Alfred Jacob Miller and the 1837 Fur Trade Rendezvous

Alfred Jacob Miller was one of the first artists to document in his work the adventures of mountain men and Native Americans in the American West in the early nineteenth century. Miller was an American artist who attended the fashionable European school Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1834. He returned to Baltimore, Maryland in 1836 and soon after he relocated his art studio to New Orleans. It was in New Orleans where Scottish nobleman, Capt. William Drummond Stewart, recently retired from the British Army, visited with Miller.


Alfred Miller's painting of William Stewart

Steward, who sought his own adventure in the American West, asked Miller to accompany him on an expedition in 1837. Steward wanted the artist to document one of the American frontier’s most exciting gatherings of white and native people; the annual Fur Trade Rendezvous, which in 1837 was located on the Green River in present day western Wyoming. Subsequently, Miller became famous for his depictions of western inhabitants in the early nineteenth century. Like Karl Bodmer, and George Catlin before him, Miller captured in his paintings a realistic yet romantic vision of Mountain men and Native Americans interacting at the Rendezvous on the Green River. There are very few journals or diaries of participants who attended the 1837 Rendezvous; Miller’s sketches and paintings are a valuable contribution that document one of the last Fur Trade gatherings in the American history.

In the spring of 1837, the Scottish nobleman, and his new artist friend, along with an entourage of assorted people traveled West in a fur trade supply caravan led by Thomas Fitzpatrick, a part owner in the American Fur Company, and a trapper/trader who had been attending the Fur Trade Rendezvous since it’s inception in 1825 by William Ashley.


Recent photograph of the First Rendezvous site on the Green River


Ashley initiated the Rendezvous as a once a year gathering place to supply his fur trappers with goods in return for the trapper’s furs. It was financially expedient to haul supplies to their traders in the West, thereby making it possible for the trappers to avoid the long trip to St. Louis to dispose of their furs.
At the first Rendezvous on the Green River, Ashley sold supplies to 120 men. Some were independent trappers and others belonged to the Hudson Bay Company, who in 1825 dominated the fur industry in the Pacific Northwest.

The Fitzpatrick supply train arrived on the Green River in July 1837, where the found a large gathering of Fur traders and Native Americans looking to trade their furs for Ashley’s supplies.

Recent Photograph of 1837 Rendezvous site on Horse Creek, a branch of the Green River



The gathering was large and the partying by both white and Indian went on for days. Although Fitzpatrick did not include whiskey among these supplies, the drink was in abundance; the gathering on the Green was perhaps one of the wildest of any previous rendezvous. One trapper recorded that when he arrived at the Rendezvous,

Here we found the hunting parties all assembled waiting for the arrival of supplies from the States. Here presented what might be termed a mixed multitude. The whites were chiefly Americans and Canadian French with some Dutch, Scotch, Irish, English, halfbreed, and full blood Indians, of nearly every tribe in the Rocky Mountains. Some were gambling at cards some playing the Indian game of hand and other horse racing while here and there could be seen small groups collected under shady trees relating the events of the past year all in good spirits and health for sickness is a stranger seldom met with in these regions.

The atmosphere provided artist Jacob Miller with wonderful sketches that he later made into paintings, his medium was usually watercolor.


Miller's watercolor of the 1837 Rendezvous


Breaking up camp at Sunrise.

Miller's painting is a reflection of his thought. While traveling with the Fitzpatrick caravan He wrote,


At four o'clock in the morning, it is the duty of the last men on guard to loosen the horses from their pickets, in order to range and feed. At daylight, everybody is up--our provisors are busy with preparations for breakfast;--tents and lodges are collapsed, suddenly thrown down, wrapped up, and bundled into the wagons.

If the sun is 20 minutes above the horizon when our breakfast is finished, we conceive that he has a reproachful look. By this time the horses are driven in, and each man hurries after his own, saddles or harnesses him, and the train puts itself enroute.

At this period, one of the strongest contrasts presents itself, and illustrates in a striking manner the difference between the white and red man.

