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Speaker 1: M He clearly had a lot of social tech and

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Speaker 1: self confidence that probably was unusual. His dad instilled it

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Speaker 1: in him, and then he was able to go on

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Speaker 1: and you know, make a legend out of himself by

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Speaker 1: being the kind of person that he was. On this

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Speaker 1: episode of the Bear Grease Podcast were exploring the life

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Speaker 1: of an extraordinary human who overcame the social norms of

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Speaker 1: his time to become a Hall of Fame cowboy. And

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Speaker 1: when he discovered a bone in the dirt that rewrote

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Speaker 1: human history, he became a legend. But he would never

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Speaker 1: know it. His life was wrought with peculiar accomplishments but

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Speaker 1: shadowed by tragedy. I'm in search of justice for this

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Speaker 1: man's legacy, and we're going right to the place where

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Speaker 1: he lived to interview the men who now call him family,

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Speaker 1: though he had none. I want us all to meet

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Speaker 1: George mcjunkin. You always had that, you know, wonder where

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Speaker 1: we come from, where, you know, why are there people here?

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Speaker 1: It's a shame that he didn't really fully realize what discovered.

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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear

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Speaker 1: Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search

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Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the

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Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land,

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Speaker 1: presented by f HF Gear American Maid, purpose built hunting

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Speaker 1: and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as

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Speaker 1: the places we explore. Matt, tell me, tell me where

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Speaker 1: we're at. We're here at the Folsom Museum and Folsom

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Speaker 1: in Mexico. And uh, it's a mercantile and store and

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Speaker 1: bank and it was built in eighteen six or eight nine,

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Speaker 1: I guess, And this was your family's building. Yeah, Oh,

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Speaker 1: my great great grandfathers he came from Ireland back about

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Speaker 1: the turn of the century and uh rent a bank

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Speaker 1: in mercantile store here. So you guys have been toughen

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Speaker 1: it out here for you know, hundred hundred thirty years

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Speaker 1: or so. Yeah, pretty much. The Fulsome Museum is one

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Speaker 1: of those places you'd stopped thinking it was a cute

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Speaker 1: place to buy a souvenir. There's a hand painted sign

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Speaker 1: on the door that says no horses or dogs allowed

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Speaker 1: in the museum and it's not a joke. However, upon entering,

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Speaker 1: you realize the place is a historical gym. It's a

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Speaker 1: legit museum with over four thousand pieces. What's the most

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Speaker 1: prized possession in here. I don't know. We probably have

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Speaker 1: to be some of the folsom points. We have stuff

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Speaker 1: from Charles Goodnight, Um, some buffalo skulls from you know,

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Speaker 1: the extermination of the buffalo in the eighteen sixties, and

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Speaker 1: a prehistoric buffalo skull from about nine thousand years ago.

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Speaker 1: Lots of different things, and lots of George mcjunkin and stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have his hat, some branding irons used Ledger book

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Speaker 1: that he actually wrote in. For the last three podcasts,

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Speaker 1: we've been focusing on the American Southwest and we're continuing

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Speaker 1: on that track. I'm in search of all the intel

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Speaker 1: I can get on this man that Matt speaks of,

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Speaker 1: George mcjunkin. The information on his life is limited because

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Speaker 1: very few knew of the significance of his accomplishments until

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Speaker 1: after he was dead. Like a passing moment. We'd wish

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Speaker 1: we'd paid more attention to George's life passed like water

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Speaker 1: through fingers. It was only documented by the few people

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Speaker 1: that perceived he was special. But it's probably not that

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Speaker 1: strange when you understand the circumstances around his life. This

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Speaker 1: is the voice of Matt Dowdry. His family has been

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Speaker 1: in Folsom, New Mexico for a long time and they

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Speaker 1: know a lot about this town's history. It's deep history.

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Speaker 1: So this is George McJunkins is old hat? Is that right? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: We we think so. It was found in the hotel

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Speaker 1: you know where he died in the same room, in

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Speaker 1: a in a box that about the same time period.

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Speaker 1: And it looks pretty similar to wanting all the pictures,

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Speaker 1: so be a beaver felt hat. Yeah, I would imagine

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Speaker 1: it's what all the real cowboys wore. Yep, none of

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Speaker 1: these beanies that they were today. Human life, and I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about the actual act of living, is bound by

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Speaker 1: time and has a strict starting and stopping point. We're

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Speaker 1: odd critters. When we want to remember a hue in

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Speaker 1: life which we can't capture and preserve, we memorialize it

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Speaker 1: by gathering up material things that are absent of life

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Speaker 1: that were used in the life of the one that

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Speaker 1: we're trying to remember. If they put your cowboy hat

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Speaker 1: and your horse attack in a museum, I want to

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Speaker 1: know who you were. If George mcjunkin could attach one

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Speaker 1: label to himself. I think he'd call himself a cowboy.

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Speaker 1: But there's more. The broad statue over there is what

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Speaker 1: they gave him when they inducted him into the Cowboy

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Speaker 1: Hall of Fame and dozen nineteen, so posthumous, right, a

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Speaker 1: little better late than ever. But yeah, and he never

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Speaker 1: even knew what he actually discovered anyways. So that's the

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Speaker 1: wildest thing about him, is he never he never would

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Speaker 1: have known that anything he did had any you know,

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Speaker 1: national or global significance. Yeah, and he was a pretty

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Speaker 1: smart guy and he actually, you know, pondered that exact

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Speaker 1: his whole life. You know, where people come from, and

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Speaker 1: he's really interested in that kind of thing. So it's

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Speaker 1: a shame that he didn't didn't find out what do

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Speaker 1: you actually discovered? In twenty nineteen, Matt accepted on behalf

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Speaker 1: of George a bronze statue when he was inducted into

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Speaker 1: the National Hall of Great Westerners also known as the

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Speaker 1: Cowboy Hall of Fame. But you see, George wasn't a

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Speaker 1: regular Hollywood cowboy as one might envision. George was black.

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Speaker 1: Here's the clip of George's induction. Please join me in

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Speaker 1: honoring George mcjunkin with his induction into the Hall of

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Speaker 1: Great Westerners being accepted by Matt Doherty at Abby Reeves

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Speaker 1: from the Fulsome Museum in New Mexico. The museum is

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Speaker 1: dedicated to McJunkins contributions to history. Good evening, Thank you.

