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FROM THE 1900s

U.S. Urged to Help Wild Horse Herd; Panel Asks Protection for 100 Montana Mustangs
1969, New York Times
Washington, D.C., June 20 - A panel of land resource experts recommended today that the wild horse — a vanishing symbol of the Old West — be given better protection so he could continue to roam the open range.

Panel Studies Montana-Wyoming Wild Horse Herd
1968, New York Times
Billings, Mont., Dec. 25 - Wild horses roaming the newly created Pryor Wild Horse Range, a 31,000-acre refuge established last September by the Federal Bureau of Land Management, have won the right to continue in their domain, but the terms of the victory are still to be decided.

Mustangs, Limited; The U.S. acts to restrict methods of capturing the vanishing wild horse
1960, New York Times
An occupation that once was considered romantic and even heroic in the making of the American West — the pursuit and capture of wild horses — has come under a black cloud and, as a practical matter, been outlawed.

Wild Horse Annie
1959, Time Magazine
Last week the wild horses had their day in Congress. Their frail, unlikely-looking champion, Mrs. Velma B. Johnston, 47 is a Reno secretary. Ten years ago she was shocked to see a truckload of frightened, bleeding wild horses on their way to the slaughterhouse. She investigated the methods of roundup and was even more deeply disturbed, launched a campaign that has won her the nickname, "Wild Horse Annie." For two hours last week. Wild Horse Annie told her story to 16 interested members of a House Judiciary subcommittee. The mustangs are flushed from their hilly retreats by low-flying airplanes, whose pilots pursue the animals across the prairies until they are near exhaustion. Then trucks take up the chase. Finally, the horses are lassoed with ropes weighted with truck tires or other heavy objects. The horses drag the weights around until they drop. Then they are hobbled, hauled into the truck. Since Wild Horse Annie's campaign got under way, most Western states have outlawed mustang hunting by plane on state lands. After hearing her testimony last week, many sympathetic Congressmen agreed that the practice should be outlawed on federal lands, too.

Eisenhower Signs Bill Protecting Wild Horses
1959, New York Times
Washington, D.C., Sept. 8 - President Eisenhower signed into law today a bill making it a Federal offense to hunt wild horses on public lands or ranges from an airplane or a motor vehicle.

Cattlemen Propose Shooting Wild Horses for Meat
1948, New York Times
Portland, Ore., July 31 - In the face of objections from conservation groups, some Western cattlemen have proposed that wild horses from the upland ranges of the Far West might be used as a new source of food for the hungry nations of Europe. They have informed the Economic Cooperation Administration that the wild steeds can be delivered at packing plants for 3 1/2 cents a pound on the hoof.

Wild Horse Round-Up
1939, Time Magazine
In wilder days, wild horse roundups were carried on periodically for the Portland, Ore. firm of Schlesser Bros., then the world's biggest packers of horsemeat. In five years (1925-30) the Schlessers slaughtered some 300,000 head of outlaws, salted their meat in 51-gallon barrels, shipped most of it to Holland and Scandinavia. Hooves, ears, tails were sold for glue and oil; ground bones and scraps for chickenfeed; hides for baseballs and shoes ; blood for fertilizer; casings for German sausage. Then the day of the wild horse began to wane, and the Schlessers turned to packing beef. Cattlemen and the U. S. Government have two principal reasons for desiring a clean-up of the remaining wild horses: it will save the range for livestock, remove the menace of the dread dourine (genital) diseases often found in wild horses.

Rodeo's Animals Taken to Garden; Its Wild Horses Are Bigger, Faster and More Vicious Than Any in Past
1939, New York Times
Wild horses out of the Lost River country in Idaho and the ranges of Eastern Oregon that will be seen in Madison Square Garden at the fourteenth annual world's championship rodeo: rounded up by planes, 16 carloads of stock brought here for championship events.

Wild Horses of the West Are Vanishing; Symbol of Pioneer America, the Bands Which Roam the Plains Are Losing the Fight to Packers, Ranchers and Predatory Animals
1935, New York Times
Horses that know no master still survive in the Far West. Over the upland plateaus of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Nevada there yet gallop fleet ponies and big-boned "pull" horses whose teeth have never champed on a bit.