While all is activity and bustle with the Anglo-Saxon as if he feared that the Rocky Mountains would not wait for him, the Indian lingers to the last moment around the camp fire,--he neither enters into or sympathizes with our diligence, and seems to regret that stern necessity forces him to accept our company for his convoy.


While Miller's experience with Native Americans are depicted in most of his sketches and painting, his impression of the war like nature of the Indian is most stunning.



On this eventful morning our caravan, pursuing as usual the even tenor of its way, we descried one of our hunters returning to the camp at full gallop. His speech was to the purpose, "Injins all about--that will be some raising of h'ar as sure as shootin." On his heels followed other confirming this. At this juncture, it would have been a good study(if the mater had not been so serious) to watch the countenances of the different men. The staid indifference of the old trappers ready for any emergency, the greenhorns(braggarts of the camp fire) pale about the gills and quite chopfallen. No boasting now!. Monsieur Proveau, subleader, with a corpus round as a porpoise, revolving in his mind what was to be done A Problem.

All of us were more or less uncomfortable decidedly, and as sensitive about our scalps as a Chinese concerning his pig-tail que. We were not kept long in suspense. A cloud of dust soon divulging a piratical horde of wretches, painted without regard to harmony of color, coming down on us at top speed,--armed to the teeth, and when they reached us, they commenced riding around in a menacing manner.

One of the most recognized of Miller's painting is "The Trappers Bride."





Miller annotated "The Trapper's Bride"

The prices varying in accordance with the circumstances. He (the trapper) is seated with his frined, to the left of the sketch, his hand extended to his promised wife, supported by her father and accompanied by a chief, who holds the calumet, an article indispensable in all grand ceremonies. The price of acquisition, in this case, was $600.00 paid for in the legal tender of this region: Guns, $100.00, Blankets $40.00 each, Red Flannel $20.00 pr. year, Alcohol $64.00 Gal. Tobacco, Beads, etc. at corresponding rates.

A free Trapper(white or half-breed), being ton or upper circle, is a most desirable match, but it is conceded that he is a ruined man after such an investment, the lady running into unheard of extravagances. She wants a dress, horse, gorgeous saddle, trappings, and the deuce know what beside. For this the poor devil trapper sells himself, body and soul, to the Fur Company for a number of years. He traps beaver, hunts the Buffalo and bear, Elk etc. The furs and robes of which the Company credit to his account.

The 1930s Dust Bowl and Katrina: Environmental Refugees

“Environmental Refugees” as defined by Wall Street Journal columnist, Cynthia Crossen, are thousands, perhaps millions of people forced from their homes and communities because of a natural disaster. This is certainly true of American citizens who have been fleeing for their lives since the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina. But it is not the first time in American history that an environmental disaster forced Americans from their homes. Over seventy years ago, the draught that devastated the farming culture in the Great Plains of the American West, augmented by an Economic Depression, forced thousands of Environmental Refugees from their homes; all poor, desperate, hungry and looking for work.

Since the first settler put down roots in the semi-arid regions of the Southern Plains in the late nineteenth century, farming was a risky business dependent on the whims of nature. Encouraged by good years and sufficient moisture, farmers prospered. But, without adequate rain and very little irrigation, the dry years were difficult and brought too many foreclosures. When the devastating drought of the late 1920s continued year after year, the farmlands of Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas became cracked and barren. And, dust storms added insult to injury by picking up the precious topsoil and depositing it as far away as the decks of ships off the Atlantic Coast.




Hundreds of thousands of residents of the Dust Bowl region packed up their meager belongings, piled them in their old trucks and headed to what must have seemed like the promised land--California. On their way, these Environmental Refugees met others on the road heading to the same salvation. They believed the rumors that in California there were jobs, places to live and schools for their children. What the refugees found in California was not the numerous jobs as advertised by fruit growers, but a lot of hostility.