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Speaker 1: I'm honored to be here accepting this prestigious award for

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Speaker 1: a person I considered to be someone that's part of

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Speaker 1: our family. George played an instrumental role in the early

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Speaker 1: success of my family's ranch. After my great great great

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Speaker 1: grandfather passed away, George taught his two children what would

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Speaker 1: be like? What did you take to become good cowboys

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Speaker 1: and more importantly, good men. George bestowed on my great

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Speaker 1: great grandfather lessons that are still being passed down to

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Speaker 1: my children seven generations later. I really wish George was

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Speaker 1: here to see the impact that his life made. But

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Speaker 1: George was a man well ahead of his time. But

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Speaker 1: it's his honesty, great and perseverance that he will be

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Speaker 1: remembered by a true cowboy. The idea of a black

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Speaker 1: cowboy is interesting, but that isn't why we're still talking

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Speaker 1: about him today. Matt mentioned that he discovered something of

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Speaker 1: significance and after I perused the museum, I jumped in

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Speaker 1: the truck and drove about ten miles out of Folsome

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Speaker 1: we pulled through the gate of a ranch and my

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Speaker 1: chauffeur jumped out of the truck and told me he

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Speaker 1: wanted to show me something. We're overlooking a broad valley

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Speaker 1: surrounded by rim rock bluffs, junipers, and some open country.

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Speaker 1: It's beautiful. We're located on the Herford Park Ranch in

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Speaker 1: northeastern New Mexico and Union. Actually we're right on the

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Speaker 1: Union County Colfax County line. This is Kyle Bell. He's

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Speaker 1: wearing a big black cowboy hat, boots that come up

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Speaker 1: to his knees, and he's got strips of tanned elk

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Speaker 1: hide wrapped around his Willie Nelson style braids. The jingle

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Speaker 1: of spurs tell you he's a cowboy. He's a longtime

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Speaker 1: resident of Fulsom, New Mexico, and acts almost like a

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Speaker 1: guardian of George McJunkins character and legacy. Both he and

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Speaker 1: Matt talked about George like he's their brother. And looking

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Speaker 1: at this valley, if you look down there, you can

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Speaker 1: see the house. That house is landmark in this part

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Speaker 1: of the country has been here for well over a

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Speaker 1: hundred years, and that house is where George mcjunkin helped

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Speaker 1: build that house, and this is the ranch that he

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Speaker 1: worked on. You can see that hay barn down there.

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Speaker 1: Then there's a drainage that goes back up this way

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Speaker 1: towards that Beaute up there. When you get up there,

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Speaker 1: about halfway between here and that Beaute, that's wild Horse

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Speaker 1: Royo and that's the location of the side and George, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: he found the bump and realized that they were probably

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Speaker 1: bison bones, but we've never seen any of that big

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Speaker 1: before they knew something was unusual about him, but before

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Speaker 1: anybody came back and actually did an excavation, George passed away.

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Speaker 1: So he died not knowing how important his discovery was,

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Speaker 1: which is a shame. It's time to level with you

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Speaker 1: on what George found. That discovery now defines his life,

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Speaker 1: but it didn't while he was living on This episode

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Speaker 1: will touch on the discovery, but we're going to look

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Speaker 1: deeper into George's life, but here's a glimpse into what

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Speaker 1: he discovered. In night. George was in his mid to

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Speaker 1: late fifties. He was riding a horse up the wild

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Speaker 1: Horse arroyo on the ranch he managed when a peculiar

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Speaker 1: bone caught his eye. Recently, a giant flash flood had

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Speaker 1: washed out the drainage, exposing a deeper layer of soil.

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Speaker 1: The flood had actually washed away much of the town

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Speaker 1: of Fulsome when fourteen inches of rain fell in just

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Speaker 1: a few hours and eighteen people died. The earth is funny.

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Speaker 1: It seems to want to cover stuff up, but the

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Speaker 1: fast water reversed the process and uncovered what had been

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Speaker 1: hidden for over ten thousand years, buried ten ft below

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Speaker 1: the surface. George had spent his whole life paying attention

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Speaker 1: to the natural world, and he identified the chalky pile

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Speaker 1: as bison bones, but he knew they weren't normal. He

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Speaker 1: took note of their location and rode on. Over the

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Speaker 1: next thirteen years, he told many people about his find

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Speaker 1: and urged them to come see it, but no one

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Speaker 1: came for years. In January of nineteen twenty two, George

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Speaker 1: passed away, and three months after his death, an amateur

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Speaker 1: archaeologists from Atone went to find the bones that George

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Speaker 1: spoke of, and he was shocked. In nineteen twenty seven,

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Speaker 1: five years after George's death, The site would be hailed

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Speaker 1: by the leading archaeologists in the United States as the

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Speaker 1: most significant archaeological find of all time in North America.

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Speaker 1: It proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that humans

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Speaker 1: had inhabited North America for over ten thousand years. The

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Speaker 1: discovery literally made every history book on human arrival in

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Speaker 1: North America irrelevant. George had discovered an ice age bison

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Speaker 1: kill site. It was the ancient evidence of an elaborate hunt,

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Speaker 1: a plan that either came together by chance or incredible

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Speaker 1: hunting prowess, or something in between. Will never know the details.

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Speaker 1: Speculation based on the fines and the exercise of intelligent

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Speaker 1: imagination is the only way to recreate the imagery of

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Speaker 1: the hunt. No one was filming for YouTube, though George

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Speaker 1: only saw a few bones. Later they would uncover the

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Speaker 1: skeletons of thirty two bison antiquis and extinct species of bison.

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Speaker 1: But what would put it into history books is that

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Speaker 1: inside the pile of bones were stone tools made by humans.

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Speaker 1: And they weren't just any stone points. They were a

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Speaker 1: new style that we'd never documented before. They were old,

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Speaker 1: very old. They would become known as fulsome points paleontologists

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Speaker 1: knew bison antiquois had long been extinct, and it proved

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Speaker 1: that humans were here thousands of years longer than we thought.

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Speaker 1: It was a wild period of time in the archaeological world,

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Speaker 1: and the site would become known as the Fulsome Site.

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Speaker 1: Dr David Meltzer is an archaeologist and the national authority

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Speaker 1: on the Folsome site. He's a professor at s m

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Speaker 1: U in Dallas, Texas. We're gonna get to know him

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Speaker 1: very well on the next podcast, but here's a little

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Speaker 1: bit of what he had to say about George. The

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Speaker 1: thing that has always struck me about George mcjunkin is

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Speaker 1: that he's out checking his fence lines after the Great flood,

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Speaker 1: comes onto this newly in size, more deeply in sized

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Speaker 1: portion of the arroyo there, and he sees bones at

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Speaker 1: the bottom. Best we can tell from you know, the

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Speaker 1: very very very few photographs we have of when the

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Speaker 1: site was first discovered. You know, this is ten ft

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Speaker 1: twelve feet below the surface. He sees bones sticking out. Now,

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Speaker 1: you know, out of a hundred cowboys looked down and say, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: so there's bones. You see bones all the time out

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Speaker 1: in ranch country. Right, George got off his horse, and

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Speaker 1: George walked down into that arroyo. George is the one

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Speaker 1: out of a hundred who looked at that realized it

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Speaker 1: was of interest. I have no idea why, except that

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Speaker 1: he was so interested in the world around him that

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Speaker 1: he walked down into that arroyo, looked at those bones

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Speaker 1: and realized this in the cow, it's a buffalo. And

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Speaker 1: he must have sensed that it was that it was

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Speaker 1: an interesting or distinctive I mean it is. These were

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Speaker 1: big animals, right these these places seen bison were probably about,

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Speaker 1: oh estimates, you know, fifteen larger than modern bison. And

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Speaker 1: if he had seen one of the big cows down

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Speaker 1: in the bottom of that arroyo, um, he would have known.

