Gathering Strays: Stories from Kansas and the Southwestern Plains
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.

1142758006
Gathering Strays: Stories from Kansas and the Southwestern Plains
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.

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Gathering Strays: Stories from Kansas and the Southwestern Plains

Gathering Strays: Stories from Kansas and the Southwestern Plains

by Jim Hoy
Gathering Strays: Stories from Kansas and the Southwestern Plains

Gathering Strays: Stories from Kansas and the Southwestern Plains

by Jim Hoy

Paperback

$27.99 
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Overview

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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780700634101
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Publication date: 02/21/2023
Pages: 402
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

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

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