There are a lot of differences between those displaced by the environmental disaster caused by drought and dust storms, and those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. For one, once the mechanisms of government started to offer aid to hurricane victims the suffering began to subside. Those who are benefiting from government aid and relief in 2005 can thank the environmental disaster of the early 1930s. Americans learned from the anguish of Dust Bowl refugees that we all have responsibility, whether through tax dollars, giving to charitable and humanitarian organization, or as volunteers, to aid fellow Americans. This was not the case in 1930.

Californians were very concerned about the “Thousands of indigents from the Middle West” flooding into their state and causing “increasing relief burdens.” Los Angeles officials noted that in one twelve-month period 2,946,614 people entered California by automobile. The relief cost in Los Angeles county had increased three-fold in a few short years. Conferences were called where state and city officials came together to discuss the impact of the “indigents” on the state. Besides the obvious strain on meager relief funds, epidemics and the general “character” of the new immigrants were also of concern.

It was not in the American mind in the early 1930s to “hand out” financial relief to those who were unemployed. The thought being that the recipient of the funds would become lazy and lose their will to take care of themselves and their families. It took the Economic Depression of the early 1930s and an environment catastrophe, as witnessed in the Southern Plains, for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration to experiment with various ways in which the Federal government could offer aid to the millions of Americans in need. The results of those programs were born out of necessity.

There is much talk today in the aftermath of Katrina to whether it is wise to rebuild New Orleans so that those who evacuated can return to their homes. It is assumed that those who were finding it difficult to survive before the hurricane will want to return and continue the struggle. Many of the Okies and Arkies who fled the Dust Bowl in the 1930s never returned to their homes and farms. Instead they settled in the rich farming land of the San Joaquin Valley of central California, where they had more prosperous opportunities. Perhaps many of those who fled Katrina will also find better opportunities in the various states where they are now making an adjustment and forging a new life.

From Radio to Television: Gunsmoke and the Real West.

Almost everyone today has seen or at least heard of the popular 1950s western, Gunsmoke. The show had the distinction of being one of the longest running western series (1955-1975) in television history. To the western aficionado, Gunsmoke had all the important characteristics of the western genre—a bigger than life hero, who, along with his sidekick, fought for the good of the townsfolk against the forces of evil.

Good versus Evil was a popular theme in the 1950s, largely due to the Cold War and American’s fight to contain communism. And like many shows debuting on the new medium of television, there was a certain emphasis on clean wholesome non-violent programming that upheld the 1950s image of a prosperous consensus society. So, imagine my amazement when I finally had the opportunity to listen to the radio version of Gunsmoke, to find a different West than the one portrayed in the sanitized TV western.


Radio Cast of Gunsmoke


When I first listened to a Gunsmoke radio play, it immediately became apparent that this was not the Dodge City, Kansas, of TV lore. Instead, I found the infamous western town a hard, sometimes cruel, place. There were few if any heroes, only men and women who were lucky enough to survive the inhospitable environment. And, instead of happy endings, pessimism about life and one’s fellow man permeated each show—a realism that the writers worked hard to create. This tone is set from the very opening when the announcer introduces the program with, “The story of violence that moved west and the man that moved with it.”



Click on Matt for Shows Opening

John Meston created Gunsmoke and wrote 183 of the radio plays that aired between 1952-1961. His style and penchant for detail set the tone for the show; his chief trademark was authenticity. The writer believed that the West was a tragic violent place where people had a hard life, didn’t live long because of a lack of medication, sanitation, and nutritional food. According to Meston, “it [the West] was just heat and sand.”

One of the most authentic aspects of the radio play was in the characterizations of the town Marshall, Matt Dillion his deputy Chester, Doc Adams, and of course, Miss Kitty. TV’s Matt Dillion, played by James Arness, portrayed a strong determined man with a quite demeanor who swore an oath to protect the townspeople. William Conrad’s radio Matt Dillion was a pessimistic loner; he saw very little about life and man that he liked.

