Red White Black

By Rick Steber

At the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up, the Saddle Bronc Championship of the Northwest came down to three men of different skin colors - Jackson Sundown, a Nez Perce Indian, John Spain, a white man from pioneering stock, and George Fletcher, an African American. Red. White. Black.
What happened that September Day in 1911 - the judges' decision and the reaction of the crowd in the aftermath - forever changed our history, and the way the sport of rogeo, and the emerging West, was to look at itself.

This edition contains over 70 historical black and white photographs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rick Steber
• Release date: Aug 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310051593

Book preview

Red White Black 

A True Story of Race and Rodeo

Copyright © 2013

Rick Steber

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design by Anthony Tarantino ([e-mail])

Cover Leatherwork by Mike Domeyer, Shasta Leatherworks

(www.ShastaLeatherworks.com)

Cover—The photographs of the three men on the cover include Jackson Sundown and George Fletcher. No photograph of John Spain, in a similar style to the other two, was available. A photograph of Fred Spain, John Spain’s brother, was used for continuity of images, and to depict a cowboy of that era.

All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system without written permission from the copyright owner.

Page layout by Jody Conners

ISBN 978-0-945134-41-1 Red White Black 

Other Books by Rick Steber 

Rendezvous

Traces 

Union Centennial 

Where Rolls the Oregon

Heartwood 

Oregon Trail – Last of the Pioneers 

Roundup

New York to Nome

Wild Horse Rider 

Buckaroo Heart 

No End in Sight 

Buy the Chief a Cadillac

Legacy 

Forty Candles

Secrets of the Bull

Caught in the Crosshairs

A Promise Given

Tales of the Wild West Series 

Oregon Trail 

Pacific Coast

Indians

Cowboys

Women of the West 

Children’s Stories 

Loggers

Mountain Men

Miners

Grandpa’s Stories

Pioneers

Campfire Stories

Tall Tales

Gunfighters

Grandma’s Stories

Western Heroes 

Red White Black

by Rick Steber

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Pendleton Blanket - Chief Joseph design

Author’s Note

The written words of a non-fiction book attain their validity, beauty and worth from the research that has been done to support them. I do enjoy the research. Not so much in blowing dust from what has already been written, but in talking with the people who actually lived that history.

Even though many of the events in Red White Black occurred a hundred years ago, or more, I have been gathering material for this book for almost four decades. I interviewed people who knew the three main characters—Jackson Sundown, John Spain and George Fletcher—and watched them ride broncs at rodeos throughout the Northwest and Canada. Time passes, and people take their memories with them to the grave. Today people tell me stories their fathers, or some old-timer, told them. I have taken all these stories and tried to weave them together into a text that will, hopefully, be as rich in color, texture and usefulness as a Pendleton blanket; a keepsake to appreciate in life and pass down to others. Just as the stories were passed on to me, I now pass them on to you, and to the generations to follow. 

Rick Steber

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I

Where the West Begins and Ends

The Wild West was dying. Hell, maybe it was already dead. The evidence of its passing was everywhere. A full generation had come and gone since the Native People were rounded up and confined to reservations. Forty million buffalo were slaughtered and the open range was disappearing under the relentless assault of barbed wire fencing. The telephone and telegraph were in common use. Railroads connected all points of America, and mass produced automobiles were fast replacing the horse and buggy. It was the dawn of the twentieth century and everything was changing; nothing was ever going to be the same.

What little remained of the Wild West was now being portrayed by hucksters and showmen like Buffalo Bill Cody and his traveling circus-like extravaganza—where cowboys and Indians rode in mock battles, a woman, Annie Oakley, put on shooting exhibitions to show men how it was done, and even old Geronimo, the once proud war chief of the mighty Apache nation had been reduced to selling photographs of himself for a nickel a pop. Audiences across the nation, and even internationally, were thrilled by these gaudy performances. The Wild West had met its end, destroyed by an industrial revolution sweeping around the world like an out-of-control wildfire pushed by the brawny winds of Progress. Progress at any cost.

Pendleton, Oregon stands at the crossroads of the West. The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed this way, as did thousands of covered wagon pioneers crossing the Oregon Trail. The transcontinental railroad bisects this little town that straddles the Umatilla River and was built in a swale to protect it from the fierce winds swirling in off the Pacific Ocean and squeezing through the Columbia Gorge.

