“When
a man ain't got no ideas of his own, he'd ought to be kind o' careful who he
borrows 'em from.” – Owen Wister
Wister, a Harvard
classmate and close friend of Theodore Roosevelt, is often called “The father
of the Cowboy novel,” a title given to him after he wrote The Virginian.
On our current trip
to Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, we had the good fortune to tromp over a lot of ground
that Wister tromped across when gathering background for that famous book –
often running across photos and quotes from him in hotels and on ranches where
he visited.
Wister began his
literary work in 1891 after spending several summers in the West, making his
first trip to Wyoming in 1885. Like Roosevelt,
Wister was fascinated with the culture, lore and terrain of the region. In the historical museum at the north end of
Yellowstone National Park, we found information about his 1893 visit there,
where he met the great Western artist Frederic Remington and began a lifelong
friendship.
The Virginian,
written in 1902, is the story of a cowboy who is a natural aristocrat. Set against a highly mythologized version of
Wyoming’s Johnson County War, it takes the side of the large landowners. Wildly successful, it was reprinted a
remarkable 14 times in its first 8 months alone and has continuously been in
print ever since. All told, Wister
wrote 8 novels, 13 nonfiction books – including one about his friendship with
Roosevelt – 6 story collections, including The West of Owen Wister: Selected
Short Stories, published posthumously.
He also authored numerous essays and poems, several plays and even a
number of operas.
Visiting Johnson
County, which also is regarded as the base for Craig Johnson’s modern day
series of novels and TV series Longmire,
was a terrific experience – including reading Wister’s handwritten comments
posted on a wall of “famous visitors” in the historic Occidental Hotel in
downtown Buffalo, the county seat.
The Wall of Famous Old West Visitors in the
Occidental Hotel; Wister's portrait in 1905; & stopping at “Longmire” headquarters, just down the street from the Occidental in Buffalo, WY.
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