The town doctor, Doc Adams (Milburn Stone), of the TV series was a kind old soul who mourned each death as if the deceased was a family member, the radio Doc(Howard McNear) was greedy and looked forward to the next body that he could cut apart in one of his “autopsies”. Doc waited anxiously for the next killing or street shoot-out so that he had another “customer,” of whom he was paid to ascertain the cause of death and prepare for burial. Doc’s character is so greedy that listeners cannot help but wonder if the good doctor was selling body parts on the side.



Click on Matt for a snippet of Doc

And then there is Miss Kitty. Television viewers never really knew for sure what Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake) and Marshall Dillion did behind closed doors. Well, in the Radio version, listeners have little doubt that Miss Kitty Russell (Georgia Ellis), owner of the Long Branch Saloon, was a prostitute and of her relationship with Matt Dillion. In many episodes she is virtually begging Matt to come by and spend the night.



Click on Matt for Kitty's approach to Matt.

Meston not only tried to portray the American West in an authentic manner, but he also brought to radio a more colorful landscape by introducing more realism through sound effects. There were two soundmen working on the set and they shared Meston’s quest for authenticity. For example, instead of using the typical gunshot sound found in most plays, which had sort of a pop/dud sound, the sound men went to the California desert and fired different guns that were typical of the 1870s and recorded their effect. So, in a gunfight on the streets of Dodge the radio listeners would hear the report of several different guns, which sounded more authentic than the pop sound of a blank in the studio. The soundmen also were methodical in providing background sounds that imitated life. For Example, when Marshall Dillion moved, each step was accented. The soundmen knew exactly how many steps from Matt’s chair to the coffee pot to the door leading outside. Once on the boardwalk, Matt’s steps were augmented by the sound of spurs hitting the wood, which distinguished him from anyone walking with him. Other sounds effect included the creaking of leather as Marshall Dillion lifted his hefty frame into the saddle, the different sounds between Indian horses (unshod) and those of the townspeople (shod), and the difference in sound between day and night.


Click on Matt for sound effects. The scene evolves around a massacre at a homestead. Matt and Chester have just found the wife and daughter, notice the night sounds and foot steps.

Gunsmoke was the first really adult western on radio and television. The authenticity and realism of the American West, as portrayed by the John Meston and staff of his writers, appealed to mature audiences, and moved the western away from the adolescent male audience who made The Long Ranger and Hopilong Cassidy popular. But, somewhere in the transition from radio to TV, some of the gritty character of the western was lost to a blander romantic West.




Click on Matt for full episode, 27 min.

Have Gun, Will Travel

Probably one of the most intriguing westerns to air on television and radio in the 1950s was Have Gun, Will Travel. The series was one of the top three western television shows, exceeded only by Gunsmoke and Wagon Train in popularity. But, unlike the latter two, Have Gun, Will Travel was the only western to air first on television and then move to radio.

Have Gun Will Travel first aired on CBS television in 1957. Richard Boone played the dapper, black-clad Paladin, a high priced gun for hire.



Richard Boone

Paladin was one of the first TV private detectives, certainly the first private eye type character on a TV western. Paladin, a name conceived from the white knight in chess game, and emboldened on his calling card with the inscription “Have Gun, Will Travel…Wire San Francisco,” fought for good against evil by hiring out as a ”gunslinger.” It was a chivalrous position, a knight with the qualities of courage, honor, courtesy and justice. And, the knight was always a gentleman. Paladin was a man of culture. He was educated at West Point and served as a Union officer in the Civil War. In 1875 San Francisco, Paladin resided at the swank Hotel Carlton, where he enjoyed the “escort” of lovely ladies and was taken care of by the Chinese bellboy, Hay (Hey) Boy. When Paladin was working he ditched his fancy duds and dressed completely in black, with his six-gun strapped low on his thigh. And, although a gun for hire, Paladin would turn against his employer if he found himself in a situation where he was fighting for evil.



Richard Boone as Paladin

The series was such a hit on television, Herb Meadows and Sam Rolfe started the CBS radio version of Have Gun, Will Travel in 1958. The radio program ran for two years. The Radio Paladin starred John Dehner and Ben Wright as Hay Boy. Dehner was a veteran actor and started his career as an animator for Walt Disney Studios, then worked as a disc jockey and a professional pianist. He made his Film debut in 1945. His western roles included outlaw leaders, crooked bankers and saloon owners. He was often cast as one of the bad guys in the radio version of Gunsmoke. He became a favorite for reading radio scripts because of his deep baritone voice.


