Life in the Old West

As a writer, I enjoy words, their meanings and their origin. As someone who enjoys reading and writing about life in the Old West, I really enjoy the various Westernisms or “cowboy talk” that enriched the language of the Old West.

Take the word “paint,” for example. I ran onto several colorful (pardon the pun) uses of the word. (My source for most things regarding Western lingo is the wonderful book I’ve mentioned in several articles at this site: “Dictionary of the American West” by Winfred Blevins.)

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Horse rugs make great gifts for the holidays, both for horse lovers and horses. When we speak of “horse rugs,” we are using the term in two distinct ways.

1. Horse rugs are part of the tack used to keep horses warm while housed in their barn or stable. A horse rug is the term given to a variety of heavy weight blankets put on horses in stables for added warmth in cool and cold weather. They perform a valuable service by keeping the animal’s own body heat close by for winter warmth. They generally are shaped like a regular horse blanket that drapes over the horse’s back from neck to tail, but they have a double buckle in front to secure them to the horse, along with various snaps to snug them into place. Some even add a cozy touch with fur lining to cover the horse’s withers.

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Cowboys’ spurs were both practical and dressy. They helped the working cowboy control his horse, and they often were made of beautiful combinations of silver and iron — showing off the cowboy’s dressy side and reflecting something of his material success.

According to his fascinating book “Cowboy Culture,” writer David Dary says spurs were first used in the Old West by Mexican vaqueros. Dary also says a primitive type of spur has been traced by some historians back to 700 B.C. By the 1400s A.D., he says, “spurs were a mark of rank for old World cavaliers, knights, and caballeros; the right to wear spurs was then awarded only by a feudal lord or king.”

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When it comes to the single biggest influence in shaping life in the Old West, it would be hard to get past that four-legged critter made famous in books and movies — the horse.

Certainly, the railroad radically influenced settlement of the West when it came along, completion of coast-to-coast rail service, and completion of a coast-to-coast telegraph system both mightily influenced everything about westward expansion and settlement. But from beginning to end, the West relied in one way or another on horses. Early trappers and pioneers who expanded “Anglo” influence into every area we call the Old West, came on foot, came dragging and pushing various forms of sleds and sheds and wagons — but they all came at one time or another riding and/or leading horses and horse drawn vehicles.

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