Even the citizens of Marland have forgotten the names of the people buried on nearby White Eagle Monument Hill. White Eagle, of course is remembered. He was a chief of the Ponca tribe. The Miller Brothers of 101 Ranch fame erected the monument in his name.
Bill Pickett rests here too, a name so well known in rodeo that rodeo people call the graveyard "Bill Pickett Hill," bestowing upon him a prominence they feel atones for the disregard of others buried at the site.The grave is marked with a sandstone tombstone that reads: "Bill Pickett-C.S.C.P.A." The letters stand for Cherokee Strip Cow Punchers Association. Pickett, a black man who has been given credit for "inventing"bull dogging, died in the spring of 1932 after an altercation with a bronco in a 101 Ranch corral. He was 62.
Pickett worked for the Millers, who not only had the big Oklahoma ranch (the 101) but also a big show (101 Ranch Wild West Show), for most of his adult life. But his remarkable story begins not in Oklahoma but in south central Texas near Taylor, Williamson County.
His antecedents were of mixed "Negro, Caucasian and Cherokee Indian blood," according to Colonel Bailey C. Hanes, "a not uncommon blend [in the 1800's] in the upper south." In his book, Bill Pickett, Bulldogger (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1977), Hanes concludes that "Thomas Jefferson Pickett was born in Louisiana and was 26 years old in 1880, which means that one of the Pickett women was pregnant at the time the wagons headed West and that he was born at some unknown place in 1854 as the caravan passed through Louisiana, "
According to Hanes" research, "the caravan was made up of 48 whites and 52 Negro slaves." Thomas Jefferson Pickett was Bill Pickett's father. He and Bill's mother, Mary, produced13 children. Five of the boys, including Bill, may have been the first black entrepreneurs in Taylor, where they operated a business called "Pickett Bros. Bronco Busters and Rough
Riders Ass'n."
Bill was born in 1870, five years after the Civil War ended and the slaves of the Confederacy were emancipated. By the time he was 16, he was becoming interested in horses, cattle and dogs.
Not many writers emphasize the influence cattle dogs had on the young man, but, I believe, if it were not for these dogs, he might never have been the famous bite 'em style bulldogger he was. There were "heel" dogs and "catch" dogs. The latter went to a critter's head, while the former harassed the heels. Cowboys were used to such chases because it was next to impossible to swing ropes, or make cow catches in the thick tangles of brush that covered much of Williamson County.
As young Bill watched the cowboys, working on ranches or in holding corrals, he wondered to himself why so many critters got away If they would just do it like they dogs, he must have thought as he and his brothers organized their business: catching and bringing back wild cattle and breaking and gentling wild horses.
Exactly where Bill Pickett first grabbed a steer's lip with his teeth-like the dogs did it-is not known. You hear stories that he did it in the brush, on the range, in a holding No. But wherever he did it, he was the first to do it and the first to be promoted in a specialty act.
In talking to old-timers, much of the fanciful element is reduced. They figure that Pickett went down or! the back of a cow brute, stopped it, then bit into lip or nose and just fell away, dropping the steer by twisting its neck and assisted by the attrition of leverage.
But an "eyewitness account" in the Tulsa World, Oct. It, 1931, described his fear in "shows" (there were no rodeos in those days) like this: "The steer longed into the arena ... his Pickett's horse plunged full speed after it . the rider leaped from the saddle. He turned a complete somersault along the length of the steer's back, flying out and down over the curved horns... to fasten his teeth in the side of the steer's mouth. With sheer strength he dragged the running behemoth's head to the tan-bark, thrust its horn in the ground, and forward momentum threw the steer hocks over horns in a somersault of its own. "
"He'd be killed or going to the hospital," commented one veteran rodeoer after I read him
this early account of what Pickett was supposed to have done Before his death a few years back, Yakima Canutt, one of the best of the pioneer rodeo gang, told me that "hoolihaning"
was so dangerous to both contestants and stock that it was outlawed, following a rash of injuries and death .
Hoolihaning is described by Ramon F. Adams in Western Words (University of Oaklahoma Press, Norman, 1944) like this: " The act of leaping forward and alighting on the horns of a steer in bulldogging in such a manner as to knock the steer down without having to resort to twisting him down with a wrestling hold. The practice is barred at practically all recognized rodeos."
Mrs. William Paxton Irvine once confirmed that "Bill Pickett was riding with my father, Lee Moore, near Thoundale, Texas, in the late 1880's, They were rounding up cattle and one steer was hard to turn. Bill took after the steer and bulldogged it." (How he did this was not elaborated on, but he must have used the bite-'em style because Moore, who had a theatrical bent, booked Pickett in Texas and other states, describing him as a "bulldogger that did it with his teeth."
In addition to Moore, whose agreement with Pickett ended in 1903, the black man was "shown" by the promoter Dave McClure, again as far away from his home turf as Cheyenne and the shows in North Dakota.
His success and notoriety as the "only professional bulldogger in the world," caught the attention of the Miller Brothers whose 101 Ranch Wild West Show was fast becoming the best such entertainment in the country. In 1905, they hired Pickett for his popular act and brought him and his entire family from Texas to Oklahoma, housing them at 101 Ranch headquarters at Bliss (now Marland).
Of course, Pickett was on the road a lot, billed as "The Dusky Demon" on show flyers. When not on the road he did all sorts of chores to help the sell-sufficiency of the huge ranch. He picked cotton, maintained fences, built corrals, and broke and gentled horses. He was particularly good with horses, according to his great grandson Frank Phillips.
" My grandmother, Bessie Pickett Phillips," said Phillips, "told me a lot about Bill ... how he pretended to be 'the man of steel' but how he was really hurting, in later years, following work each day.
" I think he was exploited in a way. He was black and yet he was unique in what he did. But then in those days, all black athletes were exploited in tine one way or another. . especially prize fighters."
There was the Mexico City incident in 1908 The Millers should have known better, should have anticipated the consequences, when they pitted the Dusky Demon against the fighting bull, Frijoli Chiquita. But they did it anyway and nearly lost their lives as the crowd in the El Toro National Bullring vented its wrath.
Everything the onlookers could lay hands on - cushions, rocks bottles, knives, fruit, cans, etc., were tossed into the ring. (They were outraged at what they considered a burlesque of their national spectacle as Pickett, shaken like a rag doll, just hung on for dear life.)
Frank Phillips seems to think that the intervention of Mexican troops was the only thing that saved them. President Porfirio Diaz was in the stands, and realizing the crowd was fast becoming dangerous and uncontrollable ordered the army to invade the ring and restore order.
Certainly Bill Pickett is one of those colorful characters in the history of Wild West Shows and rodeos. And, therefore, he was inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, in 1971, the first black rodeo athlete to be so honored.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bailey C. Hanes, Bill Pickett, Bulldogger:
The Biography of a Black Cowboy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977). Jerrold J. Mundis ÒHe Took the Bull by the HornsÓ; American Heritage, December 1967.