John Dehner

His first Radio series was Frontier Gentleman, a short run western where Dehner portrayed a London Times journalist, J. B. Kendall, who traveled the old west. The show’s prologue stated that Kendall was “ A Man with a Gun.” When Have Gun, Will Travel moved to Radio, Dehner was a natural to play the suave sophisticated Paladin.


John Dehner as Paladin


Dehner’s radio Paladin was even more of the dandy than Richard Boone’s television character. The Radio Paladin was a ladies man who lavishly entertained his women with the most expensive and exotic foods known to West coast diners of the 1870s.




Click on Card for short clip







Have Gun, Will Travel was certainly a series that deviated from the western genre on many fronts, but on one front the show was consistent with other media at the end of the 1950s when programs began to portray some of societal ills apparent both in the eighteen hundreds and relevant to the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s. “Hay Boys Revenge” was one such program presented on Have Gun, Will Travel that demonstrated the prejudice and labor conditions of Chinese workers in California during the era of capital growth and Railroad empire in post Civil War America.




Click on Card for 23 min. episode entitled Hay Boys Revenge

Thanks for listening!

Tackling a New Frontier in Film

One of the most anticipated Westerns in well over a decade is coming to a movie screen near you. Winner of the coveted Golden Lion Award for best picture at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Brokeback Mountain , is due out in mid-December.






Brokeback Mountain is garnering critical praise and expected to be a strong contender come Oscar time. This isn’t surprising, really. The film’s budget, at $13 million, is modest by Hollywood standards, but it boasts an impressive pedigree. Based on a short story by Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Annie Proulx that first appeared in The New Yorker , Brokeback Mountain is co-scripted by another Pulitzer prize-winner, Larry McMurtry, directed by Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee ( Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ), and produced by Focus Features, the studio responsible for such award winning films as The Pianist, Lost in Translation , and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

A modern-day Western, Brokeback Mountain chronicles a 20-year ill-fated romance set against the magnificence of the arid ladscape of the American West. The premise isn’t new—cowboy heroes are rarely destined for the stability of hearth and home. But there is a notable difference: the lovers in this Western are two men.


Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhael

At first glance, we might think liberal Hollywood has run amok again, giving us yet another example of deviant popular culture bastardizing a cherished genre. But Brokeback Mountain is actually in keeping with a strong tradition. Westerns, we forget, particularly in their heyday from the 1950s through the early 1970s, often explored controversial social issues. In fact, many of the films that questioned the validity of longstanding beliefs throughout that period were Westerns. After all, who would ever suspect that such a simple and fundamentally American genre could entertain oppositional views?

In 1950, Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart starred in Broken Arrow , one of the first major motion pictures not only to tell a story from the Indian point of view, but to challenge the taboo against inter-racial marriage, which was still illegal in some states until struck down by the Supreme Court in 1967. High Noon (1952), featuring Gary Cooper as a marshal who must face four killers on his own, was scripted by Carl Foreman who was blacklisted by the time the film was released. He wrote High Noon knowing he would be called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and used the Western as a metaphor for his own experience of persecution and increasing isolation under McCarthy-era paranoia. The final moment, when Gary Cooper throws his badge in the dirt at his feet, prompted John Wayne to call High Noon the most un-American thing he had ever seen.

This trend accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s as a disillusioned America produced antiheroes battling an increasingly corrupt society where the line between good and evil was ambiguous and blurred. As Burt Lancaster says in The Professionals (1966), “It’s the good guys against the bad guys. Question is, who are the good guys?” The Wild Bunch (1969), with its climactic bloodbath, gave us a world where the only men with a code of honor were bank robbers, killers and mercenaries. Little Big Man (1970) and particularly Soldier Blue (1970) offered clear metaphors for the Vietnam War, showing that massacres like the one that happened at My Lai in 1968 were not new to U.S. history.