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Speaker 1: George mcjunkin would have known this is not any ordinary bison.

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Speaker 1: And he started telling people about it. And that's the

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Speaker 1: only reason we know about that site, because there's nobody

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Speaker 1: else that was out there that that took notice. Here's

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Speaker 1: Kyle again, giving us a further look into who George was.

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Speaker 1: He was born, his parents were slaves, He's born in Texas.

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Speaker 1: It was a buffalo hunter, an excellent cowboy. He didn't

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Speaker 1: know how to read or write. He was self educated,

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Speaker 1: learned to read and write, and was very interested in

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Speaker 1: archaeology and gall g and those kind of things at

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Speaker 1: a time in period when it was really hard for

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Speaker 1: a black man with any kind of education to get

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Speaker 1: along with people in this part of the country because

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of ex Confederates here, you know.

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Speaker 1: And but one thing about cowboys, and it holds true

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Speaker 1: today for the most part. If if they're good cowboys,

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Speaker 1: you don't see color. You just just you know, if

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Speaker 1: they're a good cowboy, they're a good cowboy or a

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Speaker 1: good bronch rider, it don't matter what color they are.

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Speaker 1: Even back in the old days. I've read that a

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Speaker 1: third of the cowboys that rode up and down these

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Speaker 1: trails were black and another third were Hispanic, And you know,

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Speaker 1: they're so the black cowboys and Hispanic cowboys had as

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Speaker 1: much or more to do with shaping this country as

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Speaker 1: anybody did. Also, after George's house burnt down, he moved

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Speaker 1: to the hotel that Matt lives in, and that's where

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Speaker 1: he passed away. There's a room there that's Georgie's room.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, Matt from the Falsome Museum, he lives in

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Speaker 1: what was formerly the Falsome Hotel. It's a really cool

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Speaker 1: looking old building. To say these guys are connected to

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Speaker 1: George is an understatement. He's very well thought of in

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Speaker 1: this part of the country and uh and highly respected

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Speaker 1: for his ability as a cowboy, but also as a

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Speaker 1: self made man in a really tough time of history

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Speaker 1: too for a black man dude to get an education,

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Speaker 1: you know. And he was the foreman of this ranch,

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Speaker 1: and usually he didn't go to a ranch and find

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Speaker 1: a black foreman. Over the next couple of podcasts were

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Speaker 1: going to become George mcjunkin and fulsome site experts, the

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Speaker 1: knowledge gained from understanding what George discovered the site, as

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Speaker 1: they call it, is absolutely fascinating. It's relevant and will

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Speaker 1: make our current habitation on this continent more robust. However,

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Speaker 1: humans don't grow on trees. They all have stories, they've

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Speaker 1: all got places they came from. But our deep history

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Speaker 1: is forever shrouded in mystery. And I'm interested in learning

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Speaker 1: about these people that killed those bison, but I'm also

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Speaker 1: interested in learning about George. Sometimes the messenger is as

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Speaker 1: important as a message. George was born sometime in the

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Speaker 1: early to mid eighteen fifties. No one really knows. He

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Speaker 1: was born a slave near Midway, Texas. He lived and

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Speaker 1: worked on the junking ranch and took his slave owner's

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Speaker 1: last name. By all indications, his father was an incredible man,

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Speaker 1: but we don't even know his first name. He was

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Speaker 1: simply known as Shoe Boy. He was George's only family.

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Speaker 1: We don't know anything about his mother. George's father once

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Speaker 1: told him, one day, the white people will call me Mr.

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Speaker 1: Shoe Boy. He was a blacksmith. He knew how to read.

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Speaker 1: He read the entire Bible, and he worked to buy

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Speaker 1: his own freedom and ran his own blacksmith's shop. In

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Speaker 1: George's early teens, the Civil War was raging in the

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Speaker 1: United States. He lived on a ranch, and young George

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Speaker 1: showed great aptitude and learning the skills revolving around breaking

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Speaker 1: horses and working cattle. The war caused a labor shortage,

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Speaker 1: creating an opening for him. However, George was most comfortable

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Speaker 1: around the Mexican cowboys and was trained to break bronx

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Speaker 1: by them. On June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five, federal soldiers

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Speaker 1: came to town to proclaim that the slaves were free.

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Speaker 1: It's believed George was around fourteen years old. With his

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Speaker 1: new freedom, though his life didn't change much immediately, But

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Speaker 1: he found himself running into cowboys camped on a cattle drive,

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Speaker 1: and he was astonished by what he saw. He saw

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Speaker 1: black cowboys, and he saw the blacks, Mexicans, and whites

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Speaker 1: eating together. They were treated like equals. He'd never seen

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Speaker 1: any other place in his life where these dynamics played

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Speaker 1: out like that. He even noted that the blacks rode

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Speaker 1: as good horses as the whites, and they didn't have

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Speaker 1: to ride mules. Come on, George, mules aren't that bad.

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Speaker 1: George knew he wanted to be a cowboy. I want

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Speaker 1: to learn more about George's life from the guys who

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Speaker 1: are connected to him. Here's Matt and Kyle. So, Matt,

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Speaker 1: you've lived in fulsome your whole life, your so your

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Speaker 1: family would have known George mcjuncan. Yeah, the picture of

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Speaker 1: him standing on the porch. You know, if was an

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Speaker 1: old man and there's a baby at his feet, that

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Speaker 1: would be my grandfather. So you know he would have

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Speaker 1: worked for His great great grandfather would be dr Owen.

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Speaker 1: So your grandfather was dr Owens. He would be my

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Speaker 1: great great great grandfather. So I think my kids are

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Speaker 1: the seventh generation here on the ranch. Dr Owen's granddaughter.

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Speaker 1: Does your grandfather father ever talked about George mcjunkan or

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Speaker 1: was he too young to really understand much about him?

