PATCHES THE QUEEN - from Copenhaver Country
Way back in 1962, a group of dude ranchers and outfitters were talking about advertising. Suddenly, Howard Kelsey of the Nine Quarter Circle Ranch out of Gallatin Gateway, Montana, got the floor. He said, "What we ought to do is go East with a train load of horses and pack mules and parade some of those big cities." Everybody laughed and talked about it but no one realized what would come of such a suggestion.
Now, my friend, Howard Kelsey, was not a guy who warmed a chair after getting an idea that sounded good. He got around a campfire up on the Taylor Fork one night with a group of influential men from New York, from Great Falls and Bozeman, Montana, and a plan was born and did it grow! Meeting after meeting, committees, board meetings, on and on. Finally, the Montana Centennial Commission was formed.
Then came the work of raising funds, signing up people to go. And buying a long train and clearing it with railroad companies to use their engines and tracks, plus arrangements with city governments to parade on their streets, advertisements with newspapers, radio stations and television people, and for hotels and banquet space. It goes on forever, but we were expected and very successful. We ended up with parlor cars for the horses and mules, exhibit cars, Pullman cars and dining cars — all owned by the Centennial Commission. Then came the volunteers to help get it ready and work on the trip a total of over 300 people from their teens to the oldest man in Montana, Native Indian dancers and 175 head of horses and mules. There was also plenty of Old Yellowstone whisky, though I never saw a drunk person on the 30-day trip through 14 of the major cities east of the Mississippi River. We had exhibition cars with the art from many of the great Montana artists and $1,000,000 in Montana gold, silver and other native gems on display — all because of an old cowboy's dream he wasn't afraid to tell people about.
At the first meeting, I opened my big mouth and said, "Get it off the ground and I'll put up the first check." Well, as you guessed by now, me and Marg were right in the middle of it with two saddle horses and four mules packing kitchen, duffel and meat and antlers up and down the streets. And this is where Patches, my pinto mule, came in. But first, a few things happened along the rail, not the trail I was used to riding.
Now, we had to train all this stock to get used to cars, people, and plenty of noises. They'd never heard a train whistle in the hills of old Montana. Five other guys and I ended up with 46 head of mules and horses at the fairgrounds in Missoula, Montana. The people of Missoula helped us a lot, honking their horns, revving their motors and yelling at us to get out of their way. The police were very cooperative, too. They allowed us to train on the race track and rodeo arena or we couldn't have got it done.
After we got some working pretty good, we'd go out on the streets right down Main Street. Sometimes it was fine, other times the public didn't act as if they enjoyed our show.
One day, Herb Toelke said, "I'm going to hitch all six up today. I think my lead team is shaped up good enough for the streets."
Now, he was driving six head of 16-hand, 1,500-pound colts pulling a big Tallyho Stage. This team is well-matched sorrels with lots of spirit. We got all lined out, made a turn around the race track and headed down the main street for town traffic. All went well till we hit the Higgins Avenue bridge. Right in the middle of the bridge, Herb met a bicycle ridden by a guy whose big, flappy coat was waving in the breeze. These old ponies hadn't ever seen a bicycle before, let alone a live one waving a coat right under their noses. Before you could say "Jack Robinson," those ponies jackknifed and Herb lost the show! Well, the team, Tallyho and Herb were crossways on the bridge, with car horns honking, people screaming advice and a few unprintable sayings at him. We finally got the nags straightened out, into motion and finished our tour without any further incident.
Just one more. We were in Baltimore, Maryland, parading down the street with hundreds of people on each side enjoying the show when another incident occurred. I was leading my pack mules, all loaded and doing nice, when just like a flash, the pack on my third mule back in the string turned under his belly. Luckily, Marg was able to hold my saddle horse and head mule while I repacked my mule as the rest of the parade went around us. I had lots of volunteer help those on the sidewalk, but was it embarrassing at the time — a hotshot in cold water.
But, back on line with my story in regard to getting ready for the big trip. We had to get all that stock used to parading and also legged up so they wouldn't get stiff walking on all the cement streets ahead of them. Also, they had their long Montana winter hair on them and we had to blanket them to get them to shed it off so they would look nice and slick and clean. Now, don't you know Old Man Winter changed his mind and turned the temperature down to 28 to 30 degrees below zero. Those horses needed, and grew, hair. We then had but one choice, to clip the hair off with hair clippers. We'd throw a horse, someone would sit on its head, and we'd tie all four feet and go to work. In about four days the job was done. We sure had a pile of horse hair and some mighty sore spots where we didn't move fast enough to miss a iron-shod hoof aimed with mulish accuracy.