Brokeback Mountain , the “gay Western,” as it is being called, is very much within this tradition. Gay rights is at the center of socio-cultural debate today. There is more acceptance of gays and lesbians than ever before but also vituperative reaction against that acceptance. Not surprisingly, we’re seeing this played out in our popular culture. Gay characters and personalities have been common on television since Ellen DeGeneres came out in 1997. We see recurring gay characters on such diverse shows as NBCs Will and Grace , HBOs Six Feet Under , and the irrepressible Fab 5 of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy .

But no major motion picture, much less a Western, has shown gay relationships as full and complete interactions between two people—until now. Yes, Tom Hanks won an Oscar for his portrayal of a gay man dying from AIDS in 1993, but we saw very little in Philadelphia about his life pre-HIV and the choices he faced. In Brokeback Mountain , characters express their passion and struggle against the love they have for one another because they live in fear of the consequences of living openly. Over the 20 year span of the film, we see how this kind of fear can affect both the individuals as well as those around them. Of his character, actor Heath Ledger says “Ennis punishes himself over an uncontrollable need—love. Fear was installed in him at an early age, and so the way he loved disgusted him. He’s a walking contradiction.”



But why a Western? According to co-scriptwriter Diana Ossana, who a lso co-wrote the screenplay for TV’s adaptation of Lonesome Dove with McMurtry, the Western continues to have something to say to modern audiences. We connect to Westerns, she says, “the good ones are compelling, true-to-life stories, with raw, flawed human characters mostly operating in a harsh, unforgiving landscape. It’s always about survival for [the characters in Brokeback Mountain]” she adds, “not just financially, but physically, with the snow and the wind and the rain and the harsh landscape.”

The big question is, how will this film play across America? Producer James Schamus believes the country is ready. “Even though we think of this as a very polarized country on [the subject of homosexuality],” he says, “we’re less polarized than the media would lead us to believe.” Furthermore, the reality, he insists, is that gay people are represented across all walks of life, including cowboys. “This is a Western, rooted in the experiences of those who really lived in the West. We don’t have gay folks just on the coasts. One of the great things about the story is how true it really rings.”

Gay issue aside, the filmmakers hope audiences will be drawn to the power of the story, the loss, self-denial, and the personal price paid by two people who cannot hope to live and build a life together. Director Ang Lee contends that “to make a great romantic story, you need great obstacles. Ennis and Jack are in the American West, which has macho and traditional values. So everything they feel they have to keep private. It’s precious and something special they cannot articulate.”

As the film’s opening approaches, the controversy is beginning. Wyoming playwright Sandy Dixon doesn’t believe there are gay cowboys in her home state. “Those that want to make a queer story out of it, will,” she insists, “and those that know real cowboys will say it’s all hogwash.”

It will be interesting to see.

Yardena Rand is a member of the Western Writers of America and author of Wild Open Spaces: Why We Love Westerns. Please go to www.ilovewesterns.com

to learn more. Copyright Yardena Rand.

---

BOOK REVIEW

Gloss Laminate Soft Cover
6 X 9 288 Pages
$14.95

Author: Don Butler
Editor: Nicole Leah Vecchiotti
Cover Design: Stephen Bright

ISBN: 0-9767003-4-4
Published: March 2005
Printed in the U. S. A. by Morgan Printing





The North Fork spans the turbulent decades on the southwestern frontier following the Civil War, telling the overlapping stories of people from three different cultures, struggling to survive while too often pitted against each other by circumstances beyond their control.

After the war, control of the land known as Comancheria--all of the South Plains, including half of both Texas and Indian Territory--is wrested from the Comanches and Kiowas, opening the way for cattle drives and giant Texas cattle companies. Eventually, the settlers come, hungry for land and seeking a new life.