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Speaker 1: He knew a lot, you know. Basically the book The

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Speaker 1: Black Cowboy was done with help of his mother, so

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Speaker 1: would be my great grandmother. She kept all the notes,

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Speaker 1: and I guess she realized that it was a pretty

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Speaker 1: important important deal, so she kept all the letters and

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Speaker 1: correspondence between him and stuff. George was born in eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty or so. I don't think they're real certain on

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Speaker 1: the date, about ten years before the start of the

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Speaker 1: Civil War, so that I would put it right about

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Speaker 1: fifty two or so. Yeah, and he would He would

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Speaker 1: later become known as a very skilled cowboy. And it's

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Speaker 1: so interesting because he was he became trained as a

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Speaker 1: cowboy because all the white cowboys were all fighting in

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Speaker 1: the Civil War. Exactly is that what you understood? Well?

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Speaker 1: From an early age, from what I read, he showed

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Speaker 1: a keen interest in horses, and they started him out

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Speaker 1: like driving teams and stuff like that. But he wanted

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Speaker 1: to be a cowboy and so every time he got

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Speaker 1: a chance to get on a horse to break it

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Speaker 1: or anything, you know, just to gain a little knowledge,

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Speaker 1: he would. And you know Matt's grandfather W. Doherty, but

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Speaker 1: he said, you know, he remembered George in his old

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00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: age still being the best hand with the horse on

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Speaker 1: the ranch. There was talk of a school being built

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Speaker 1: for black children near the junking ranch, but it never happened.

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00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:50,639
Speaker 1: George knew you had to make something happen in his

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Speaker 1: life without his parents approval. At the age of seventeen,

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Speaker 1: he left home in the night in search of schooling

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Speaker 1: and to work on the cattle drive. You know, he

346
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 1: just ended up taking off and told him left a

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Speaker 1: note or told the neighbors. I guess, he said, just

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Speaker 1: tell my folks today, I went looking for some school

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Speaker 1: and I'm going west to be a cowboy. And took

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Speaker 1: off down the road barefooted, and he ran into a

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Speaker 1: group of horses that he knew were from that ranch

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Speaker 1: and mc jenkins ranch. He uh saw a mule there too,

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Speaker 1: and he thought, well, you know, maybe I'll be a

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Speaker 1: little less suspicious being on a mule rather than one

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Speaker 1: of these good looking horses. And that's what he took

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Speaker 1: off on and you know, once he got outside of

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00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: commanche at the at the head of uh the cattle drives,

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Speaker 1: you know, going north to Abilene. He ended up acquiring

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Speaker 1: a horse and the horse wrangler for for the trail

360
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: going up. When George left, he knew that no one

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Speaker 1: would think much about a black kid riding a mule

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00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: in a strong display of character. He would later return

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Speaker 1: that mule, and it was noted by George that his

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Speaker 1: father was concerned about him taking the steed. He had

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00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,399
Speaker 1: heard that it was stolen, but was glad to see

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Speaker 1: that his son later returned it. George was always adamant

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Speaker 1: that real cowboys road horses, not mules, and later in

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Speaker 1: life he'd own and ride as good of horses as

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Speaker 1: any cowboys that ever rode in the West. The next

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00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 1: part of his life, working on cattle drives would forever

371
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Speaker 1: change him. The start of George's career as a cowboy

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Speaker 1: was that summer on the cattle trail. Now Matt will

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Speaker 1: tell us how he got connected to the Roberts family

374
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Speaker 1: and acquired his first ranch job in the Falsome area.

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Speaker 1: So good on that, you know, and really paid attention

376
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:36,159
Speaker 1: to all the other cowboys and kind of learned how

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00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 1: to read the stars and picked up a lot of

378
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: stuff from them, and uh, you know, he ended up

379
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Speaker 1: securing a job to come back, you know, the next

380
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,920
Speaker 1: year on the drive, so he decided to head south,

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Speaker 1: back home, you know, and wait out the winter. It

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00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 1: turned out that when they were there in town, he

383
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:55,120
Speaker 1: had started talking to him and the conversation led to

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00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,919
Speaker 1: him being a bronch buster and and basically led to

385
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: another bet that he couldn't ride this big gray mayor

386
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: you know, when he got on it and made one

387
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: of the best bronk rides that the Roberts had seen

388
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 1: and you know, basically secured his his job from there,

389
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: bringing them bringing them west. So that's that's how he

390
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 1: got into And now he would have how old would

391
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: he have been during all that time period in his

392
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 1: early because he left his house when he was seventeen,

393
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 1: and so this he would have got the job with

394
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: the same year. You know, it was as soon as

395
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: he returned back, probably before he was twenty. He was

396
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: just a teenager, and before he didn't know how to

397
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 1: read or write. But the cowboys took him under their

398
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,879
Speaker 1: wing and he learned how to read and write, you know,

399
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: at the chuck wagon at night by the firelight, and

400
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:41,959
Speaker 1: he had a piece of slate and a nail, and

401
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: that's how they taught him to alphabet and had to

402
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: write and read. And then once he learned how to read,

403
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:51,639
Speaker 1: he couldn't get enough literature to read. You know. You know,

404
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 1: his his father told him something, he said, we have

405
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,359
Speaker 1: to read or will always be the bottom rail and

406
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: the fence. I just keep going back to his dad,

407
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: because his dad implanted in him these ideas of independence

408
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 1: and that just self worth. What what would it have

409
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: been like for him though? I mean that time period

410
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: for black Americans would have been a I mean just

411
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: a whole new script in front of their life. At

412
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: the same time, extremely difficult. In Texas. I'm from Texas,

413
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 1: so I can say he is. There was extreme prejudice

414
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: against former slaves. And if you had a young black

415
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 1: man that could outride every cowboy on the outfit, they'd

416
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: have to eat a little crow to ad meant that

417
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: he might have been the best cowboy amongst him. If

418
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:44,679
Speaker 1: a black cowboy had better ability than most of the

419
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: cowboys in the outfit, and love them boys fought for

420
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:52,199
Speaker 1: the stars and bars. You know, they were Confederate Southerners

421
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: that come back to Texas and there wasn't nothing there,

422
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 1: so they started driving cattle north. There would have been

423
00:26:57,359 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: even though he was an exceptional young man, there were

424
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,880
Speaker 1: been extreme prejudice right after the Civil War. Yeah, well,

425
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: he clearly had a lot of social tech and self

426
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 1: confidence that probably was unusual. He built that himself, his

427
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 1: dad instilled it in him, and then he was able

428
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: to go on and you know, make a legend out

429
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,439
Speaker 1: of himself by being the kind of person that he was.

430
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,360
Speaker 1: What would what would he have been so good at

431
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: to being known as such a great cowboy? Like what

432
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: skill set would he have had? I think the thing

433
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 1: that he's most famous for, and I think Matt will

434
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: agree was him breaking and handling horses. He had a

435
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 1: soft touch, and he could ride horses that other people couldn't.

