Fashion Sense, Western Style

I was looking through some of my grandfather's old pictures.  They depict what cowboys REALLY looked like in the 1800's and early 1900's. My grandfather should have known.  He was one of them.

One of the biggest differences is the cowboy hat.  Notice how the hat has a broad brim and is round, not turned up on the side. Wranglers wanted protection from the sun. Seems to me that the hat being turned up on the sides is probably a Hollywood creation.  My guess is that the side needed to be turned up on the side for movie shooting purposes - getting a good shot of the movie characters.  Here are what early cowboys actually looked like:


Grandpa wrote on the back:  Bill Moodry, champion rider and roper.  The photo is by Kirkland, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

This is a photo of branding by Huffman, a Miles City photographer.  Grandpa had these thumb-tacked to the wall of the kitchen.  He knew some of the people in these photos.

The back of this photo reads:  Beckwith & Bowen, Helena, Montana  The woolly chaps might have been warmer in the winter.

This is a picture of a famous roundup. According to a cousin,  Grand dad gave the original of this one to the museum.  The museum gave him this copy.  Charles Russell, famous cowboy artist and  a friend of Grand dad's is in this picture.  Grand dad also wrote on the back:  Dunc Robertson (grand dad), Highwood Hank, Wallace Storley, Grarz[?], Jerry Philpn, L.B. Taylor.

As you can see, what cowboys actually looked like, differs from the Hollywood version.