In addition to such historical figures as Quanah Parker, George Armstrong Custer and Lone Wolf, readers will find a host of colorful fictional characters, including:

Red Eagle, a Kiowa chief, who leads a raid into Texas and returns with an unexpected treasure,

Tom Carter, a trail hand with a quick temper and a faster trigger finger, who finds trouble--and more--on both sides of the North Fork, and

Molly Harding, a Texas farm girl, caught in the conflict between her head and her heart--and in the middle of a thirty-year-old mystery.

Indian raids and uprisings, the destruction of the buffalo herds, creation of the reservations, the Buffalo War, cattle drives, the Red River boundary dispute, the creation of Oklahoma Territory, arrival of the homesteaders, and other historic events shape the destinies of the people along the North Fork--a place where their cultures will clash while their personal lives become entangled in ways they could have never imagined.

A tribute to Southwest Oklahoma history has been crafted by Don Butler....---Altus Times

The mixing of such well-known people as Quanah Parker and Lone Wolf with fictional characters brings a realistic and exciting light to local history.---Vernon Daily Record

Author

The North Fork is set in the place of the author's youth. After retiring from the practice of public utility and municipal law, Don Butler turned to historical writing and research. He and his wife live in Austin, where he once served as City Attorney.

Jimmy Stewart’s West: The Six Shooter , radio western drama

For over seventy years, Jimmy Stewart has entertained audiences with his gentle and soft-spoken manner. Even in the rough and often violent world of the Movie western, Stewart maintained a non-hurried polite demeanor. In almost all of his seventeen western films, Stewart portrayed a hero who sometimes appeared less confident, slow to react, and a bit fumbling(The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance comes to mind).

The Man who Shot Liberty Valance

But through it all, he managed to ride into the scene with an assurance of character that promised the viewer that this man will win the fight, whether in the character of a green horn as in Liberty Valance, or the pacifist father in Shenandoah.

Shenandoah

And, like any western hero, Stewart’s characters fought for the good of society and made it their quest to rid the frontier of “uncivilized” influences. And, even though Stewart has joined the ranks of others, like John Wayne, as a “Man of the West” and has become one of Hollywood’s best-known actors of the western genre, it was in the medium of Radio where Stewart developed a truly unique western character.

Unknown to many, including me, Jimmy Stewart loved radio drama and appeared in almost as many radio broadcasts as he did movies and stage plays. His radio career spanned over seven decades, starting with Yellow Jack in 1934 and ending with his last performance in a Thanksgiving special, which aired on November 22, 1990. He was best known for his appearances in the Lux Radio Theatre, which first broadcast in 1937. Lux Radio Theatre, a CBS showcase, played to a weekly audience of over 36 million people. Hosted by Cecil B. DeMille, programs consisted of feature length films compressed into one-hour radio plays. Stewart starred in such classics as Destry Rides Again, It’s a Wonderful Life, Winchester ’73 and the Philadelphia Story, to name a few.


Winchester '73

The popularity of the western in the early 1950s and the misguided need of NBC to compete with the new medium of Television, NBC Radio developed a new western called The Six Shooter and stared Jimmy Stewart. Universal Films and their radio subsidiary, Revue Productions, employed Stewart at the time. The series began September 20, 1953 and ran until June 24, 1954. Stewart played Britt Ponset, an easy-going, soft–spoken and slow-to-draw cowboy who would drift into a western town, fix what needed fixing and then drift on to another town. The opening narrative describes Britt Ponset as, “the man in the saddle is angular and long-legged; his skin is sun-dyed brown. The gun in his holster is gray steel and rainbow mother–of- pearl. People call them both, The Six Shooter.”

Jimmy Stewart’s West, as portrayed in The Six Shooter, is the West on the “verge” of civilization; cowboys marry and settle down to grow crops and tend to their families, mining towns, whose mines are played out search for other revenue, the railroad crosses the West taking the place of old wagon trails, and there are fewer and fewer Indian “problems.” The Six Shooter is well written and Stewart’s narrative gives a vivid picture of people and place.

So, if you have the time, sit back, close your eyes and listen to Jimmy Stewart’s West.