Next came the vet deal. Each animal had to have a series of shots for who knows what kind of diseases. Well, we contracted a vet to do all of this and clear the papers for each state we would visit on the tour. This old doc knew his business but old Patches, after the first shot, hated that guy. I could take the needle, go into her stall and give her a shot and all she'd do was jump a little, but if the vet showed up she'd kick that stall to pieces. It got so that the day he was to give another shot, I'd tie her to a hitchrack outside before he came. She got so she knew the sound of his truck and would start to raise Cain before he got close to her.
One day I didn't tie her up in time. The vet showed up and Patches was loose in the box stall with her blanket still strapped on her. She heard his car stop out front and she started kicking the walls and door of the stall. Off flew the door and out came Patches, headed anyplace away from there.
Well, Freddie Deschamps has just gotten his four-horse team hooked up to the hay wagon and he was climbing on to give them a workout on the track when round the barn came Patches on a run, tail and head high and that blanket flapping in the air. Away went Freddie's four-horse team. He made a grab for his lines, got only one, and hauled back, hollering, "Whoa!" They kept going, but he turned them into the race track gate and from then on it was a race — with no holds barred. Those four old ponies decided to leave the country, and right behind came Patches and her blanket.
Poor old Freddie; they lost him at the gate. Some thoughtful guy drove a truck across the gate and the race was on.
First they lost the rack and hind wheels, then a front wheel that couldn't dodge a post. By then, the team's spirit was ebbing and the sweat running and the horses kegged up in the far corner of the track, Patches had lost her blanket, and the dust finally settled. We gathered up the pieces and it was decided that what Freddie really needed was a new wagon, a few bandaids, and a good stiff drink to bring heart and mind back together again.
Finally, we got them all in shape and loaded on the train and headed for Billings, Montana, to pair up with the rest of the crew from the east side of the state.
When we unloaded at Billings, everybody wanted to know how we had gotten our stock to shed off and look so nice and slick. So there we went again — clipping horses and trimming tails. Didn't have enough time to finish before we left, so we completed the job in Omaha, Nebraska, before the first parade.
Oh yeah, there was an older bachelor from up by Red Lodge who had brought his Palomino saddle horse, long haired and dirty, right out of the hills. I don't think that horse had ever had a curry comb or brush run over his hide. He looked terrible, but the guy wouldn't let us clip him. Said he was fine. We tried to get him to use a curry and brush because his horse was dirty, but he said, "Never owned a comb! No use for one." One evening we sheared this nag. Well, the next morning this old boy threw his saddle on him, jerked up the cinch, stepped back and looked at his horse. In a loud, booming voice he shouts to the world, "Now that's the way a horse oughta look. Haven't you guys ever heard of a curry comb and brush?"
One of the outrider's with the Indian wagon (named Fred) had a beautiful Appaloosa saddle horse. He had a perfectly spotted blanket of black and white spots over his hips. Now Fred's wife, a redhead with fire enough for two women, was riding an old white horse. Everyone else had matched horses of the same color. We had working with us three young cowboys with more spirit than good sense, Howie, Walt and Gary, who figured this didn't make the rest of our outfit look so good. So, one night they got some India ink and made an Appy out of the white horse. But they didn't stop at that — they drew tepees and Indian sign language all over old Whitey. When Fred and wife came to saddle up for the parade next morning, you should have heard Fred. Was he wild! But due to the compliments they received after the parade, his lovely lady sort of liked it. Fred's complaints wouldn't have made any difference anyway, because you couldn't brush or wash off those signs; any change now had to wait for new hair to grow in. And, until he reads this, Fred has never known who performed this miracle.
After the show in Omaha, we went to Cincinnati, Ohio. Now, the Indian dances were a high spot in the whole show and people were constantly after the dancers to perform on television programs and in night spots. Also, every city we hit was invited to bring the grade school kids to tour the Centennial Train exhibition cars free of charge. So here would come a big line of kids, with a teacher on each end to kind of keep them together, one line after another, all day long, going through the display cars.