436
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: All cowboys look up to somebody that can take a

437
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: bronx and turn it into a horse that anybody can

438
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,160
Speaker 1: ride and use on the ranch. You know, can't everybody

439
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: to do that. And one of that stuff is just

440
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: something that you you have in you. You know, you

441
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 1: can't teach it. A lot of it probably has to

442
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: do also just having that natural talent, but then being

443
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 1: able to develop, you know, while all the white guys

444
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 1: were off fighting during the Civil War, and he was

445
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: around all the Bucarro's and you know the spinning culture

446
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: where he became fluent in Spanish too, So that was

447
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: a big, big leg up in life for him. Moving

448
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: to this area. He was trained by Mexican cowboys and

449
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: they're they're actually where the cowboys that derived from. Believe

450
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: it or not, the cowboy history goes all the way

451
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 1: back to the Middle Ages with the Moors, who were

452
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: from North Africa. They invaded Spain. They held Spain for

453
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: eight hundred years. They taught to Spaniards how to make

454
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 1: steel like the Toledo blades that are so famous. They

455
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: also taught him leather braiding and horsemanship. So the Moors

456
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: were in Spain for eight hundred years. When they finally

457
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: pushed him back across the Gibraltar Straits, Spain had become

458
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: a horse nation. They became the bullfighters and the mounted warriors.

459
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: So when they when Spain brought their horseback technology to

460
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 1: the New War Old scared the Indians death. They've never

461
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: seen anything like that. For a long time. It was

462
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: against Spanish law to ever let an Indian straddle of horse.

463
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: They could feed them and curry them and stuff, but

464
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: they wasn't supposed to ride them because they knew if

465
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: the Indians ever to learn to ride, they wouldn't be

466
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: able to control them. Sooner or later, some of the

467
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: Indians started riding, some horses got loose, got stolen, and

468
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: in two hundred years they spread from Mexico to Canada

469
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: and probably right through the same corridor right exactly, fulsome

470
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: sights on and you know, Charles Goodnight came across the

471
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,959
Speaker 1: same past going through Trania to Colorado. So you know,

472
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: right in this area, there's just natural corridors that you

473
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: follow to keep from going over the top of a

474
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: mountain or across the canyon. You go the way that

475
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: your stock can go. When you drive cattle, you want

476
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: to drive them slow enough as they're driving to the

477
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: north and eating their gaining weight. If you drive them

478
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: too fast, they're either staying the same or loosing way.

479
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: You gotta know, just the usually about ten miles a

480
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: day was going pretty good. And this this area was

481
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: just a corridor. So there's a is there a gap

482
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: in the mountains here, there's like three gaps. Basically, this

483
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: area is a geographical crossroad. It's good cattle driving country

484
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 1: for the same reason the pleist to seen bison hunters

485
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: were here too. Animals and humans moving across the landscape

486
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: just end up here, just like a deer hunter setting

487
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: up in a place where multiple trails intersect. The same

488
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: thing brought George here that ten thousand years prior had

489
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: brought those ancient hunters. And while we're straddling to time periods,

490
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: it's interesting to note that this was some wild country

491
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: back when George was roaming around being a cowboy. Yeah,

492
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: and this was the wild West. You know, this is

493
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: probably more happened in this in the high Low country,

494
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: in this quadrant of New Mexico than anywhere else in Vegas.

495
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: Was way more wild than Dodge City. Or they even

496
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: sent some of the former marshals from Dodge City to

497
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: Las Vegas to try to clean it up, you know,

498
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: like bat Master Soon, Billy Hickock, and some guys like that.

499
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: They had pretty famous names when you say Las Vegas,

500
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: New Mexico, Las Vegas, the first Las Vegas. This was

501
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: wild cowboy country, but it was also Comanchee country. One

502
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 1: of the most feared tribes in America. Georgia's whole life,

503
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: he navigated hostile territory and one time was almost killed.

504
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: Matt and Kyle will tell us about it. When Colonel

505
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: Mackenzie finally figured out how to get down into Palladuro Canyon,

506
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: which was the stronghold of the Quahati Comanches, and Corna

507
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: Parker was their leader. They had always been able to

508
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: protect their place there. Finally they got down there. They

509
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: didn't capture very many Comanches, but it's right before winter,

510
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: and they did something they'd never done before, but it worked.

511
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: They killed all the Indians horses. They let him pick

512
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: out a few to keep the officers and stuff, and

513
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: they shot the rest of them. And then they burned

514
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: their lodges that had all their winter supplies. And a

515
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: few months later, the once proud horseback nation that ruled

516
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 1: the Southern Plains had to walk into Fort Sill, Oklahoma

517
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: and surrender to the army because they were starving. That's

518
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: the only way they ever got them out of there.

519
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: They had to kill their horses. Commanch your foot ain't

520
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: no Comanche, and they can't fight. They can't hunt without horses,

521
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: So in order to save what was left of their population,

522
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: they had to surrender, and he would have been coming

523
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: through that same area, you know, in Palladero when they were,

524
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 1: you know, kind of at the peak of their power.

525
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: George would have. Yeah, so he and actually they, like

526
00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: I said, they stare off of the horses and stuff

527
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: and should have killed him. But they his saddle horse

528
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: ran off with his gun and everything when they stole

529
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: the horses, and they rode up to him and basically

530
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: laughed at him and called him a black Mexican and

531
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: spun around and took off. And so you know, he's lucky,

532
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: lucky to be here. Well he's if he hadn't been black,

533
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 1: that had he killed him. But he was special. He

534
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: was touched by the man above because he was not

535
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: a gringo cowboy. He was black. He was a man

536
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 1: of color, so were they. So he he had some

537
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: pretty intense skirmishes with the Comanche. So yeah, this was

538
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 1: just a wild a wild, wild country. That's and this

539
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: is where George mcjuncan became who he was. Matt had

540
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: some good insight into a very interesting contradiction regarding the

541
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: treatment of African Americans and Native Americans. Here's what he said,

542
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 1: it's just crazy that they can fight a war too,

543
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: you know, free it one group of people and then

544
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: turned around within the same year. Can you know, have

545
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: a huge campaign to annihilate a whole another ethnicity, you know,

546
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 1: with Indian wars and the same people that just freed one.

547
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of a contradicting. George was a naturalist.

548
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:12,359
Speaker 1: He was fascinated by the natural world. And it's kind

549
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,720
Speaker 1: of ironic that he unknowingly discovered such an important archaeological

550
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: site while doing his routine duties on the ranch. So

551
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,839
Speaker 1: George he had a lifelong passion for learning. When he

552
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 1: was out with the cowboys at night, they had to

553
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: take watches to watch over the cattle, and he they

554
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: taught him how to look at the stars to tell

555
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: the time, and he became yet a lifelong obsession with

556
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 1: star gazing and understanding stars. And he learned to read.

