A Cowboy on the Range, Wyoming

CHARLES D. KIRKLAND (1851-1926)

A Cowboy on the Range, Wyoming

Between 1885 and 1894

The cowboy came to be the icon of the American West in the mid-1880s, precisely when his traditional way of life began to disappear. By then Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska had closed their borders to cattle being herded from the south, and the open range was being fenced off by private ranching operations. The cowboy was no longer an itinerant, solitary figure on the range but a corporate employee who stayed close to home. Cheyenne photographer Kirkland captured the romantic cowboy ideal, while documenting the accoutrements of the dying trade. Sitting astride his trusty horse with lasso at the ready, the cowboy here wears angora chaps typical of Wyoming range attire. His physical distance from the herd and his thoughtful, faraway gaze suggest his isolation and hardscrabble resolve.

Albumen print

Princeton Collections of Western Americana, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Purchase, J. Monroe Thorington Fund.