THE AMERICAN COWBOY & THE ART
From the end of the Civil War to the mid-1800's, when bad weather, poor management and disastrous cattle market prices forced an end to the old free-wheeling ways of the American Cowboy.
It was about forty thousand cowboys who rode the trails across the Great Plains during this time. Most of which were between the ages of twenty and twenty-six. Nearly one in three of these cowboys were African-American or Mexican, among several Indian cowboys. Some European immigrants known as 'remnants' also roamed the plains, each taking to roping and riding as a way of life.Many styles, techniques, and methods for working cattle would often depend on where and when in the Old West a cowboy lived. For example: In 1860, a Texas cowboy was often seen wearing an old, worn military uniform, issued lace-up boots, and a floppy woolen hat; driving and rounding up half-wild longhorns a thousand miles across unfenced, unowned range, to market.