I recently complained that the perception of the American West has more to do with show business than reality. I should have deferred to Larry McMurtry, whose complaining is more eloquent than mine.
McMurtry contended that “the selling of the West preceded the settling of it.”
Wild West shows were everywhere. When Henry Adams and his friend John Lefarge headed for the South Seas in 1890, they shared a ship with a troupe headed for Australia.
McMurtry reminds us that the Miller brothers, owners of the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma, had a big show that was going to tour Europe in 1914. The Millers arrived in England as World War I broke out, and most of their Mexican ponies were requisitioned and shipped to France.
Somehow the Millers got everybody home, including, even, a band of Oglala Sioux who had been farmed out to a circus and happened to be in Germany when war broke out.
I can barely imagine it. I wonder what stories the Native Americans told when they got home. Wouldn’t you love to read their memoirs?
• Source: Larry McMurtry, “Inventing the West”; The New York Review, Aug. 10, 2000. It’s here:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/04/24/a-mighty-theme-larry-mcmurtry/
No comments:
Post a Comment