JF Ptak Science Books Post 1914
I'm sure that Solomon Butcher's (see a post on him earlier today) lonely pictures of life in the great prairie lands of Nebraska were lonely just for an instant. The captured images of vast semi-rolling lands swallowing their subjects were only momentarily. I'm sure that once the photo as made, Ms Austin (below) simply mounted her horse and loped away towards the beautiful horizon, enjoying the day. The lonesomeness I'm fairly well certain was a creation of the moment. Except in winter, when the lonesomeness was real. (All images live at the interesting Nebraska State Historical archives, here.)
Sadie Austin, "the best known cowgirl in Cherry County". ("...the daughter of Cherry County rancher Charles
Austin, was a woman of many talents. She was well educated and
noted for her refinement, including her accomplishments as a
pianist. But, when needed, she was also able to put on a split
skirt and help the cowhands. She could sit a horse well and was
noted for her shooting ability. She was the best known cowgirl
in Cherry County."
A different Ned--not Buntline, but Dunlap. Ned Dunlap. The caption said he ("foreman on the Watson Ranch near Kearney") was outfitted for a parade of Old Timers in 1902, and is done-up Old School cowboy.
This fantastic image of clarity and potential cold is a portrait of "John Bridges at Devil's Gap", and as the Nebraska Historical Society tells us, it was the site of a true-to-life 1878 hanging-and-burning, a low and dirty affair perpetuated by the Olive Gang. The Olives (I.P. and his brother Robert) were wanted men of Texas taken flight to Nebraska where at least I.P. did very well, coming into hi sown as a cattle rancher. In spite of wealth and land and luck in escaping prosecution and/or vengeance for murder in his former state, he was still highly exercised about losing some cattle to rustlers and had therefore taken a very dim view of Homesteaders in his (and adjoining) counties, fearing that they represented rustling risks as well. And so it came for him to loathe the existence of two homesteaders, Mitchell and Ketchum, who lived in tiny dwellings in this gigantic landscape. The Olives feared fear, no doubt, and after a while it became clear that the two men could not be scared away, and so the Olives set the legal machinery in motion, accusing the men of rustling, and stoking a $700 reward on their capture,which was quickly accomplished. Mitchell and Ketchum were brought in but then were taken by the Olives and their minions, who rode the men off to their ends. They were handcuffed together, ropes tied around their necks (not in a noose, but in a foul and ugly and very painful tied knot), and were hoisted up, one after the other. They were then burned like animals over a fire set at their feet. There was legal procedure against the Olives, but long story short is that I.P. soon won release of his second degree murder charge and lived with his son in Colorado, still in fear of reprisal, finally meeting vengeance in 1884. Its just a bad story.
Image near the Snake River, Cherry County, Nebraska: "Lookout Point". "This promontory in the near-mountainous sand hills of Cherry
County used to be covered with cedar trees, and was allegedly
a spot favored by horse thieves who could hide their booty in
the blowout at the top and shinny up a tree to keep a lookout
for the law. " Evidently, the rise was completely bare when Butcher came to it in the 1890's, finding not a tree on the site that the former horse thieves could hide behind. So, if you look (not even very) closely, it is clear that Mr. Butcher simply drew in the missing trees.
In another instance of re-creation, Butcher made a photo of ranch hands in the throes of destroying a barbwire fence. The fence would have belonged to a settler/homesteader, and represented nothing but a threat to the rancher's way of life. The parceling of land in such a manner, when in the years previous the country had been nothing but millions of acres of free-to-the-horizon's-next-horizon land, was a blasphemy to the rancher. But since making a photograph of a crime in progress was so rare and difficult (given the circumstances of, well, a crime being committed and the physical limitations of the photographic equipment), Butcher simply made the scene up, with wooden wire cutters and masks that no rancher or cowboy would wear.
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