did

deeds that would shame the seasoned acrobat.

cOnfuSing rapidity

One race followed another with confusing rapidity, the melodious megaphone bawling the winner’s name to the four corners of the field, while the 15,000 spectators turned our world into a pandemonium of ear-splitting sounds. There were road agents holding up a stage coach, with the rescue by Uncle Sam’s boys in blue. The old Deadwood coach was attacked by Indians and rescued by cowboys, to the hilarious delight of a crowd of small boys who were permitted to play passengers in the exciting event. Then, to round out or joy and clinch the thing past discussion, the Thirteenth battery of the United States field artillery took a hand in the game, and when they got through all the people not stone deaf tried to yell themselves into a beatific condition. I know, because I was one of the survivors. It is possible that somewhere, at some time, there has been a more hilarious day and a happier throng than Cheyenne entertained that day, but if so, I wasn’t there, so it don’t cut no ice with me. This I’m sure of, from dignified Governor Richards and his charming wife down the line to the last little papoose in the Indian camp, there was not a face that did not reflect something of the vibrating joy of the vivid life which ran about in the dusty field. It was good the be there – it was better to realize what it meant. Yesterday – a wilderness, unconquered and terrible – today an empire, glorious and fruitful – and all in so short a yesterday that many of those who listened to the howl of the wolves and trembled at the war cry of the painted braves of that yesterday, sat on the bleachers today and laughed at the tamed sons of those braves who cavorted and pranced down on the tracks below them.

a tribute tO cheyenne

Oh, wonderful west and marvelous Cheyenne! Which crouches today upon the very borderland of our stories past, the one real link between the then and the now – the solitary place, in the only state, where the strenuous life of the hardy pioneer is still in evidence, and where on a free range wild horses and wild cattle still roam, and the gun still remains the final arbitrator in the settlement of active affairs. And astonishing Wyoming, who holds within her borders all the elements of such a frontier show. No wonder the trains were packed, the hotels overrun and the towns almost swamped under the crowds who poured into the city, intent upon seeing a show that makes the tented exhibition of Buffalo Bill look like a street brawl after a great battle. Other places may attempt a wild west show, but here is only one place on earth where you can see the real, pure article, and that is – Cheyenne.

(Far Left) Races along the track during a celebration in the early 1900s. (Left) An early roughstock event performed on the track. This took place before the invention of today’s side-delivery chutes.

is a Proud Sponsor of The New Frontiers Western Art Show & Sale

Give Your Loved One the Gift of Western Spirit

CFD OLD WEST MUSEUM MEMBERS ENJOY: FREE ADMISSION ALL YEAR DISCOUNTED EVENTS EXCLUSIVE STORIES AND NEWS 10% MUSEUM STORE DISCOUNT AND MORE!

PURCHASE TODAY AT: OLDWESTMUSEUM.ORG/MEMBERSHIP

When the promise of fresh air adventures lures you to Cheyenne, Wyoming, you’ll find some surprises that will make you want to stay awhile. The perfect playground with miles of remote trails and rugged experiences is pretty much right next door. After a day of play, reward yourself with artfully crafted spirits and world-class cuisine served in historical 1800s buildings lining the downtown streets.

Wyoming starts here. Live the Legend in Cheyenne.

The Cheyenne to Deadwood Stage currently on display in the Carriage Hall.