557
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 1: It said that he made some contraptions to learn how

558
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:46,839
Speaker 1: to tell how fast the wind was blowing. He made

559
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: rain gauges. He had a lot of ingenuity, like a

560
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,399
Speaker 1: lot of just natural you know, just a smart guy.

561
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,840
Speaker 1: You know, he had access to in later life, you know,

562
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: to dr Owen's book collection. So back then, you know,

563
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: we didn't have the Internet and all this, you know,

564
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: right at the tip of our fingers. So he had

565
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: access to all these books and and just be able

566
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 1: to pick the minds of you know, a doctor and stuff.

567
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: So he gained a lot of knowledge there. And he

568
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:14,800
Speaker 1: was just a curious guy, you know, and well read,

569
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: and he just happened to be in a really good

570
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: spot to study archaeology and geology. And there's a lot

571
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,360
Speaker 1: of picture glyphs and stuff like that in part of

572
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: this part of the country camp site. I mean, this

573
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: is an archaeological haven right here. Yeah, and he was

574
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: you know, smart enough to know and curious. You know,

575
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,359
Speaker 1: you could see different things and you always had that

576
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: you know, wonder where did we come from? Where? You know,

577
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 1: why are there people here. It's a shame that he

578
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: didn't really fully realize what discovered, you know. I think

579
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: going back to that idea that George mcjunkin was thinking

580
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: about where humans came from, he found a human skull, Yeah,

581
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: and that was on his way in to the area,

582
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: and he knew it was Comanche too, and he was

583
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 1: pretty scared to even pick it up and stuff they

584
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: said he put it in the bag of being in

585
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 1: the chuck wagon, hoping they wouldn't catch him with it.

586
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, he kept out his whole life. You know.

587
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: When there's a picture of Mantle, yeah, I mean it's

588
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 1: so you can see the picture of him standing by

589
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: his man, or he can see the skull here on

590
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,720
Speaker 1: the man. You can just imagine him sitting back looking

591
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: at that thing, thinking about that skull like we now

592
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 1: think about the fulsome man. Being a curious guy usually

593
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 1: indicates an internal posture of awareness and one who's keen

594
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:31,360
Speaker 1: on the nuances of the natural world but also the

595
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: human social world, and it indicates someone with an active intellect.

596
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: When you examine his whole life, it just seems like

597
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: he was special. But he was one of the guys

598
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 1: that was you know, had good timing. I guess. You know,

599
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: there's certain people and that you come across that just

600
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: always seemed to be in the right place at the

601
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 1: right time. And he and a lot of the stuff

602
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 1: he did is not even well known at all, you know,

603
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 1: kind of like catching outlaws and stuff. He he was

604
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 1: just always the right place the right time and and

605
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: impacted American history really several different occasions, you know, and

606
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 1: it's uh just to same that he's it's an unsung

607
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 1: hero outlaws, you say. Once, while George was out writing,

608
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: he came across a suspicious camp. He went and talked

609
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: to the guys and got a bad vibe. He reported

610
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 1: the men to the law, and turns out they were

611
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: a notorious outlaw band of trained robbers who were later

612
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: captured and convicted. Fist bumped to Georgia, even though George

613
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: didn't know about his discovery and how important it would

614
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: from what I've read and from what I've heard, he

615
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:42,280
Speaker 1: was also a humble man and he didn't go around

616
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: looking for fame and fortune or bragging on himself. I

617
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 1: bet he never told anybody he was the best bronk

618
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: rad in this part of the country. He wasn't a

619
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: show off. He was just a good person. Yeah, you know,

620
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: people loved George mcjunkin. I mean, now we're talking about him,

621
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,839
Speaker 1: but like locally, like there there's accounts of there's one

622
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 1: story I remember where he was in a restaurant presumably

623
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 1: here in fulsome at the Rock Hotel that he actually

624
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: died in. Just this tell me that story. Hey, we're there,

625
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 1: And then there's a new guy in town, you know,

626
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: just butter rants or something. He came in and they

627
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: were sitting there and George was eating and stuff, and

628
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 1: he said, you know, I'm I'm not gonna eat with

629
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: a black man. You know, you can't sit here and yeah,

630
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:25,839
Speaker 1: and so his buddies, you know that right there, they said, oh,

631
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: we we'll handle this for you. And they took him

632
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: and threw his outside in the mud and they were

633
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: going to whip him, and George actually came out and

634
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: that's right. George looked out and they had a whip

635
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:38,399
Speaker 1: and we're about to whip him in the street. Yeah,

636
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: and so he stopped him from doing that. So you know,

637
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 1: that right there just shows what a man was. But

638
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,439
Speaker 1: then it was even funnier because that guy was having

639
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: a welcoming party for everyone in the community, you know,

640
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: and I couldn't find any musician, so I think it

641
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: was Carlitos. Corn I told him, oh, I know a

642
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: guy that you know plays a fiddle and stuff. I'll

643
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: just bring him. And it was George. So so this

644
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: is the guy, this is the guy that George had

645
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: just didn't and then George said, don't whip him, and

646
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:11,279
Speaker 1: then he went and played fiddle at his party exactly.

647
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:14,799
Speaker 1: So it's shows what kind of a character a man

648
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: he was. We've just uncovered something we've yet to talk about.

649
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:26,439
Speaker 1: George was a musician. Man, oh man. You know I'd

650
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: have had that dude playing the fiddle on the Bear

651
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: Grease podcast if he were here today. George would later say,

652
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: and I quote, a fiddle is a better teacher than

653
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,800
Speaker 1: a whip. Besides, I only charged him double my usual

654
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:44,919
Speaker 1: price for playing. Yeah, there's another account of him going

655
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 1: to So. Yeah, George was in Clayton with a couple

656
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: of his cowboy friends. You know that we're white, and

657
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: I think there was an Hispanic guy with him, and

658
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: they've been known to shoot up the bar, not George,

659
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 1: but the guy he was with, So they're kind of

660
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 1: rough guys. Yeah, I mean there's still bull whole Yeah,

661
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: in the in the bar there. They were there in Clayton,

662
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: you know, wanting to get a bite to eat before

663
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: they headed back to this part of the world, and

664
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: the bar owner wouldn't serve him. He said, you know,

665
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: we don't serve African Americans there, and so his buddy

666
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 1: pulls out his pistol throws it down on the table

667
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: and says, it looks like your policy changed, and so

668
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: it did. So they served George. I love stories of

669
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 1: rough characters, you know, guys outside the mainstream trends, the outlaws,

670
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: you might say, that have more character than the good guys.

