Life when cowboys and Indians were around wasn’t easy. The was a lot of rivalry, riding on horses, drinking at saloons, and even getting in fights in them. We’ve gathered 30 images that picture that era perfectly.
LIFE Magazine Issue
August 22, 1949.
Charley Meeks, Cowboy
1886.
View of men camping with a covered wagon, a tent, dogs, horses, and liquor bottles
Pikes Peak, 1860.
Ernst Haas, Stuntman with mustang on the set of The Misfits
1960.
African-American Cowboys
1891.
Long mending a broken fence post, one of the many tasks that filled his day.
1949.
Beside his chuck wagon, cowboy Clarence Long reading a western magazine.
1949.
Cowboys and Indians
Early 1900s.
The drum mounted on Jack Sinclair’s comically small stagecoach.
Pueblo, Colorado. 1890.
The only spot of shade on the empty prairie.
1949.
Ed Smith, a cowboy on the Matador Ranch.
1914.
Group at Golden Eagle Mine, Colorado.
A Cowboy by John Tharling.
Evansville, Indiana. 1927.
Tintype of a Buffalo Hunter with His Sharps Carbine.
1925.
Tom Blasingame becoming the first Cowboy in the JA Ranch.
1918.
Clarence H. Long looking more youthful than his age of 39.
1949.
Long collecting his string of horses and considering which of the young ones to pick for a training session.
1949.
A hipster gal with studded chaps.
1924.
Clarence H. Long.
1949.
The stagecoach and the men the James-Younger gang robbed in 1874.
Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Clarence H. Long with his father, Clarence Long.
1949.
A gathering of trappers and traders at the Mountain Man Rendezvous.
Historic Fort Bridger, Southern Wyoming.
Coronel Amador Salazar
1915.
Geronimo driving a car at the Miller brothers’ 101 Ranch.
Ponca City, Oklahoma. June 11, 1905.
Gamblers playing Faro, a French card game, at a saloon.
Bisbee, Arizona.
Perley McBride’s Saloon.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1906
Cowboy George Hennessey posing outside the Bucket of Blood Saloon.
Holbrook, Arizona, 1908.
A patron cradles a rifle outside Jacksons Bar.
Idaho.
The Bob Saloon.
Miles City, Montana, 1880.
Playing with kittens at a rancher’s house.
1949
Texas Rangers Nate Fuller and AJ Beard enjoy a drink at Livingston’s Ranch Supply.
Marfa, Texas west, 1916.