The year was 1910, and where Pendleton had once stood in the middle of open range country, it was now surrounded by cultivated fields of dryland wheat. The five thousand citizens of the town were refusing to give up their history and embrace the modern world. They were making plans to launch a Wild West pageant that would, for a few days each year, save the glamour, pageantry and mythology of the Old West. It would simply be called, Round-Up, a ranching term meaning to gather up the cattle.

The idea for the Round-Up was born the year before, in 1909, when a bucking horse competition was added to attract visitors to the Eastern Oregon District Fair in Pendleton. It was here, on October 1, 1909, that 16-year-old Pendleton schoolboy sensation, Lee Babe Caldwell, rode a small sorrel horse with a black face to victory and claimed a $45 Hamley/McFarridge saddle as his prize. And another young man, an African American, George Fletcher, took third place and received $15. 

The following year a group of Pendleton businessmen traveled to Portland to attend the Rose Parade, and according to an often told tale, it was local attorney Roy Raley who proposed that Pendleton stage a big frontier exhibition featuring the theme of the Wild West. He was named the president of the Northwestern Frontier Exhibition Association and citizens of Pendleton chipped in to purchase 320 shares of stock offered at $10 a share. President Raley drew up the program, making sure events occurred in such a snappy fashion that non-stop action guaranteed the crowd would never be bored. The crowning event of the show was to be the contest to determine the best cowboy of them all, and to proclaim him the Saddle Bronc Champion of the Northwest.

The first year the Round-Up was heralded as a whirlwind success by the local newspaper, the East Oregonian. Bert Kelly took the top prize and claimed a Hamley saddle adorned with silver trim and valued at $250. The local Native Americans were also a focal part of the show, performing dances and racing horses, a thrill for the crowd, especially after all the riders and their horses went down on the muddy track in the first race of the day.

When the receipts were tallied, a substantial profit was announced. This enticed a New York syndicate to approach shareholders with an offer to buy controlling interest in the show and move it lock-stock-and-barrel to the East Coast. They offered $50 a share. The stockholders snubbed the offer, turned their backs on financial gain and magnanimously donated all their stocks to the City of Pendleton.

Volunteers immediately went to work to make the next Round-Up even bigger and better than the first year. They had no way of knowing that before the 1911 Saddle Bronc Championship of the Northwest played itself out, the events that transpired would become one of the most controversial and talked about finals in history. What happened that September day in 1911—the judges’ decision and the reaction of the crowd in the aftermath—forever changed the sport of rodeo, and the way the emerging West was to look at itself. 

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II

The Finals

Realizing that the spectacular Old West of our forefather’s days is rapidly being settled and converted into thriving farms and peaceful cities, the people of the City of Pendleton have built one of the finest stadiums in the Northwest, with the idea of holding a grand three day entertainment each year, at which time cowboys and cowgirls from the ranges and Indians from the reservations of the Northwest will participate in a hair raising Round-Up. (Proclamation issued by the East Oregonian newspaper, 1911)

On the 14th day of September, 1911, the sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky, and even though the day was warm, the air held a hint that summer was fast coming to an end. Off to the east, the timbered Blue Mountains shimmered in a thin haze kicked up from the ongoing wheat harvest.

At the Pendleton Round-Up grounds, 12,000 spectators from every corner of the Northwest were gathered, tightly packed together in the newly built grandstands. Behind this, in the Indian village, tall crisscrossed poles stood above the brightly colored tepees. At precisely 1:30 p.m. the grand entry began—mounted cowboys and cowgirls dressed in colorful western attire, and Indians dressed in ceremonial feathered headdresses and breechclouts—swept into and across the arena in a tremendous stampede. Horses leaped the low fence and rushed headlong toward the main grandstand where the crowd, in shock and disbelief, rose in unison. The riders called this maneuver hitting the grandstand between the eyes, and at the last possible instant they pulled to a sliding stop, kicking up dirt clods and dust that rolled over the crowd. They posed there for a brief moment, abruptly wheeled their mounts and retreated across the arena as fast as they had come, squeezing through the narrow gate on the opposite side and disappearing from view. The crowd, now officially initiated into the sport of rodeo and knowing they were to be an integral part of the show, cheered long and loudly.