One day we were parked at the Central Station in Cincinnati, a huge place. People had to come through a big lobby, going and coming from the cars, and it was a busy place because trains were in use back then.
On this one particular day, the Indian dancers had put on a show somewhere uptown and they were dressed in all the Indian finery, tomahawks and all, and could they dance! Kenny Left Hand was a big, young man and full of the devil. Just as Kenny came into the lobby from the street in all his Indian finery, the school kids were headed out and Kenny let out a warhoop or two and took after these kids, waving his tomahawk, dancing, with all the little bells on his wrists and ankles ringing. You should have seen those kids go.
There was no place to hide, but there was a string of ladies and men toilets along the far wall and the doors flew open and the screaming kids dashed in. Out, just as fast, came women shaking down their dresses and men zipping up their pants. What a riot.
One little boy fell right in the middle of the station. Kenny danced up to him with his tomahawk raised in the air. This kid jumped to his knees, put his hands under his chin, sort of prayer-like, and screamed, "Please no, Mr. Indian." Kenny gently picked him up and gave him some feathers and an Indian headband, and the show was all over. I'll bet that kid still has those feathers and headband.
Then we were ready for Kansas City, where some of the young cowboys went looking for that gal a guy had written the song about, "Kansas City Kitty," but I don't think they ever found her.
By this time, we had all the kinks and troubles worked out and had a very professional parade going. We were down to getting shaped up and on the streets almost on the minute, with everyone pulling together in a big team.
We were moving down the main street, Marg and I with our mules, when out of a barber shop raced this guy with the cloth around his neck and white lather on one side of his face, hollering my name at the top of his voice. We couldn't stop so we simply waved, and wonder who he was. When we got back to the station, I was being paged over the loudspeaker system, and was given a phone number. I called and it was a former guest, a hunter I'd had on an elk hunt a few years before. He had been having a shave and haircut when, through the barbershop window, he saw old Patches. He had just jumped out of the chair and ran out the door. "I knew you wouldn't be far away from Patches," he said. And was he surprised! He hadn't heard of our parading in Kansas City. And he never did tell me what the barber had said about his hasty exit from the chair.
We moved on to Louisville, Kentucky, where we made our first parade without freezing.
Way back in 1962, a group of dude ranchers and outfitters were talking about advertising. Suddenly, Howard Kelsey of the Nine Quarter Circle Ranch out of Gallatin Gateway, Montana, got the floor. He said, "What we ought to do is go East with a train load of horses and pack mules and parade some of those big cities." Everybody laughed and talked about it but no one realized what would come of such a suggestion.
Now, my friend, Howard Kelsey, was not a guy who warmed a chair after getting an idea that sounded good. He got around a campfire up on the Taylor Fork one night with a group of influential men from New York, from Great Falls and Bozeman, Montana, and a plan was born and did it grow! Meeting after meeting, committees, board meetings, on and on. Finally, the Montana Centennial Commission was formed.
Then came the work of raising funds, signing up people to go. And buying a long train and clearing it with railroad companies to use their engines and tracks, plus arrangements with city governments to parade on their streets, advertisements with newspapers, radio stations and television people, and for hotels and banquet space. It goes on forever, but we were expected and very successful. We ended up with parlor cars for the horses and mules, exhibit cars, Pullman cars and dining cars — all owned by the Centennial Commission. Then came the volunteers to help get it ready and work on the trip a total of over 300 people from their teens to the oldest man in Montana, Native Indian dancers and 175 head of horses and mules. There was also plenty of Old Yellowstone whisky, though I never saw a drunk person on the 30-day trip through 14 of the major cities east of the Mississippi River. We had exhibition cars with the art from many of the great Montana artists and $1,000,000 in Montana gold, silver and other native gems on display — all because of an old cowboy's dream he wasn't afraid to tell people about.
At the first meeting, I opened my big mouth and said, "Get it off the ground and I'll put up the first check." Well, as you guessed by now, me and Marg were right in the middle of it with two saddle horses and four mules packing kitchen, duffel and meat and antlers up and down the streets. And this is where Patches, my pinto mule, came in. But first, a few things happened along the rail, not the trail I was used to riding.
