Cherishing the Cowboy Way

Cherishing the Cowboy Way

Readers of the Kansas Cowboy newspaper don’t want the latest news. They want the earliest, such as accounts of Capt. Eugene Millet and other famous cattle drivers from the 1870s.

Jim Gray publishes the bimonthly from an office inside Drovers Mercantile in Ellsworth, Kan. (pop. 2,965). For each issue, Gray rounds up stories about characters like George W. Flatt, a Caldwell, Kan., constable who could fire two pistols at once, early cattle towns, and historic Kansas ranches.

Gray and his partner, Linda Kohls, opened Drovers Mercantile in 1995 to sell saddles, Western books, cowboy clothing, Dutch ovens and other cowboy gear.

“That first year, we kept having cowboys come in here who, like my own family, had cowboy histories from the 1880s,” says Gray, 53. “I remember one guy said, ‘I didn’t think anyone cared about these stories anymore.’”

The comment struck a chord with Gray, a fourth-generation cowboy who looks and dresses the part in his kerchief, pocket vest, corduroy trousers, and high-heeled cowboy boots and spurs. His great-grandfather, George Curts Gray, brought the family to nearby Geneseo from Ontario, Canada, in 1879. Gray’s family still owns the original ranch.

“There are literally thousands and thousands of stories out there,” Gray says. “There were so many trials and tribulations to survive. My own family story reads like a novel.”

Recognizing the need to preserve the stories, in 1996 Gray founded the C.O.W.B.O.Y. (Cockeyed Old West Band of Yahoos) Society, whose members have fun living and preserving the cowboy way.

The society’s nearly 1,100 members keep in touch through the newspaper, named after the original Kansas Cowboy, published in the 1880s by the Western Central Kansas Stock Association. It covered all aspects of the cattle business. The modern-day version, which prints 4,000 copies of each issue, covers upcoming cowboy events, such as trail rides, rodeos, and Old West re-enactments, as well as historical events, such as the birth of the Chisholm Trail.

When members meet for the fall roundup each October, cattle and horses once again fill downtown Ellsworth. Cowboy action shooting, gun fighting, trail riding, storytelling, cowboy poetry and singing are among the activities. At their spring gathering, set this year for April 16-17, members dress in 1870s garb for a cowboy ball with traditional dances, such as the Virginia reel.

The cowboy lifestyle has always appealed to Gray. As a young boy, he yearned to be a cowboy like Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. “Then I discovered that the real cowboys lived right here in Ellsworth,” he says.

Ellsworth was the end of the trail for cowboys driving longhorns up from Texas for shipment on the Kansas Pacific Railroad. In 1873, more cattle were driven to Ellsworth than any other railhead in the state.

Gamblers, adventurers and women of easy virtue crowded saloons and dance halls. Wild Bill Hickok ran for sheriff here and lost. One wag boasted that “Ellsworth has a man every morning for breakfast.”

“Like all cowtowns, I think that Ellsworth wanted to cover up its past and pretend it didn’t happen,” Gray says. “We’re a couple of generations away now and can talk about it.”

And talk they do at Drovers Mercantile. Every Wednesday, for example, Jonathan Dahlke takes his lunch break there so he can swap cowboy stories.

“I just started hanging out and talking history,” says Dahlke, an Ellsworth County parole officer. “There’s so much history here. You can walk those trails and see the wagon ruts. If I went back to school, I’d major in history and it’s all because of Jim.”

The newspaper and mercantile interests “armchair cowboys, historians and serious researchers of the Old West,” Gray says.

“Many young boys at the turn of the 19th century yearned to ride the trails,” Gray says. “Few ever followed their dream, but enough did to help build a legend.” He plans to keep telling their stories.

Marti Attoun is a regular contributor to American Profile.

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