Oregon Governor Oswald West rode into the arena on a bay mare. His presence was acknowledged with a polite round of applause. After that short interlude came nonstop action: the first event, the Wild Horse Race, was a flurry of activity—rowdy horses and rough cowboys—with the objective being to saddle up and complete one lap. As soon as the winner was determined, Buffalo Vernon appeared swinging a rawhide lariat, riding hard, charging at breakneck speed after a steer. His loop snaked out, settled over the head of the beast, and Buffalo Vernon took a hard dally and jerked the critter off its feet. Next up, bulldogging, and the highlight of this event was Dell Blancett, in front of the main grandstand, dropping from his galloping horse onto the back of his steer, coming to a sliding stop; but try as he might to wrestle the animal to the ground, he was never able to throw it. All he received for his heroic effort was a nasty gash on his left cheek that bled profusely and stained his white shirt crimson. The Red 

Cross emergency crew raced in and tried to help, but Dell waved them off. As he strolled away under his own power, an intoxicated spectator wandered into the arena—strictly against the rules—and Buffalo Vernon reappeared, expertly roped both of the interloper’s wrists, turned his mount and galloped past the grandstands dragging the spectator behind like a limp cowhide. The crowd cheered as if this was all a planned part of the show and staged strictly for their benefit. 

The Northwest Stagecoach Championship got underway with two stagecoaches, once used on the Umatilla Landing to Boise run, but out of service for more than 20 years, were pressed into action. John Spain drove four perfectly matched gray horses, and 70-year-old Ben Hutchinson drove four brown mules. A shot was fired to signal the start. Bullwhips snaked over the heads of the animals, popped loudly, and as the old carriers jerked into forward motion they swayed like ships at sea caught in a violent storm. Coming into the first corner the rattling coaches were dead even. Boiling dust momentarily obscured their view, but as the coaches reappeared at the head of the straightaway the spectators leaped to their feet to cheer. Spain was in the lead, pulling away, and most in the crowd believed the horses would win easily, and they were leading until midway into the race when the mules began gaining ground.

John Spain suddenly lost one of the lines to his hard charging horses. It was feared his stagecoach might careen out of control and crash, but cowboy Zibe Morris, a close friend of Spain’s, made a quick decision; raced his mount alongside the coach, swung to the side, leaned low, grabbed the trailing line and flipped it up to Spain. It was a very dangerous maneuver but Zibe made it look easy.

Coming around the final corner, the two wildly careening stagecoaches were abreast of each other. The drivers were standing, popping whips over the heads of their animals and urging them to give their all. Hooves kicked up clods. Wagon wheels whirled. Centrifugal force pushed the stagecoaches sideways through the final turn and the crowd was shouting its approval of this scene, which could have been stolen from the bygone days when a stagecoach driver had to outrun a horde of savages on the warpath. At this crucial point in the race, one of the wheel mules lost its footing, fell and was dragged. Hutchinson had no choice. He pulled to a stop. John Spain never looked back. He whipped his horses over the finish line and was declared the winner.

All of these events, as exciting as they had been, were nothing more than a prelude to determining the best cowboy of them all. The announcer made note of this, calling over his megaphone from the crow’s nest, asking for the contestants to gather for the opening round of the Northwest Saddle Bronc Championship.

Round-Up rules for the saddle bronc event were precise and strictly enforced. They decreed a rider was not allowed to knot the halter rope at the end, nor wrap it around his hand; could not touch with his free hand any portion of the horse or saddle—known as pulling leather—and must sit tight in the saddle, keep both feet in the stirrups, and for maximum points the rider was to rake dull spur rowels from the front of the shoulders all the way to the flanks of his mount. Any violation of these rules immediately disqualified a rider.

First up was a local cowboy, 18-year-old schoolboy sensation, Lee Babe Caldwell. He made a beautiful ride on Blue Blazes, scratching his mount at every jump. Spectators and competitors alike were of the opinion Lee would be one of the dozen or so riders advanced to the semifinals. And he was.

In