Black Cowboy Who Led Will Rogers to the Trail

As a former Okie, I attended the 40th anniversary of the death of our beloved Will Rogers at the Will Rogers State Historic Park in Pacific Palisades.

They were featuring just a sampling of his old films, “The Connecticut Yankee,” “ The Cowboy Sheik,” “Ropin’ Fool” and “Dr. Bull.” They are all good, and “Connecticut Yankee” reminded me somewhat of the plot of a recently released movie, “Back to the Future.” And I never tire of the tour of his home itself.

But that is not the real purpose of my letter.

As you enter the small theater, along with many pictures and other memorabilia of Will’s are many of his sayings; one particularly caught my eye.

“We may elevate ourselves, but we should never reach so high that we would ever forget those who helped us get there.”

With that comment in mind, I scanned the indexes of the many historical volumes on Will in the adjoining shop. There was not one mention of Willie (Bill) Pickett, bulldogger personified. That surprised me. I asked a few of the guides around after the tour, and a couple of black park rangers. Nope, never heard tell of him.

Strange, I thought, so I thought I’d write this short tale as it was told to me by my father-in-law, Bob Williams. As a Western buff, I’ve always thought it to be true, but maybe we’ll never really know.

Bill Pickett was a black cowboy who was a featured performer on one of the greatest Wild West shows of all time--the Miller Bros. 101 Ranch Real West Show. The story, as I heard it, was as follows:

Will had just about had enough of schoolin’, and Kemper Military Academy with its buglin’, uniforms, discipline etc. was the final straw. He ran away. Will’s only real love was horses and trick ropin’. A black ranch hand of his father’s had shown him a few tricks, and Will is supposed to have seen at least one Wild West show and was completely in awe of the Trick Roper.

So with no place else special in mind, he headed for Bliss, Okla., the ranch headquarters for the 101. He looked up their champion roper, who I believe was a black man as well, and offered to do any chores to learn ropin’, but the black man wasn’t especially interested. Forlorn and heartsick, it looked like Will was destined to go back to Oologah and face his rather stern father.

But as fate sometimes steps in, he was invited to join the other cowboys for some grub--a last meal for Will, so to speak. He just happened to sit next to Bill Pickett.

Bill is the only cowboy to date that a rodeo event can be traced back to--bulldogging. But I should add that Bill threw the steer in a very awesome way. He would jump on its back from Spradley, his great horse, in a dead run, grab the steer by the horns. With his legs laying straight back, he would pull himself up over the horns and bite the steer on the upper lip--bite ‘em style, he used to call it. The steer would skid to a halt. Bill would keeps his bite and drop his legs to the steer’s sides and roll with him to the ground. Keeping his bite, he would throw his hands in the air and when he was ready, he would then release the bite and, needless to say, the steer would promptly jump up and get the hell away.

As always, the great crowds usually sat in stunned amazement (as I would have), and then would roar their approval. So no wonder the black man we held in such high esteem by his fellow cowboys, black, white or green. He broke the color line before we had such thoughts.

Anyhow, back to my story. Bill asked the young white boy sitting next to him about himself, and Will told him about running away from school and talking to the roper, and said he guessed he would go on home.

But Bill recognized something special about this young cowboy. He told him to get up and come with him. It was too late to go home that day anyway. He took Will home with him to his family, then on his own went to have a little talk with the roper and Joe Miller, his boss.

The next day, Will was introduced to hazing by Bill. Hazing is when one cowboy rides to the opposite side of a 1,000-pound wild steer going at full speed when he’s released, while the bulldogger jumps on from the other side.

The roper, whose name I think was Henry Clay, taught Will his tricks, and we in America, bless his soul forever, have Will Rogers.

Folklore or fiction? No one seems to really know. Anyway, it’s a great tale and I’ve always enjoyed hearing it. And I am, needless to say, a Bill Pickett and Will Rogers fan. Incidentally, Bill was only 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighed 145 pounds. Whew!

Of course there’s a lot more to the story of the long and beautiful relationship between Will and Bill, and maybe someday we’ll get into that. In the meantime, I know Will would be mightily upset if someone somewhere didn’t mention his ole’ pard, Bill Pickett, bulldogger.

SID LOVING

Malibu