The Vanished Herd by Jim Fulbright & Albert Stehno

by Jim Fulbright and Albert Stehno

Hardbound book contains over 500 pages, 1,000 plus photographs, and hundreds of biographies of other area ranchers, and cattlemen.

The book’s title, according to Stehno, is derived from an incident in the 1930s when Zack Miller of the 101 Ranch donated a buffalo hide to the The Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers Association, on which the names of the men associated with the organization were burned like brands. The hide also contained colorful paintings by artists Emil Lenders and Roger Glenn Taylor, and Miller entitled his gift, The Vanishing Herd. The hide was presented to the Oklahoma Historical Society in 1936, and is now at Enid’s Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center Museum. “With all the original cowboys now gone,” said Stehno, “we decided to tell their story and times on the range, calling our book The Vanished Herd.”

Thirty-five years ago, Stehno, a Billings rancher, began collecting materials about the Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers when his great-grandmother gave him a membership ribbon worn by her stepfather Cal Rosecrants. Stehno spent his spare time combing the countryside, locating and interviewing other descendants of the CSCPA. Many of them supplied photos and other memorabilia, which became part of a large collection of CSCPA material, portions of it now on display at  Marland's Grand Home in Ponca City.

Fulbright tells about the beginnings of the CSCPA, saying "On Labor Day weekend ninety-one years ago, a group of former cowboys gathered in a buffalo pasture at the 101 Ranch south of Ponca City. A few years earlier, many of those men had followed the marching armies of longhorn cattle that trailed north from Texas through Indian Territory, and others had been herders on the range of the Cherokee Outlet; cowboys in Oklahoma’s unsurpassed cattle country with its sea of grass stretching for over 200 miles along the Indian Territory border with Kansas. In their prime, they were young adventurers, most looking for a livelihood and the freedom of the open range, but their ranks also included far-sighted entrepreneurs who developed ranches and fortunes in the cattle trade, which, beginning in 1867, dominated much of the West for nearly thirty years.

"By 1920 most of those old cowboys were family men in their forties and fifties, some even older. They met at the 101 Ranch that year to renew old acquaintances and briefly relive their cowboy days, and as it turned out, the twenty-five to fifty former range riders who attended the reunion enjoyed it so much that they decided to meet annually. They elected a slate of officers who promised to contact even more “old-timers” for the next year’s reunion, and before they left the 101 Ranch that weekend, they chose a name for their new group: “The Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers Association.”

“In 1921 over 160 “cowpunchers” showed up for the second annual meeting, and during the next ten years, the number increased to nearly 600. By 1926 they had moved the reunion location to a little rise on the south bank of the Salt Fork River in the corner of the buffalo pasture. They dubbed it, “Cowboy Hill,” and a small building and other improvements were placed there for their Labor Day meetings. Initially, CSCPA membership required having previously worked in the Cherokee Strip, or “Outlet,” of Indian Territory, a requisite that was soon expanded to include those engaged in the cattle business in other parts of Oklahoma.

"In the 1800s, these early-day range riders had arrived in Indian Territory from many states and countries and from all walks of life. The majority were born in Missouri, Illinois, or Texas, while several came from Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and even Canada. Only nine states or territories in existence at the time were not represented by a CSCPA member.

"During the years Oklahoma was opened for settlement, most of these men left the cattle range and claimed homesteads, while others either returned to their home states or looked for new ventures elsewhere. Far and away the largest number of them remained in Oklahoma their entire lives, and many descendants of the old cowpunchers live in the state today."

Stehno and Fulbright say that one of the challenges in preparing the work has been deciding what accurately constitutes an official role of CSCPA membership. There have been several lists over the years, from the buffalo hide itself to the names inscribed on the Jesse Chisholm Trail Memorial. To be as accurate as possible, the authors decided that the original ledger book, dutifully kept up-to-date by several CSCPA secretaries down through the years, and now archived in the Gilcrease Museum at Tulsa, Oklahoma, should serve as the official record of membership. To the extent possible, they have used that old fading ledger to reconstruct the cowpunchers’ work record, the ranch or cattleman they served, and provide a biographical sketch of each members’ life.

The last of the original Cherokee Strip cowboys died in the 1960s but today their memory and the days of ranching in the Outlet live on in the "The Vanished Herd," which also contains biographies of other area ranchers, and cattlemen, as well as incidents and stories about town building in the Cherokee Outlet following the 1893 land run.

We welcome visitors who want to meet the authors, chat with one another, and share memories when Stehno and Fulbright are here.  We'll be glad to reserve signed copies for any who would like them, but who may be unable to attend the autographing session on September 18.

The cover art for the book is a painting named At the River by Gene Daugherty of Tonkawa.

For more information visit: http://jimfulbright.com/

Co-editors/authors Albert Stehno (left) and Jim Fulbright (center) sign Oklahoma Rough Rider for a patron at Brace Books & More on July 26, 2008.