To Kill 10000 Wild Horses
1931, New York Times
Ten thousand wild horses are to be destroyed or moved from the San Carlos Indian Reservation near Coolidge Dam.

Round-Up, Ground Up
1929, Time Magazine
…Yet the catching of wild horses undeniably is a U. S. industry, and many a wild horse, caught, corralled, transported and slaughter-housed, is packed into cans and sold as foodstuff. Most famed Wild-Horse-Catcher is one Carl Skelton, who last week was conducting a great wild horse round-up along the Missouri River in Cascade County, Montana. With his five helpers, he has already this season rounded up more than 350 horses, many of which will end their days at the Hanson Packing Co., Butte. Mont., horse-cannery. For the wild horse concession, Catcher Skelton has put up a $2,500 bond.

Wild Horse Round-Up Starts in Montana; Carl Skelton, the "Boss" of the Old-Time Range Riders, Says They Will Capture 5,000
1929, New York Times
Great Falls, Mont., May 26 - The cry of "wild horses" came down across the open range and away the riders raced, out across the breaks in the range, a stretch of bad lands, beyond which the rovers had been sighted. One of the greatest round-ups of wild horses ever staged on the western ranges was under way.

Wild Horses Take Their Last Trail; Driving Wild Horses to Slaughter
1928, New York Times
El Paso, Texas - Three centuries ago, thirst-tortured Spanish conquistadores in search of the Grand Quivera, fabled city of gold, named the desolate 100-mile trail north from El Paso to what is now Hillsboro, N.M., the "Jornado del Muerto" — the Journey of Death.

Law Passed to Rid Wyoming Of Thousands of Wild Horses
1927, New York Times
With cattlemen and sheepmen, traditional enemies of the range, united behind it, a bill aimed at ridding the State of thousands of wild horses has passed.

Montana Seals Fate of 400,000 Wild Horses; Legislature Signs Death Warrant of Roaming Cayuses That Have Become a Nuisance to the State
1925, New York Times
Four hundred thousand wild horses — mark the number, 400,000 — are said to be running at large in the State of Montana. They are eating up the pasturage, breaking down the fences, devastating the farms and acting so outrageously in all other respects that they are demoralizing and upsetting the conduct and manners of their domesticated brethren of the plow and the saddle.

Wild Horse Hunters
1912, New York Times
An intimate story of the wild horses of the Southwest and the war waged against them would read like a dine novel romance. In everyday parlance, however, they are a nuisance and a pest. As horses they are valueless and useless. They can no more be tamed and domesticated than the hyena. All efforts — and there have been vigorous and determined efforts made by individuals, rangemen and States — to exterminate them have so far failed flatly.

To Kill All Wild Horses
1908, New York Times
Orders were received yesterday from the Forestry Department instructing the rangers in the reserves in Lander County to kill all the wild horses found on the government domain. There are about 15,000 wild horses on the reserves.

Fleet Little Broomtails, Wild Horses of the Breaks; It is Great Sport to Catch Them, but They Are Clever Brutes — Too Clever, Sometimes
1904, New York Times
Perhaps the wildest horses in North America are the "broomtails," as the nondescript little ponies ranging the four corners of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah are called. Several enterprising young fellows are engaged in the broomtail industry.

The Taming of Cayuses; How the Gentle "Bronco Buster" Does His Work
1902, New York Times
Col. William F. Cody is looking forward with no little trepidation to the turning loose in Madison Square Garden this week of the "bunch" of 200 wild horses which arrived a few days ago, and which, under the glare of electric lights and to the music of a band in an inclosed building are expected to go through the evolutions of the Wild West Show. These animals were picked from the roving bands of wild horses that range over Wyoming and the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. How many of these horses are roaming at large in the West is impossible to say, but the statement was made a year ago that there were 10,000 of them in Oregon alone, while there are numerous large herds that range the Eastern slopes of the Rockies.

Wild Horses in Idaho; And Some Explanation of the War Between Sheep Herders and Stock Men
1902, New York Times
Uncle Same, perhaps, is not aware of his total equine assets. Up and down the Snake Valley roam herds of wild horses — beauties too, which most persons would highly prize. Cowboys frequently surprise these animals, shoot the stallion, and stampede and capture the mares and colts.

 

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