671
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: You may remember my friend Dr Malachi Nichols. He's been

672
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: on the renders several times and he taught me about correlations.

673
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: Malachi's from Texas, and several months ago I asked him

674
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: if he'd be willing to read the book The Black Cowboy,

675
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 1: which is the source of much of our intel about George,

676
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: and he was excited to read it. I want to

677
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: see if he has any insight into George's life. So

678
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 1: I think the thing that strikes me about George's life

679
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: is that his life is a lifestyle that is today

680
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: almost absent from African American culture, the African American lifestyle

681
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 1: and kind of what people aspired to be. I can

682
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 1: remember when I was young, um, and there's a there's

683
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: a there's a famous day called June tenth inside of

684
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 1: the black culture, and is the day that that Lincoln

685
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: freed the slaves. And you know, the news got down

686
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: to the slaves and so you know, we still celebrate it. Yeah,

687
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 1: that's in Midland, Texas, right, there's a parade that we

688
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: do um that goes starts one place and travels all

689
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:44,399
Speaker 1: the way to to the park and at the end

690
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: of the line every year there were black cowboys, black

691
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:52,320
Speaker 1: cowboys on big horses that kind of finished the parade.

692
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:55,880
Speaker 1: And that kind of stood out to me as Hey,

693
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,120
Speaker 1: I never hear about black spin cowboys and George this

694
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: life shows the power of a different lifestyle that is

695
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 1: fading away, and so to me, I think it shows

696
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: that you have to be aware of kind of what

697
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 1: the mainstream societal pushes are for your career, for who

698
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: you should be and and there's more opportunities than what

699
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 1: is traditionally shown to you. Being able to look through

700
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:24,879
Speaker 1: time at people who happen to share the same skin

701
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: color as you and seeing the lifestyles that they lived,

702
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: it gives you greater possibility and opportunity for what you

703
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: could do. We as humans are we we like to

704
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: differentiate each other. We like to find associations, right, We

705
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: we like to group. And if you look at one

706
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: frame of time, if you look at one area inside

707
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: of the country, if you look at one block or neighborhood,

708
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:54,359
Speaker 1: you limit yourself into the possibilities and so being able

709
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:57,280
Speaker 1: to look back and even at George's life, it shows

710
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 1: you there's a wide range of careers, there's a wide

711
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: range of lifestyles, a wide range of cultures that could

712
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,320
Speaker 1: be a right fit for you, you know, and and

713
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: George in all the black cowboys during that time, and

714
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 1: they would have met opposition, maybe more so in that

715
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: world than in others, just because of the nature of it,

716
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 1: but they were just up for the task. I mean,

717
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:21,799
Speaker 1: you see inside of George's life that he had a

718
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: lot of had a lot of self confidence, he had,

719
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 1: he had a lot of tack with people like he

720
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 1: He genuinely seemed to understand people and was able to

721
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,760
Speaker 1: work with all kinds of people from doctors to ranch

722
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: owners to Mexican Vaccaro's too outlaws. He used a lot

723
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 1: of a lot of skill to get where he did,

724
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: and it probably took some stretching his comfort zone. I'm

725
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: sure I think you know what you're what you're hitting

726
00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 1: on is is really the power of character to go

727
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: beyond racial lines, to go beyond cultural lines, and even

728
00:43:55,520 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: to go beyond kind of occupational lines because character recognize

729
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,479
Speaker 1: this character. And I think that's what all these guys

730
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 1: are saying, is that on the trail rides, the cowboys,

731
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: you know, they said they quote didn't see color. They

732
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 1: just saw whether you were a good cowboy, whether you're

733
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: a hard work or whether you're skilled. And it's like

734
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: character sees character. Okay, here's the biggest question, though, Alica,

735
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 1: do you wish you were a cowboy man? You know?

736
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: Sometimes I do? Right? So I look at George's life,

737
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: and oh, you're taking this question seriously, I do. I

738
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 1: look at George's life and realize the value of almost

739
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: living free quote unquote. The first time I had a

740
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 1: chance to go overseas, I took a trip to Ghana,

741
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,240
Speaker 1: which is in Africa. I stayed there for a month.

742
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 1: In that trip, I realized how much of my life

743
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: was built on comfort, right, how much of my life

744
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,840
Speaker 1: came with an ease. And looking at George's life and

745
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:57,280
Speaker 1: seeing his ability to go through a snowstorm on a horse,

746
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: right to sleep outside when it's old is something that

747
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: I don't sign up to do. Uh, And I value

748
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 1: that that ability to to forego Cuban comfort in just

749
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: in just living life so sometimes I do I have,

750
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: I have, and that was we gotta get you on

751
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 1: a mule. That was a that was a that was

752
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 1: a temporary hunt. Right. This is a good place to

753
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: do a little clean up on George's life. There are

754
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 1: so many stories it's hard to tell them all. But

755
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 1: it's important to note that George became the ranch manager

756
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:35,279
Speaker 1: of the Crowfoot Ranch, which was owned by a man

757
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:39,360
Speaker 1: named dr Owens, who is some of matts Ken. George

758
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 1: and dr Owens had a good relationship, and he recognized

759
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 1: who George was and entrusted much of his livelihood to him.

760
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:49,879
Speaker 1: It's hard to overstate the significance of a black ranch

761
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: manager in the late eighteen hundreds. George would have been

762
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: the boss of lots of white cowboys. I also can't

763
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 1: talk about George without telling you about his telescope. Once

764
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: George rode up on four unscrupulous characters beaten the tar

765
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:08,839
Speaker 1: out of some dude on the side of the road.

766
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,839
Speaker 1: George rides up on his horse with his rifle laid

767
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 1: across the saddle, and he said, pretty hot day for

768
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 1: that kind of work, isn't it. The comment incited a

769
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,400
Speaker 1: scuffle that involved George getting bucked off his horse. The

770
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:26,280
Speaker 1: men ran off, leaving the beat up dude there thanking

771
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,319
Speaker 1: George for saving his life. Turns out that guy was

772
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: a cavalryman in the army, and thanks for saving his life,

773
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 1: he gave George his telescope. George would treasure it the

774
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 1: rest of his life and carry it in his rifle scabbard,

775
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 1: having never looked through one until he was an older man.

776
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 1: The technology never lost its luster to George. Here's another story.

777
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:53,240
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty nine, George was on a winter cattle

778
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 1: drive and a historic snowstorm rolled in and the temperatures plummeted,

779
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:00,880
Speaker 1: causing a total white out for several days. Is George

780
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,239
Speaker 1: took the lead and told the fourteen cowboys with him

781
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: to follow him. He knew the country so well he

782
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: guided them to a remote homestead he knew about. The

783
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,239
Speaker 1: weather was so severe that twelve hundred cattle and all

784
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: the horses froze to death. That's some legit cold. They

785
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:21,319
Speaker 1: were stranded in a small cabin for fourteen days, and

786
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: George was single handedly credited with saving the men's life.

