Knives Of The Cowboys

ABOVE : The quintessential cowboy - with faithful knife, six gun, rifle and mount - pauses just long enough for the cameraman before hitting the lonesome trail.

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The cowboy of the American West has always been a romantic figure, with his wide-brimmed hat and high-heeled boots, carrying his six-gun and long-blade knife at his hip. When one thinks of cowboys, visions of shootouts, quick-draw artists and notched guns appear. But it was the knife, not the six-gun, that the cowboy depended on most for survival in the Old West.

In the 1870s, the heyday of the storied trail drives on the Chisholm Trail, most cowhands were young men fresh from the Civil War. In that bloody conflict, the combatants employed the Bowie knife as an all-purpose tool in hand-to-hand combat, for digging, etc. As a result, these soldiers-turned-cowhands brought their long-blade Bowie knives on cattle drives for utility and defense.

The name Bowie was a generic term for any long-blade, clip-point knife with a metal guard resembling the weapon Jim Bowie used at the Alamo.

"It was the knife, not the six-gun, that the cowboy depended on most for survival"

Seeing the popularity of the knife style, many manufacturers began marketing Bowies. J. Russell & Co. sold several in the late 1800s and contracted Bowies for Abercrombi e & Fitch Co.

Bridgeport Gun Implement Co., Landers, Frary and Clark, Lamson and Goodnow and Collins and Co. all distributed Bowies from 1870 until the turn of the century. It's hard to determine which brand cowboys used, though, because Bowies are referred to as hunting knives or pocketknives in the written history of the period. Cowpokes used knives for many purposes on the range.

'Put " Putney, a Texas Ranger, was typical of the men of the era. In an interview in later years, Putney said he always carried a hunting knife with a 5-inch blade, using it to eat with and to dress game.

Contrary to the image of knives projected in movies and on television, few cowhands used knives as weapons. Most would agree with Putney, who said he never let anyone get close enough to fight him with a knife.

Nonetheless, some cowboys occasionally got into knife fights. The most common fighting knife was the Arkansas Toothpick, a sharp, pointed dagger, useless for anything but as a weapon. The Bowie was a fighting knife as well, but it was also a work knife. Several ranches prohibited the use of dirks, daggers and Bowies in the act of knife fighting.

ABOVE : Newer sheath knife and pocket knife on a steer hide. Both could be seen as part of a cowboy's equipment in the 1800s.

Though little is said about knife brands, knives are referred to in many books about cowboys. In Old Time Cowhand, Ramon F. Adams writes that during electrical storms on the plains, cowpokes hurriedly doffed six-guns, spurs, knives, anything made of metal. In The Look of the Old West, Foster-Harris mentions both pocketknives and sheath knives as a part of the cowboy's essential gear.

Uses of knives on the frontier were varied . Dressin g a n d skin - ning game and beef probably headed the list of uses for a sheath knife. Such knives were also used for cutting rawhide for ropes, kneeing (cutting the tendon behind the knee of wild cattle or horses to slow the animals down), digging bullets out of horses and men, and playing mumblety-peg.

A pocketknife was even more essential, especially during branding season. Like sheath knives, pocketknives were seldom mentioned by brand name, though occasionally they were referred to as barlow knives. The original Barlow knife was manufactured in mid-17th century England but other companies made barlow-style pocket-knives, including Ulster and J. Russell.

Russell, with his American version of the barlow, made the names Russell and barlow synonymous, resulting in the famous Russell Barlow knife.