Now, we had to train all this stock to get used to cars, people, and plenty of noises. They'd never heard a train whistle in the hills of old Montana. Five other guys and I ended up with 46 head of mules and horses at the fairgrounds in Missoula, Montana. The people of Missoula helped us a lot, honking their horns, revving their motors and yelling at us to get out of their way. The police were very cooperative, too. They allowed us to train on the race track and rodeo arena or we couldn't have got it done.
After we got some working pretty good, we'd go out on the streets right down Main Street. Sometimes it was fine, other times the public didn't act as if they enjoyed our show.
One day, Herb Toelke said, "I'm going to hitch all six up today. I think my lead team is shaped up good enough for the streets."
Now, he was driving six head of 16-hand, 1,500-pound colts pulling a big Tallyho Stage. This team is well-matched sorrels with lots of spirit. We got all lined out, made a turn around the race track and headed down the main street for town traffic. All went well till we hit the Higgins Avenue bridge. Right in the middle of the bridge, Herb met a bicycle ridden by a guy whose big, flappy coat was waving in the breeze. These old ponies hadn't ever seen a bicycle before, let alone a live one waving a coat right under their noses. Before you could say "Jack Robinson," those ponies jackknifed and Herb lost the show! Well, the team, Tallyho and Herb were crossways on the bridge, with car horns honking, people screaming advice and a few unprintable sayings at him. We finally got the nags straightened out, into motion and finished our tour without any further incident.
Just one more. We were in Baltimore, Maryland, parading down the street with hundreds of people on each side enjoying the show when another incident occurred. I was leading my pack mules, all loaded and doing nice, when just like a flash, the pack on my third mule back in the string turned under his belly. Luckily, Marg was able to hold my saddle horse and head mule while I repacked my mule as the rest of the parade went around us. I had lots of volunteer help those on the sidewalk, but was it embarrassing at the time — a hotshot in cold water.
But, back on line with my story in regard to getting ready for the big trip. We had to get all that stock used to parading and also legged up so they wouldn't get stiff walking on all the cement streets ahead of them. Also, they had their long Montana winter hair on them and we had to blanket them to get them to shed it off so they would look nice and slick and clean. Now, don't you know Old Man Winter changed his mind and turned the temperature down to 28 to 30 degrees below zero. Those horses needed, and grew, hair. We then had but one choice, to clip the hair off with hair clippers. We'd throw a horse, someone would sit on its head, and we'd tie all four feet and go to work. In about four days the job was done. We sure had a pile of horse hair and some mighty sore spots where we didn't move fast enough to miss a iron-shod hoof aimed with mulish accuracy.
Next came the vet deal. Each animal had to have a series of shots for who knows what kind of diseases. Well, we contracted a vet to do all of this and clear the papers for each state we would visit on the tour. This old doc knew his business but old Patches, after the first shot, hated that guy. I could take the needle, go into her stall and give her a shot and all she'd do was jump a little, but if the vet showed up she'd kick that stall to pieces. It got so that the day he was to give another shot, I'd tie her to a hitchrack outside before he came. She got so she knew the sound of his truck and would start to raise Cain before he got close to her.
One day I didn't tie her up in time. The vet showed up and Patches was loose in the box stall with her blanket still strapped on her. She heard his car stop out front and she started kicking the walls and door of the stall. Off flew the door and out came Patches, headed anyplace away from there.
Well, Freddie Deschamps has just gotten his four-horse team hooked up to the hay wagon and he was climbing on to give them a workout on the track when round the barn came Patches on a run, tail and head high and that blanket flapping in the air. Away went Freddie's four-horse team. He made a grab for his lines, got only one, and hauled back, hollering, "Whoa!" They kept going, but he turned them into the race track gate and from then on it was a race — with no holds barred. Those four old ponies decided to leave the country, and right behind came Patches and her blanket.
Poor old Freddie; they lost him at the gate. Some thoughtful guy drove a truck across the gate and the race was on.
First they lost the rack and hind wheels, then a front wheel that couldn't dodge a post. By then, the team's spirit was ebbing and the sweat running and the horses kegged up in the far corner of the track, Patches had lost her blanket, and the dust finally settled. We gathered up the pieces and it was decided that what Freddie really needed was a new wagon, a few bandaids, and a good stiff drink to bring heart and mind back together again.
Finally, we got them all in shape and loaded on the train and headed for Billings, Montana, to pair up with the rest of the crew from the east side of the state.