787
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: What's interesting was that what helped George through this was

788
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: his sheep wool and deer skinned coat that he designed

789
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 1: and made. I want to read you a short section

790
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 1: from the book about that coat. This is from the

791
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:45,919
Speaker 1: book The Black Cowboy by Franklin Folsom. One fall day,

792
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:49,399
Speaker 1: while George was laying out fence, a cold wind made

793
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:53,280
Speaker 1: him shiver. It also gave him an idea. He dropped

794
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 1: work and rode to Candido Archilata's place. Will you sell

795
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,840
Speaker 1: me two sheepskins? He asked of horse my friend Candido replied,

796
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:04,400
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a coat. The ones in the store

797
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: aren't warm enough and they're too short. George chose two

798
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: skins heavy with fleece, and rode home. Putting the fleece

799
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: side in, he shaped and stitched a coat long enough

800
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 1: to cover his legs and split up the back so

801
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: he could wear it in the saddle. Then to go

802
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 1: over the inner coat, he made another from deer skin

803
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 1: he had tanned himself. Nobody around had ever seen anything

804
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: quite like it, but it was very warm. The dude

805
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,240
Speaker 1: was a get or done kind of guy and had

806
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 1: some skills. I don't want to end this section on

807
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 1: a Debbie downer, but it's part of George's story. He

808
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: never married, though he overcame many racial stereotypes. Marrying a

809
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 1: white woman was out of the question, and it was

810
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 1: even said that he was rejected by the Mexicans too,

811
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: and there just weren't many African American people in the area.

812
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,439
Speaker 1: Though he always wanted a family, he never married nor

813
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: had children. Thanks a lot, Dad. Here's Matt Kyle and

814
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: I discussing the latter part of George's life. In the

815
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:18,879
Speaker 1: latter part of George's life, he had become an accomplished

816
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:22,760
Speaker 1: ranch manager, accomplished cowboy. He had saved up some money,

817
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 1: he started to have his own cattle, cattle brand. He

818
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: was a landowner. He built a house right here, just

819
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:33,280
Speaker 1: outside of Folsome, and he was one of the first

820
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 1: people to fence in the West as well. You know,

821
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 1: he built a lot of this fence that were just

822
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: now replacing. Tragedy struck though when light lightning struck his

823
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: house burned it down with his price possession. As the

824
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: bison skulled the commands, she skull all his books is,

825
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:53,280
Speaker 1: you know, his life was. And it's kind of ironic

826
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: because he always joked about lightning won't hit a black

827
00:49:56,640 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: guy caught him. But so then he ended up coming

828
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:04,440
Speaker 1: to town to still hotel here in town was kind

829
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: of like a bachelor pad for all these old cowboys

830
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: that had going to take care of him. And he

831
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 1: got a room there and ended up, you know, dying

832
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:13,319
Speaker 1: there when he came down with the stomach cancer and

833
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:16,719
Speaker 1: spent the last little part bedridden, but was surrounded by

834
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:18,360
Speaker 1: all of his friends. They said, it was, you know,

835
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:21,360
Speaker 1: just packed in there. Wow. So he spent the last

836
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: few years of his life at the hotel, just a

837
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: couple of months last so his house burned down. Then

838
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 1: he moved to the Falsome Hotel, which I mean like

839
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,399
Speaker 1: we're basically looking at through this window, and he died

840
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: in that hotel, and Matt, that's where you live. Yeah,

841
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: it's a little spooky sometimes for sure. But another thing is,

842
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:43,879
Speaker 1: you know the outlaws that he ended up catching, that's

843
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 1: where they spent their first night in incarceration because there

844
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 1: wasn't a jail. Black Black Get Catchum was held in

845
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,959
Speaker 1: that same hotel. It's just down the hall, so and

846
00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:56,719
Speaker 1: you know the story of him throwing the guy out

847
00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 1: and preventing him from being whipped the same place, so

848
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: kind of a hotspot, I guess, right in the back

849
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 1: of the hotel was the Bucket of Blood Saloon, which

850
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:08,920
Speaker 1: there were several gunfights. At one time a city Marshall

851
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: shot and killed right there and Matt's driveway at the

852
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: Bucket of Blood Saloon, right man. Yeah, And there's several

853
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:20,000
Speaker 1: several shootings there. And yet have you ever gotten a

854
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 1: fight there, Matt? Yes? I think that wildest days of

855
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: the place as still yet to come. Well, there's a

856
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: couple of us outlaw. I'm impacted by stories of people

857
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 1: overcoming all varieties of obstacles to accomplish great things in

858
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:40,800
Speaker 1: their life. George was a gritty son of a gun,

859
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:44,960
Speaker 1: an intellectual, a voracious learner, and someone who didn't bow

860
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 1: to the social norms. He used his character, work, ethic,

861
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:53,080
Speaker 1: and genuine care for people to overcome the mainstream social

862
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 1: norms of the day. But what's so sad and even

863
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,840
Speaker 1: hard to understand why, is when he died in his

864
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 1: mid sixties, he would never know that when hundred years

865
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 1: later we'd still be talking about him and we haven't

866
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 1: even uncovered the incredible details of the ancient bison kill

867
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:16,359
Speaker 1: site he found that rewrote our understanding of human history.

868
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: Justice is an odd thing. We all want it, but

869
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: often it's just out of reach. We don't have the

870
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 1: power to go back and change history or tell George

871
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 1: or give him any credit for what he did. But

872
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 1: with what I do have, I would like to do

873
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: this as a symbolic gesture. I'm officially extending a posthumus

874
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 1: invitation to George mcjunkin to be a feature guest on

875
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast. That would have been a cool interview.

876
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:57,800
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Bear Grease. I can't

877
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: thank you enough for following along. Please share a podcast

878
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 1: with a buddy this week if you can. On the

879
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:07,840
Speaker 1: next episode, we'll talk with the nation's leading expert on

880
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: the Fulsome site and dive in deep into ancient human history.

881
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 1: It's gonna be wild if you get a chance playing

882
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:19,080
Speaker 1: a trip through Folsom, New Mexico to visit the Folsom Museum.

883
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:21,480
Speaker 1: Just don't take your horse or dog in there. And

884
00:53:21,520 --> 00:53:24,839
Speaker 1: you can also see the Fulsome Hotel. Matt's mom has

885
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:26,719
Speaker 1: a pretty cool v R b oh that you can

886
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:29,799
Speaker 1: stay in and when you're there, tell Matt and Kyle

887
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 1: that I said, Hey,