Click on Jimmy for 30 min episode of The Six Shooter. Episode entitled, Red Lawson's Revenge.

Who painted, “Lassoing a Longhorn?”

For years those in the know in the art world, especially those who appreciated the art of Western America, acknowledged that Charles M. Russell, well-known artist of the American West, painted “Lassoing a Longhorn.”



Lassoing a longhorn

This is certainly what art collector, Steve Morton, believed. He owns the painting and points to the bottom left hand corner where Charlie Russell signed the painting in 1913, over his trademark sketch of a steer’s skull. Morton bought the painting in 1972 for $38,000 from the prestigious Kennedy Gallery, where Russell expert, Rudy Wunderlich, declared the painting to be a high quality Russell. In 2001 Morton arranged to sell the painting at the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction. The expected sale would be around $800,000. But, Stuart Johnson, a partner in the auction house, questioned whether “Lassoing a Longhorn” was actually a Russell. According to Johnson when examining the painting, “this doesn’t look like a Russell; it looks like a Seltzer.” If Olaf C. Seltzer painted “Lassoing a Longhorn” the sale price would be considerably lower than $800,000.

Charles M. Russell (1864-1926), a native of St. Louis, started his career as the “cowboy” artist after arriving in Montana when he was little over sixteen years old.




Along with working as a cowhand, he occupied his time sketching the scenes of late nineteenth century Montana. By the time of his death in 1926, Russell’s work included 4000 sketches, oils, watercolors and sculptures.



Smoke of a .45 by Russell

Russell was a generous man. He befriended other artists, sharing his knowledge and style with them. Olaf C. Seltzer (1877-1957) a native of Denmark, who had moved to Montana to work on the Great Northern Railroad, was lucky to paint with Charlie. Russell’s influence can be seen in Seltzer’s work.


Robbery by Olaf C. Seltzer



Faro Game, Olaf C. Seltzer

To authenticate “Lassoing a Longhorn,” Stuart Johnson contacted Ginger K. Renner, a leading authority of Russell paintings. Mrs. Renner declared the painting a fake. Mrs. Renner’s expertise of Russell’s work was inherited from her husband, Fred, who grew up near Charlie in Great Falls, Montana. And, Ginger Renner owns 100 Russell paintings. Fred Renner also published a catalog of Russell’s works housed at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. This is significant to the story since Renner included in the catalog as belonging to Russell, “Lassoing a Longhorn.”

Regardless of the inclusion of the painting in Fred Renner’s catalog, Ginger Renner held her opinion that “It’s a helluva painting, but it’s not Charlie Russell…it’s an O.C. Seltzer.” Even Steve Seltzer, grandson of the painter, testified that having seen a photo of “Lassoing a Longhorn” in Horizon Magazine in 1979, believed that it was his grandfathers. On such testimony, it was determined that Steve Morton’s painting of “Lassoing a Longhorn” was indeed the work of Seltzer. Consequently, the Coeur d’Alene auction house refused to auction the painting. Steve Morton’s lawyers wrote threatening letters to the auction house demanding that they auction the Russell painting or face a lawsuit. After the auction house did not reply, Mr. Morton sued the grandson Steve Seltzer and Mrs. Renner in Federal Court for wrongly declaring “Lassoing a Longhorn” a Seltzer painting, thereby, reducing the value of the painting to under $50,000. The suit accused Renner and Seltzer of fraud, malice and bad faith.

After Mr. Seltzer provided nine experts who confirmed that the painting was not a Russell, Mr. Morton withdrew his suit. But, Mr. Morton’s financial woes were not over. Mr. Seltzer turned around and sued Mr. Morton for emotional distress and damage to his reputation from “malicious prosecution,” and “abuse of process.” The jury ruled in favor of Mr. Seltzer awarding him $21.4 million in damages. This is one of the biggest judgments in 2004.

Of Course there are appeals and more appeals, but will anyone really be sure who painted “Lassoing a Longhorn?” Charlie Russell is surely shaking his head and wondering what America has come to.



Lewis and Clark and the Lower Columbia by Russell