When we unloaded at Billings, everybody wanted to know how we had gotten our stock to shed off and look so nice and slick. So there we went again — clipping horses and trimming tails. Didn't have enough time to finish before we left, so we completed the job in Omaha, Nebraska, before the first parade.
Oh yeah, there was an older bachelor from up by Red Lodge who had brought his Palomino saddle horse, long haired and dirty, right out of the hills. I don't think that horse had ever had a curry comb or brush run over his hide. He looked terrible, but the guy wouldn't let us clip him. Said he was fine. We tried to get him to use a curry and brush because his horse was dirty, but he said, "Never owned a comb! No use for one." One evening we sheared this nag. Well, the next morning this old boy threw his saddle on him, jerked up the cinch, stepped back and looked at his horse. In a loud, booming voice he shouts to the world, "Now that's the way a horse oughta look. Haven't you guys ever heard of a curry comb and brush?"
One of the outrider's with the Indian wagon (named Fred) had a beautiful Appaloosa saddle horse. He had a perfectly spotted blanket of black and white spots over his hips. Now Fred's wife, a redhead with fire enough for two women, was riding an old white horse. Everyone else had matched horses of the same color. We had working with us three young cowboys with more spirit than good sense, Howie, Walt and Gary, who figured this didn't make the rest of our outfit look so good. So, one night they got some India ink and made an Appy out of the white horse. But they didn't stop at that — they drew tepees and Indian sign language all over old Whitey. When Fred and wife came to saddle up for the parade next morning, you should have heard Fred. Was he wild! But due to the compliments they received after the parade, his lovely lady sort of liked it. Fred's complaints wouldn't have made any difference anyway, because you couldn't brush or wash off those signs; any change now had to wait for new hair to grow in. And, until he reads this, Fred has never known who performed this miracle.
After the show in Omaha, we went to Cincinnati, Ohio. Now, the Indian dances were a high spot in the whole show and people were constantly after the dancers to perform on television programs and in night spots. Also, every city we hit was invited to bring the grade school kids to tour the Centennial Train exhibition cars free of charge. So here would come a big line of kids, with a teacher on each end to kind of keep them together, one line after another, all day long, going through the display cars.
One day we were parked at the Central Station in Cincinnati, a huge place. People had to come through a big lobby, going and coming from the cars, and it was a busy place because trains were in use back then.
On this one particular day, the Indian dancers had put on a show somewhere uptown and they were dressed in all the Indian finery, tomahawks and all, and could they dance! Kenny Left Hand was a big, young man and full of the devil. Just as Kenny came into the lobby from the street in all his Indian finery, the school kids were headed out and Kenny let out a warhoop or two and took after these kids, waving his tomahawk, dancing, with all the little bells on his wrists and ankles ringing. You should have seen those kids go.
There was no place to hide, but there was a string of ladies and men toilets along the far wall and the doors flew open and the screaming kids dashed in. Out, just as fast, came women shaking down their dresses and men zipping up their pants. What a riot.
One little boy fell right in the middle of the station. Kenny danced up to him with his tomahawk raised in the air. This kid jumped to his knees, put his hands under his chin, sort of prayer-like, and screamed, "Please no, Mr. Indian." Kenny gently picked him up and gave him some feathers and an Indian headband, and the show was all over. I'll bet that kid still has those feathers and headband.
Then we were ready for Kansas City, where some of the young cowboys went looking for that gal a guy had written the song about, "Kansas City Kitty," but I don't think they ever found her.
By this time, we had all the kinks and troubles worked out and had a very professional parade going. We were down to getting shaped up and on the streets almost on the minute, with everyone pulling together in a big team.
We were moving down the main street, Marg and I with our mules, when out of a barber shop raced this guy with the cloth around his neck and white lather on one side of his face, hollering my name at the top of his voice. We couldn't stop so we simply waved, and wonder who he was. When we got back to the station, I was being paged over the loudspeaker system, and was given a phone number. I called and it was a former guest, a hunter I'd had on an elk hunt a few years before. He had been having a shave and haircut when, through the barbershop window, he saw old Patches. He had just jumped out of the chair and ran out the door. "I knew you wouldn't be far away from Patches," he said. And was he surprised! He hadn't heard of our parading in Kansas City. And he never did tell me what the barber had said about his hasty exit from the chair.
We moved on to Louisville, Kentucky, where we made our first parade without freezing.
